Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: masterducky on July 02, 2011, 12:55:17 pm
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Ok, i went through all the threads on raw eggs but not one talks about what happens to avidin itself.
To sum up for those who new to this topic: avidin is a protein in egg white that binds to biotin(vitamin B7, wikipedia)
causing biotin deficiency.
On the internet you can find two opinions:
1. there are much more biotin in the yolk than avidin in the white = no biotin deficiency
2. there are much less biotin in the yolk than avidin in the white = biotin deficiency.
Avidin is a protein and proteins start to break down in the stomach.
Now i suppose that when they say its binding to biotin they mean its binding to the biotin in the stomach and
not all the biotin in your body.
Because once its broken down it wont bind anymore.
So in worst case scenario you could just eat yolks first and wait till they are digested and then eat the egg whites or
the other way around.
What do you think?
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It's claimed that as long as one eats the egg yolks one doesn't get the biotin deficiency. So far, only a very few who've eaten only raw egg-whites have died therefrom and then only from consuming excessive amounts.
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Yes its probably not that bad, i know that there are a lot of folks consuming raw, yolk and white in the same time, for years without
any drawbacks.
I was just thinking about to take full benefit of the yolk.
Lets suppose you eat the whole egg and all the biotin gets binded to the avidin,
the avidin then still should be broken down and free the biotin, shouldnt it.
Or maybe im mistaken.
Im hoping for someone with more chemical-nutritional knowledge to chime in. :)
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I guess it either goes out the other end or it changes the structure of the biotin molecule.
Raw egg whites seem to inhibit trypsin too, thus reducing protein digestibility :(
Digestibility of protein in raw eggs seems to be a lot less than cooked eggs
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.short
This pretty much confirms the above, 35% of the protein simply goes on to putrefy in the colon (whereas it's only 5% for cooked eggs)
http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/277/5/G935.abstract
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despite the research you present i find that very hard to believe. I can imagine that someone eating only cooked food and than a few raw eggs wont absorb all of the protein due to wrong gut flora and wrong balance in the digestive juices. The research is off course done with non raw foodist. imo a raw foodist will absorb all the nutrients.
the first research used egg whites only. without the yolk all sorts off thing may happen. Test the whole thing in someone used to eating raw!
I'm always puzzled by the reductionistic thinking when it comes to eggs. Most here seem to have a whoilistic view on nutrition, think we should eat all of an animal, all of the fruit, drink whole milk etc An egg is a whole nutritional unit. Chicks aren't born with b7 def. To me eggs are balanced food, very easy to digest, give instant energy and greatly help recovery from exercise.
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I'm always puzzled by the reductionistic thinking when it comes to eggs.
Exactly, me too - and about nutrition in general.
Life on Earth evolved to very complex forms without any kind of analytic knowledge, wild animals have a perfect health without knowing about avidin and biotin, the health of our ancestors in the paleoithic era was much better than ours and they didn't know about avidin and biotin neither!
A most essential point is that the eggs must come from birds having a sufficient natural area to feed themselves without any access to heated and processed food nor wheat or other modern garbage. I suppose those criterion were not filled in the researches cited - just as usual.
Another point is that the eggs white and yolks must be eaten separately, one after each other in the mouth in such a way to allow a perfect instinctive regulation of the amount eaten for each. Everyone's condition being different at any given moment, it may be that someone may currently need yolks only while somebody else needs both yolks and whites.
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despite the research you present i find that very hard to believe. I can imagine that someone eating only cooked food and than a few raw eggs wont absorb all of the protein due to wrong gut flora and wrong balance in the digestive juices. The research is off course done with non raw foodist. imo a raw foodist will absorb all the nutrients.
True that, someone who's not used to raw foods might have harder time digesting it.
I see eggs as analogous to seeds. The egg white is there to mainly protect the yolk. The avidin actually binds to bacteria too, like Salmonella for example (I don't know how are people afraid of bacteria in raw eggs..). Seeds usually have the outer part full of anti-nutrients (e.g. unpolished vs white polished rice), it's same thing with eggs. I don't know if it's reductionist or whatever, but this is what makes most sense to me regarding eggs.
I still eat the whites anyway, I don't like throwing food, but always eat them separately usually yolks in the evening whites in the morning.
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Digestibility of protein in raw eggs seems to be a lot less than cooked eggs
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.short
This pretty much confirms the above, 35% of the protein simply goes on to putrefy in the colon (whereas it's only 5% for cooked eggs)
http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/277/5/G935.abstract
I could only ever find that one study, which makes me doubt its validity. Real evidence gets backed up by dozens of studies.
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This pretty much confirms the above, 35% of the protein simply goes on to putrefy in the colon (whereas it's only 5% for cooked eggs)
http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/277/5/G935.abstract
Where does it say putrefy in that article? The only claims I've seen about eggs and meats putrefying in the colon have been urban legends promoted by vegetarians.
I'm always puzzled by the reductionistic thinking when it comes to eggs.
Exactly, me too - and about nutrition in general.
Here, here.
Another point is that the eggs white and yolks must be eaten separately, one after each other in the mouth in such a way to allow a perfect instinctive regulation of the amount eaten for each. Everyone's condition being different at any given moment, it may be that someone may currently need yolks only while somebody else needs both yolks and whites.
There do seem to be different needs, as I don't find it necessary to eat the yolk and whites separately one after another.
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Protein + bacteria/fungi = putrefaction
Undigested protein in anaerobic place full of microorganisms according to you won't lead to putrefaction?
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Protein + bacteria/fungi = putrefaction
Undigested protein in anaerobic place full of microorganisms according to you won't lead to putrefaction?
Why would you assume the protein is undigested? In cooked food i can imagine a very large part not being digested but raw meat leaves hardly anything to be excreted(in me anyway). That why on cooked meat most people (including me) have bad smelling gas and stools. Not so on raw.
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We were talking about the egg whites here, whether cooked or uncooked obviously they lead to some undigested protein ending up in the colon.
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Protein + bacteria/fungi = putrefaction
Undigested protein in anaerobic place full of microorganisms according to you won't lead to putrefaction?
In other words, the answer to my question is that your source doesn't mention putrefaction--that's your own added commentary.
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In other words, the answer to my question is that your source doesn't mention putrefaction--that's your own added commentary.
A yes, that's my conclusion :)
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If you've read all the threads on eggs then you've read the many posts that mentioned that the level of avidin in eggs is reduced in fertilized eggs. No need for cooking them that I see. Where is the evidence of actual harm from consuming even unfertilized WHOLE eggs raw?
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The protein digestion problem is caused by ovomucoid in the egg white, not avidin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypsin_inhibitor
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I was merely responding to your original point re: avidin. You didn't mention ovomucoid originally and you still haven't provided evidence of any harm from consuming whole raw eggs, much less whole raw fertilized eggs from local pastured free range hens.
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Ae we can go on like this forever. Those are the facts, that's the logic, how you interpret it is up to you. Probably there's no study that addresses your condition exactly.
I eat egg whites too, but unlike most people here I accept that they are not the best thing to be eaten raw (or cooked for that matter).
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If I ate cooked eggs (e.g scrambled) I would get sharp stomach pains. Raw eggs gave no such effect, and I consumed up to 10-20 a day with benefits.
The processed egg protein powder companies seem to always endorse the notions of avidin, salmonella, etc.
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The processed egg protein powder companies seem to always endorse the notions of avidin, salmonella, etc.
What they don't say is that heat doesn't do that much to avidin anyway, in any cooked egg there's still avidin activity of up to 70-80% of the original activity in raw egg.
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There do seem to be different needs, as I don't find it necessary to eat the yolk and whites separately one after another.
If you're sure that you need both yolks and whites, then you don't need to eat them separately one after the other. But how can you make it sure if you always eat both mixed at once?
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Ae we can go on like this forever. Those are the facts, that's the logic, how you interpret it is up to you. Probably there's no study that addresses your condition exactly.
If there's no study showing that raw whole fertile eggs cause health damage and if you cannot provide any study supporting your claim that egg and meat protein putrefy in the colon, then those are not the facts regarding real health problems, but instead are unsupported claims.
The evidence reveals that the claims of masses of meat rotting and putrefying in the colon are "in a word, crap" to quote Snopes:
Does Meat Rot In Your Colon? No. What Does? Beans, Grains, and Vegetables!
http://www.gnolls.org/1444/does-meat-rot-in-your-colon-no-what-does-beans-grains-and-vegetables/
Meat Your Maker
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/gruesome/fecalcolon.asp
In my experience, raw fertile eggs have been one of my most beneficial foods (I'm not claiming that necessarily applies to anyone else, as my signature indicates), and Aajonus and his clients and other people report the same:
The Health Benefits of Raw Eggs - A Life Building Food
Thursday, February 07, 2008 by: Rami Nagel
http://www.naturalnews.com/022607.html#ixzz1QrTcVDKe
The Health Benefits of Raw Eggs
By John Claydon D. Hom
http://www.regenerativenutrition.com/content.asp?id=268
There are even claims of problems from cooking egg whites:
What Are the Health Benefits of Raw Organic Egg Whites?
http://www.livestrong.com/article/410642-what-are-the-health-benefits-of-raw-organic-egg-whites/#ixzz1QrVcHPCb
I eat egg whites too, but unlike most people here I accept that they are not the best thing to be eaten raw (or cooked for that matter).
I didn't make broad positive health claims regarding raw egg whites, I just questioned your negative claims about avidin being a problem that requires cooking and egg protein putrefying in the colon. When presented with an alternative solution of high quality fertile eggs you failed to even acknowledge it, much less refute it or consider it. Why? Aren't you interested at all in the raw option? If you want to cook your egg whites, go ahead, but don't expect us to believe that raw whole fertile eggs are a health problem unless the whites are cooked or that raw egg whites putrefy in the colon without supporting evidence. I'm open to the possibility and I prefer egg yolks to whites, whether raw or cooked, but I require evidence to buy your claims. You're the one making the claims, so you are the one who needs to support those claims if you expect anyone to believe them. Rehashing of vegetarian myths is not evidence.
If you're sure that you need both yolks and whites,
I didn't say that, I only said that I'm don't find that I need to eat them separately.
But how can you make it sure if you always eat both mixed at once?
I don't always, why do you assume that I do? I just don't find that I need to and I don't notice any differences. I accept your word that you do need to do it and I'm not arguing that you don't.
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How much avidin is there in fertilized eggs from pastured chicken? I couldn't find some data.
According to wiki on average there's 1.8mg = 1800mcg avidin (doesn't say whether the eggs are as above). Biotin content is around 10-20mcg. I'd assume avidin content will need to be around or less than biotin so that some biotin remains available. That's a lot less and highly unlikely to happen no matter fertilized or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotin#Deficiency
Biotin deficiency is relatively rare and mild, and can be addressed with supplementation. Such deficiency can be caused by the consumption of raw egg whites (eating two or more uncooked egg whites daily for several months has caused biotin deficiency that is serious enough to produce symptoms [1]), which contain high levels of the protein avidin, which binds biotin strongly.
...
To answer the original question of this thread, avidin+biotin basically goes out the other end :) The harsh conditions required to break that bond definitely won't happen in the body. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidin
In chicken egg white, avidin makes up approximately 0.05% of total protein (approximately 1.8 mg per egg). The tetrameric protein contains four identical subunits (homotetramer), each of which can bind to biotin (Vitamin B7, vitamin H) with a high degree of affinity and specificity. The dissociation constant of avidin is measured to be KD ? 10?15 M, making it one of the strongest known non-covalent bonds[1].
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I'd assume avidin content will need to be around or less than biotin so that some biotin remains available.
or else what happens? Again, where's the evidence of harm? As was already pointed out to you, reductionist theory doesn't prove real world harm.
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Does Meat Rot In Your Colon? No. What Does? Beans, Grains, and Vegetables!
http://www.gnolls.org/1444/does-meat-rot-in-your-colon-no-what-does-beans-grains-and-vegetables/
Did you notice in that article
trypsin and chymotrypsin break down proteins;
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypsin_inhibitor saying that ovomucoid in egg whites inhibits trypsin? This is not enough evidence that some protein may not be broken down and thus not properly digested in the small intestine?
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or else what happens? Again, where's the evidence of harm? As was already pointed out to you, reductionist theory doesn't prove real world harm.
or else biotin becomes unavailable, and in time you get mild biotin deficiency.
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or else biotin becomes unavailable, and in time you get mild biotin deficiency.
OK, here's another claim we can examine. Has anyone here been diagnosed with mild biotin deficiency from eating raw whole eggs? Power, what do you consider to be signs and symptoms of biotin deficiency so we can be on the lookout for signs of potential problems?
This so far seems to have been mostly hand waving to justify your cooking of egg whites. I don't see any major harm from cooking egg whites and you're free to eat whatever you wish, I just don't see a need to cook egg whites myself. How do you do it? Do you poach or soft boil the eggs or do you separate out the whites and cook them on their own? I tried that once and found they weren't tasty cooked alone without the yolks and it definitely wasn't worth the bother and mess to me.
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From wiki
Symptoms of overt biotin deficiency include:
* Hair loss (alopecia)
* Conjunctivitis
* Dermatitis in the form of a scaly red rash around the eyes, nose, mouth, and genital area.
* Neurological symptoms in adults such as depression, lethargy, hallucination, and numbness and tingling of the extremities.[3]
I eat the egg whites raw (I've never said cooked), and I'm not trying to justify anything for me :) Cooking doesn't deactivate avidin that much, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidin#Inactivation_of_biotin_binding_activity
A 1991 assay for the Journal of Food Science detected substantial avidin activity in cooked egg white: "mean residual avidin activity in fried, poached and boiled (2 min) egg white was 33, 71 and 40% of the activity in raw egg white."
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A 1992 study found that thermal inactivation of the biotin binding activity of avidin was described by D121°C = 25 min and z = 33°C. The study disagreed with prior assumptions "that the binding site of avidin is destroyed on heat denaturation", concluding that protein denaturation was not equivalent to loss of biotin binding activity.[18]
I tried that once and found they weren't tasty cooked alone without the yolks and it definitely wasn't worth the bother and mess to me.
Absolutely agree
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But I think it's still very unlikely that you'd develop such a biotin deficiency unless you eat really unhealthy. Egg yolks are for sure not the only source of biotin. What is more concerning in my opinion is the trypsin inhibition.
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But I think it's still very unlikely that you'd develop such a biotin deficiency unless you eat really unhealthy. Egg yolks are for sure not the only source of biotin. What is more concerning in my opinion is the trypsin inhibition.
OK, so is trypsin inhibition your only remaining concern regarding raw egg whites? What signs and symptoms should we watch out for that might indicate it? Since you eat raw egg whites yourself, is it the case that you haven't experienced any noticeable negative symptoms as a result and you're perhaps just concerned that you might develop future problems from eating them?
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Future problems yes, protein putrefaction usually results in (neuro)toxins which get absorbed in the colon.
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Per what evidence or experience does alleged egg white protein putrefaction produce this result and what are the symptoms? Since you specified "usually," which suggests more than 50% of the time, what is the source of this information regarding this frequency of occurrence?
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I don't know, I must have read it somewhere. Not egg white but putrefaction of any protein.
Either way, I'm not that interested in finding the hard evidence that will prove this to me or someone else.
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I don't know, I must have read it somewhere. Not egg white but putrefaction of any protein.
Oh yeah, that's convincing. Did you check out those links I provided that refuted the claim? Whenever I've traced the sources they've always gone back to vegetarian myths. Besides, the vegetarians are invariably talking about COOKED meat when discussing alleged meat putrefaction build up in the colon and alleged harm from it, not RAW meat.
Either way, I'm not that interested in finding the hard evidence that will prove this to me or someone else.
If you're not interested enough in your own putrefaction claim to support it, then I'm not interested in taking it seriously.
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What did they refute? None of them talked about protein going by undigested due to decreased trypsin action.
Of course claims like "Humans can’t digest meat, it rots in the stomach/colon" (from the first link) don't make any sense if your digestive system is fine, I'm not saying anything related to that here.
This is from a pretty old book, probably some stuff are a bit wrong but it gives a pretty extensive overview
http://chestofbooks.com/health/nutrition/Diet-Theory/The-Putrefaction-Of-Protein.html
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There's no way to win an argument faster than by asking for references, lol. ;D
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We have to solve this egg white egg yolk issue or threads like that will continue to appear . I personally feel fuller after eating whole eggs for much longer period and I am not that thirsty like when I eat only egg yolks. + egg whites aid in cell detox!!!
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Of course claims like "Humans can’t digest meat, it rots in the stomach/colon" (from the first link) don't make any sense if your digestive system is fine, I'm not saying anything related to that here.
When does that claim make sense and where is the evidence that meat digests less well and rots more than grains and other seeds, legumes that are not edible raw and fibrous veggies in the healthy or damaged guts of humans?
This is from a pretty old book, probably some stuff are a bit wrong but it gives a pretty extensive overview
http://chestofbooks.com/health/nutrition/Diet-Theory/The-Putrefaction-Of-Protein.html
Is that the best you can do for evidence, an out-of-date book of vegetarian myths? As I said, all the sources of this rotting, putrefying meat (and egg whites) in the colon claim I've seen so far trace back to vegetarian myths and it appears that your claim is no exception. Even if the claim is true, it doesn't establish evidence of harm. I've seen scientific research findings of plant proteins causing harm in the gut, but not yet meat proteins. Bryce's speculations do not qualify as scientific evidence.
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From the link http://chestofbooks.com/health/nutrition/Diet-Theory/The-Putrefaction-Of-Protein.html (http://chestofbooks.com/health/nutrition/Diet-Theory/The-Putrefaction-Of-Protein.html), we read:
It is averred that these toxins are absorbed by the intestinal mucous membrane, and that they are the insidious cause of the most grave and fatal chronic maladies....
It is comforting to think, however, that nature has provided the body with many defences against this terrible risk of poisoning, the most important being the hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice...
Go back and read it yourself, and correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Bryce saying that meat doesn't turn to toxic rot because it is digested by acid in the stomach and small intestine?
Next, he says it is significant that complete removal of the stomach is unattended by increased putrefaction - and the maintenance of the effective digestive capacity.
I read several of the chapters of Bryce's book, and I don't think he contradicts what I know to be true from my own experience, that the meat I eat digests well and doesn't leave me feeling toxic.
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So is it even beneficial to eat egg whites at all? Or is it just fodder? lol that's all I wanna hear out of this topic :D
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It depends: it may be useful and it may be harmful - just like for everything !
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I hear its negligible in fertilized eggs and it wouldn't really matter since hunter-gatherers rarely found/ate eggs.
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hunter-gatherers rarely found/ate eggs.
How do you know that?
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Before the age of domestication, only wild birds' eggs were available so eggs would have been only rarely eaten and then on a seasonal basis.
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Land and sea turtles eggs, iguanas egg's, swan's eggs, aepyornis'eggs, ostrich' eggs, etc must have been plenty before mankind proliferated and ravaged the environment.
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Land and sea turtles eggs, iguanas egg's, swan's eggs, aepyornis'eggs, ostrich' eggs, etc must have been plenty before mankind proliferated and ravaged the environment.
No, since wild animals laid such eggs only seasonally and usually in relatively inaccessible places such as cliff-faces, trees and the like. Only when chickens were domesticated were eggs available in quantity.
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At least sea turtles eggs are extremely easily accessible and you get not less than about 120 at once. Swans' eggs are quite big and easily accessible as well.
:)
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don't forget fish egss!! According to weston prices work they are one of the most valued foods by primitive races. They were even dried so they could be eaten year round.
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don't forget fish egss!! According to weston prices work they are one of the most valued foods by primitive races. They were even dried so they could be eaten year round.
You mean like caviar? I wish I could get some...anyone know any sources of them raw?
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Country folks from where I live gigged frogs and eat polliwogs.
Early man would have certainly had access to frog eggs.
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You mean like caviar? I wish I could get some...anyone know any sources of them raw?
Roe
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I have found various types of roe (in the US) either frozen, salted/refrigerated, salted/canned (pasteurized), cooked/pickled. I think that about covers what I've seen. I shop in Asian markets. I usually buy frozen salmon roe. I love to eat them slowly and "pop" each egg in my mouth.
For caviar, that's the roe of the sturgeon, a super-old fish species... so I'm sure it's paleo :D
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Cool
anyone have sources of unfrozen roe?
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Yep, I can get it although only once a year. I don't like the taste.
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anyone have sources of unfrozen roe?
I've eaten fresh raw roe that I got in an Asian market. It wasn't tasty and they didn't speak English, so I don't know how the fish lived or was caught.
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You would think that birds would be more careful generally where they lay their eggs but ducks are downright stupid about it. I used to live by the ocean and nothing in the world was easier to get than turtle eggs. We used to have to fight like crazy during sea turtle season to protect them because they are so very endangered now. :(
All I have are my chickens' unfertilized eggs. The yolks taste great to me, the whites don't. So I eat what tastes good! My dogs will eat the yolks first too if they eat the white at all. The yolk is what the chicks use for food and the white is a only backup food source, is a shock absorber and allows for air circulation. If the whites looked good and tasted good though I'd eat it cuz I trust myself more than some scientist that only fries his eggs and puts margarine on his wonder bread!
Fertilized wild feeding bird eggs were not analyzed and even if they were does that necessarily mean that it would have any pertinence to a raw foodist at all? Myy dogs didn't have to ask me if the whites were good for them. I don't need to ask a scientist to figure out if the whites are good for me.
Only stupid humans care about wasting a part of a food that we innately feel is not good for us. Bunnies take nibbles from each leaf. Many carnivores take the best and leave what's leftover for scavengers. I put the whites back into the chicken food. What? Yep. I figure that my chickens are not getting as much protein as they should in the drought with not enough bugs right now. They also get the leftover eggshells for calcium. But what I really need to do is raise them some more bugs - their natural food. They will eat those first. You never saw such excitement as when I bring them bugs.
We all know innately what is good or not for us if we aren't too far away from ourselves.
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Is there a risk of chickens getting prion disease from eating chicken egg whites?
Humans(kuru), cattle(BSE) and sheep(scrapies) can get it from eating their own kind, but maybe eating egg white is not the same as eating chicken flesh.
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Excellent question Miles:
Quote:
How easy is it to catch prion disease from a different species?
Generally, transmitting prion disease between two different species – from cattle to
human, for example – only occurs when the prion proteins of the two species are
similar enough. Human and ape prions are nearly identical; injecting infected human
brain tissue into apes will transmit disease. Human and mouse prions are not similar
enough; injecting infected human brain tissue into mice will not transmit the disease
either. However, if mice are genetically modified to contain a prion gene that is identical
to the human gene, injecting infected human tissue into these mice will cause the
mice to develop prion disease.
So…
There has been no documented occurrence of prion disease in birds. And, of all bird
prion proteins studied so far, chicken prions are the least similar to human prions. It’s
not likely that humans could catch a naturally occurring chicken prion disease."
Besides, at present I only have 3 chickens! I would get any disease from one egg producer that I would get from all three if they shared.
If I give them eggshells from other birds I put them into food-grade hydrogen peroxide to sterilize them first before drying and powdering and never give them the contents.
But you bring up a very powerful question in regard to meats! What's the consensus here on prion disease that is transmittable to humans??? What do y'all think about mad cow?
Should this be another thread? Should I be searching the forum for a previous discussion of this subject?
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You would think that birds would be more careful generally where they lay their eggs but ducks are downright stupid about it. I used to live by the ocean and nothing in the world was easier to get than turtle eggs. We used to have to fight like crazy during sea turtle season to protect them because they are so very endangered now. :(
All I have are my chickens' unfertilized eggs. The yolks taste great to me, the whites don't. So I eat what tastes good! My dogs will eat the yolks first too if they eat the white at all. The yolk is what the chicks use for food and the white is a only backup food source, is a shock absorber and allows for air circulation. If the whites looked good and tasted good though I'd eat it cuz I trust myself more than some scientist that only fries his eggs and puts margarine on his wonder bread!
Fertilized wild feeding bird eggs were not analyzed and even if they were does that necessarily mean that it would have any pertinence to a raw foodist at all? My dogs didn't have to ask me if the whites were good for them. I don't need to ask a scientist to figure out if the whites are good for me.
Only stupid humans care about wasting a part of a food that we innately feel is not good for us. Bunnies take nibbles from each leaf. Many carnivores take the best and leave what's leftover for scavengers. I put the whites back into the chicken food. What? Yep. I figure that my chickens are not getting as much protein as they should in the drought with not enough bugs right now. They also get the leftover eggshells for calcium. But what I really need to do is raise them some more bugs - their natural food. They will eat those first. You never saw such excitement as when I bring them bugs.
We all know innately what is good or not for us if we aren't too far away from ourselves.
Good post. I concur.
How do you proceed to raise bugs?
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Hi Iguana. Thanks.
I know that this is a change in subject. I hope it's good etiquette on this forum to do so in the middle of a thread. If not, then I apologize in advance.
I've raised mealworms, superworms and crickets. All pretty easy. I used to feed the chickens mealworms and superworms and the superworm beatles in a plastic tub - all of them the chickens went ga ga for. My next project though is to take a plastic compost bin and make it into a Black Soldier Fly Composter. This will attract the native BSFlies to lay their eggs. The maggots will turn just about anything to rich soil within 24 hours and then the maggots can easily be guided as they crawl up the composter as they would a tree and drop themselves into a container to be fed to the chickens. BSflies do not carry disease and do not come in the house. The maggots are chicken candy supposedly. Hopefully one day I will also have an aquaponics system to raise fish and the maggots are the perfect fish food as well. Whether I will get myself to eat them or not we will see.... but they are supposed to be very nutritious food for humans as well. I know at least though that I will be able to get as much super high-quality food for my chickens as I want fairly easily this way because all I need is garbage and in an American suburb the one thing I know I will always be able to find is garbage. ;)
The beauty of black soldier flies is that they somehow take the most nasty bacteria ridden substances and make them ok. You can put dog, cat or human feces in the composter and still use the soil for a vegetable garden. Someone recently told me that they composted their baby's diapers!
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Thanks, but don’t you think some abnormal molecules present for example in cooked junk food fed to dogs and cats will find their way and even accumulate along the food chain into their feces, the flies, maggots, chicken and their eggs?
In Pottenger’s experiments, the ground where the cats were fed cooked food became poisoned, the vegetables test-grown there were not good and it’s well known that human (feeding on cooked stuff) feces aren’t suitable and even dangerous as fertilizers (some people compost it and pretend it becomes harmless, but I doubt it). As a result, billions of tons of organic matter have been dumped into streams, rivers, lakes and seas, lost to the ground where they belong and are polluting the waters.
I would also like to raise bugs for my poultry, but I’d take care that they do not originate from polluted sources such as commercial meat or cooked leftovers.
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Hey Iguana - True - It's the number one no-no of composting to put cat or dog feces into regular compost if you want to use it to grow vegetables for human consumption. That's part of what intrigues me about black soldier fly composting. They say that no matter what kind of feces is composted in it you can still use the compost to grow things suitable for human consumption. It's part of what makes it so interesting to me - if that is true then so many problems could be solved.
But yeah - I aint gonna do it. And ............ I wouldn't feed such bugs to my chickens because ........ just because the soil can be used to grow vegetables doesn't mean that the maggots didn't absorb those toxins and that's why the soil is ok. You can sure bet that I would never eat those maggots myself either. :o
I feed my dogs better than most people eat - but I still wouldn't eat from their composted feces, but I might make a separate composter for them to make soil to put around non-fruit bearing trees and flowers and such. I would need some more data to prove it was safe to me before using such things to grow my few little veggies in.
Most of my composting will be organic organic matter as that's what I will mostly have! ;) Not much fake waste stuff coming out of my kitchen.
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No, since wild animals laid such eggs only seasonally and usually in relatively inaccessible places such as cliff-faces, trees and the like. Only when chickens were domesticated were eggs available in quantity.
It's true that eggs were seasonal, but you make it sound like they were a lot harder to get than what I've read in accounts of traditional lifestyles. For example: "Everywhere water birds are found in large numbers and extensively hunted, especially eider ducks, auks, and murres. Eggs of all these birds are consumed in large numbers." (Studies on the Metabolism of Eskimos, by Peter Heinbecker, the Departments of Biological Chemistry and Physiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. Received for publication, July 9, 1928. http://www.jbc.org/content/80/2/461.full.pdf)
I've also seen a video of wee Plains Indians children of today walking along a prairie, effortlessly picking up eggs from nests on the ground and collecting them in baskets. It looked easier than I would have imagined. Unless people were living in a habitat where there weren't many birds, the main limitation on egg consumption seems to have been seasonality.
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Unless people were living in a habitat where there weren't many birds, the main limitation on egg consumption seems to have been seasonality.
Yes, and even if you raise your own poultry, as Dorothy and I do, you'll find that geese lay their eggs early in the spring only, ducks a bit latter and no latter than mid-July while hens also stop laying eggs in the middle of summer - and in winter too unless you provide them with artificial light to compensate for the shortening of daylight duration.
That's for the Northern hemisphere, in the tropics it's certainly different and I doubt that sea turtles lay their eggs in the same season than birds.
Another point is that collecting eggs and breaking their shell to drink them is much more easy than hunting, killing and skinning an animal, especially without modern weapons and knifes.
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That's for the Northern hemisphere, in the tropics it's certainly different and I doubt that sea turtles lay their eggs in the same season than birds.
Yes, I was thinking about adding a point about different animals having different seasons, so that the availability of eggs from ALL species might spread out over a wide part of the year, particularly in warmer climates, but I don't have any data on that. People tend to think only of chicken eggs or the birds in their back yard and then extrapolate based on that very limited modern experience.
Another point is that collecting eggs and breaking their shell to drink them is much more easy than hunting, killing and skinning an animal, especially without modern weapons and knifes.
Yes, and thus even little children can collect the eggs. It is apparently a job of the children to do so in some traditional cultures, perhaps many?
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Here in Texas most of my "chicken friends" that feed their chickens very well report that without extra lighting their chickens produce all year. Mine do. Seasonality often has to do with food resources more than anything when it comes to bird reproduction cycles. There are many parts of the world where the food is in such large supply that many bird species reproduce all year.
Collecting eggs as the job of children. It makes sense and now I know why finding eggs in the coop makes me as giddy as a school girl. ;)