To EAT eggs, or NOT to eat eggs as a vegan. What to do.
Okay, as a vegan myself I’ll admit, I too was one of the people at FIRST who thought nothing of eating eggs. Nothing was happening to the chickens by laying them right?
What if I buy eggs from a cute little farm on the side of the road from old people? They’re not abused chickens? They’re cute old people, they won’t hurt the chickens? [Insert Norman Bates music] Plus they lay eggs anyway and they’ll just rot and go bad? And damnit I love eggs!!! *the sh*t we tell ourselves, man.
Egg-norance is Bliss
Eggs were the last non vegan food I gave up. I struggled with it because I grew up on eggs! I loved them. They were apart of every “diet” I ever did! Nutritionists advise you to eat eggs, doctors advise you to eat eggs! How many of us in a fat rage would slam a foot smellin’ hard boiled egg into our faces as a snack and piss off everyone around us with the stench? Because they won’t make us fat! Me too, I was with you! Perfect fat snack. Listen up.
It actually wasn’t until I watched more recently, “What the Health” on Netflix. If you guys haven’t seen that yet, PLEASE do yourself the biggest favor of all time and watch it.
I cut WAY back on eggs because I wanted to give them up, truly I did. I wanted to really call myself a vegan and push myself. There was a reason vegans didn’t eat these things and I totally played the ignorance is bliss card for a while, until I saw this documentary. And even still when they started talking about eggs and chickens, I was like UGH NO please not the eggs. But I watched, I cried, I was SHOCKED, I made a CHANGE IMMEDIATELY.
Lesson Learned, Decision Made
Since that documentary I haven’t eaten eggs ONE single time and, certainly, I will never eat them again. No, not even from the cute old people selling them on the side of the road. So, what did I learn? Lets dive into the biggest vegan debate of all time: the egg debate.
I’m going to approach this with different standpoints because from my experience being vegan, everyone does it for different reasons.
Yes, we all love the animals and never want to hurt them or see them hurt, but for me the most shocking and rather, moving parts were from a medical and health standpoint. Either way, its important to learn all sides and YOU be the judge of what moves you.
A Moral & Ethical Standpoint
Here we have it, all chickens must live a happy life surrounded by loving and humane farmers who take care of them and come skipping over with a basket ready to collect their eggs, right? Think again.
Male Chicks: They have zero use in the egg industry. They’re viewed as entirely useless. 200 million male babies will be disposed of in horrifically traumatizing ways. Examples of this can be “spine snapping” which is the most common, carbon monoxide poisoning, and maceration (a huge blender), and more recently electrocuting them. All repulsive and equally disturbing. None of them typically live past their third day of life.
Female Chicks: Just because you’re a female chick doesn’t make you much luckier. You will live life, likely in a tight cage and you’re only sole purpose in life is to lay eggs. You will be forced to lay about 30 times more eggs than you would naturally. This will be extremely painful for the chick and cause a variety of diseases and ultimately death. When you no longer lay eggs your life is ended. The same methods of killing are carried out here.
But My Eggs Are Cage Free
So that’s better, right?
All the chickens and hens are frolicking around in the fields having a grand ol’ life, laying eggs, and just bein’ chicks. The farmer again comes skipping over with a basket to collect the eggs. All is good. Wrong.
There’s nothing free about the lives of these birds. They’re held just as much captive as the non-free-range birds. So what qualifies a bird to be classified in the fancy category?
ONLY PART of their sad miserable days will be spent outside. Whether that’s through a shard of light through a wooden roof, we can’t say. Maybe it’s only for 5 minutes. Maybe an hour.
Then back to their cages where most of the time quarters will be so tight the birds will be physically on top of one another. The dorm room sitch again.
Medical & Health Standpoint
But eggs are great protein and they’re not fattening! All my dietary books and articles tell me its a great snack! Hold up.
- Cardiovascular diseases increasing by 19% by those who consume eggs. Every 34 seconds we lose another American life to a cardiovascular disease. Pause. EVERY. 34. SECONDS. Its time to wake up people!
- Colon cancer increasing by 5X!
- TRIPLED the risk of bladder cancer in both men and women
- Diabetes increasing by 68%
- Incurable prostate cancer by 81%!!
- Biggest one: Cholesterol. You’re looking at about 186 mg of the stuff per large egg. A diet high in cholesterol is one leading rapidly down a path full of heart and cardiovascular issues. ONE egg yolk contains approximately 275 mg of cholesterol. That’s far more than a day’s worth!
- What the Health quoted “just ONE egg per day is as bad as smoking 5 cigarettes per day for life expectancy”
- Salmonella: eggs themselves are the SECOND most COMMON source of salmonella. I personally had a friend hospitalized due to salmonella, she ate raw cookie dough containing contaminated eggs. She spent a solid 6 weeks fighting to rid herself of the disease. Salmonella afftects ONE MILLION Americans annually!! ONE MILLION!!! $365 million in direct annual medical costs in the US!! (Us Centers for Disease Control)
How to Replace Eggs
*This post may contain affiliate links. In the event of a sale, I will be awarded a small commission (at no extra cost for you).*
So whats an egg lover to do when you make the decision to exclude them from your diet? Fear not. Veganism is on the rise, hard. We here, we queer (well, some of us) and we changing’ sh*t up and making a difference! Here in 2019 we have ourselves full of egg substitute options! I’ll list them below!
-Flax Seed- This is probably my most common used egg replacement. I use flax eggs for cooking, and baking all the time. 1 TBSP Flaxseeds mixed with 3 TBSP water. Let sit and thicken! Find it HERE
-Bobs Red Mill Egg Replacer- This is an amazing vegan option, and also gluten free! Used stictly for baking and cooking. We wont be whipping up vegan scrambled eggs with this one! Find it HERE
-Bananas- Replace one banana for one egg in cakes and baking!
-Tofu- Breathe. So many people are sketched out by tofu eggs. JUST. TRY. THEM. Give them a shot. I used to love really dry scrambled eggs. The wet mushy ones used to skeeve me out, so naturally tofu wigged me out at some point too. The cool thing is? Tofu eggs are made wet OR dry! However, you like your “eggs” you can tweak your tofu! We have a WONDERFULLY easy tofu egg recipe featured in our FREE EBOOK- One Week of 15 Minute Vegan Dinners. And YES IT TASTES LIKE EGGS! I always say, if Lynn will eat it – anyone will eat it! (she still doesn’t know my ricotta recipe is tofu based – who’s the real winner here?)
-Applesauce- 1 egg = 1/4 cup, use in baking
“> This is a whole egg replacer you guys! Cook with this, or throw in a pan for killer scrambled eggs and omelettes! Be sure to check em out, they’ll be in a refrigerated section of the grocery store! Find it video of the egg on their website which I found crazy cool. Check that out if you’re visually freakin out right now. How can a bean become like an egg? Just let em do their job. You do yours. Find this in the refrigerated section of your grocery store!
Cue the Doubters!
For the doubters out there, I see you, I see you. I’m going to include all references in this post and if I may, I shall also nudge you to watch a few vegan documentaries! Those however, will arrive in their own blog post because they damn well deserve it. When in doubt, TRY IT! Just…TRY it. See the numbers in your lab work change for yourself!
Whatever standpoint that moves you or bothers you whether it be medicinal or ethical, its okay. We’re not ever trying to make you feel guilty for eating eggs or for eating eggs in the past, rather we’re simply shedding light on what happens to these beautiful little animals every single day, and we’re choosing to create out own standpoint. We’re leaving eggs and the horrors that come with eating them in the past. We choose VEGANISM.
This is what the Vegan FEMPIRE is here for. Vegan support. For our friends, both people and furry, or feathery.
Be. The. Change.
Join our “Sanctuary Supporter” movement, snipe a cute shirt and help us help the incredible people who save the lives of abused and tortured farm animals, showing them the love, compassion, and nurturing they deserve each and every day.
References:
- What the Health, Discovery.com, US Centers for Disease Control, PubMed.gov