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are some eggs higher in sulphur than others? brown vs conventional eggs

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
I'm not even sure it's the sulphur, but I just got major dry heaves from eating 2 scrambled eggs (w a little bit of onion, butter, and little bit of cheddar).. They were omega-3 brown eggs from whole foods. I don't think that omega-3's would cause the problem, and I've never noticed a problem w eggs cooked in food before; I don't eat a lot of eggs on their own, in general.. A couple of years ago, I was eating a lot of brown, organic eggs and I got a terrible gut infection... I stopped eating everything that I had been eating the month previous, incl eggs... The re-introduction is not going well... In dec, I bought conventional eggs at walgreen's and they were fine!

Why would conventional eggs be less problematic than omega-3, brown organice whole foods eggs?? too much sulphur?? I'm stumped
 

IreneF

Senior Member
Messages
1,552
Location
San Francisco
I'm not even sure it's the sulphur, but I just got major dry heaves from eating 2 scrambled eggs (w a little bit of onion, butter, and little bit of cheddar).. They were omega-3 brown eggs from whole foods. I don't think that omega-3's would cause the problem, and I've never noticed a problem w eggs cooked in food before; I don't eat a lot of eggs on their own, in general.. A couple of years ago, I was eating a lot of brown, organic eggs and I got a terrible gut infection... I stopped eating everything that I had been eating the month previous, incl eggs... The re-introduction is not going well... In dec, I bought conventional eggs at walgreen's and they were fine!

Why would conventional eggs be less problematic than omega-3, brown organice whole foods eggs?? too much sulphur?? I'm stumped
There is very little difference, supposedly, between brown eggs and white eggs; it depends on the type of hen, I think.

The omega-3 eggs are produced by altering the hen's diet:
"Omega-3. Hens were given feed that included flax, marine algae, fish oils, and other ingredients to boost the level of omega-3 fatty acid in their eggs."
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/...and-more-nutritious-than-white-eggs/index.htm

Perhaps you are sensitive to something in the feed or maybe the eggs triggered your memories of your gut infection and your body reacted by up-chucking.
 
Messages
1,478
Composition of eggs is mainly down to feed and breed as already mentioned, I don't think there is much difference between them in terms of protein content and amino acid composition to explain the symptoms though? The onion may have more variance from batch to batch than the egg.
 

TrixieStix

Senior Member
Messages
539
I've heard of some folks with serious allergies to soy and/or corn who make sure they source from chickens who are not fed soy and/or corn.
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
Perhaps you are sensitive to something in the feed or maybe the eggs triggered your memories of your gut infection and your body reacted by up-chucking.

must be something in the feed, according to everything that I've read.... 24 hours later, and my stomach is still killing me!
 

IreneF

Senior Member
Messages
1,552
Location
San Francisco
Maybe the eggs weren't cooked enough, or you picked up a bug somewhere else and the timing was coincidental.

I looked up food recalls but couldn't find any recent (1 mo.) egg recalls.
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
Maybe the eggs weren't cooked enough, or you picked up a bug somewhere else and the timing was coincidental.

I looked up food recalls but couldn't find any recent (1 mo.) egg recalls.

I live in SF, too, and bought them at the Whole Foods on Franklin.... I'm 3 days in, and my stomach is still killing me
 
Messages
14
Location
RTP, NC
I"d call the local Dept of Agriculture and see if they have a test to find out if the eggs have salmonella in them or other pathogens, especially if you still have some left and you're still sick. You might want to check with an MD to see if they think it's serious enough to treat. Not to be alarmist, but I've heard of many cases where people with a contaminated food ended up with permanent gut trouble.

Do you have access to kefir? Or a well rounded yogurt like Stonyfield Farm? Something like that can tame the pathogens and at least make them less nasty.
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
I"d call the local Dept of Agriculture and see if they have a test to find out if the eggs have salmonella in them or other pathogens, especially if you still have some left and you're still sick. You might want to check with an MD to see if they think it's serious enough to treat. Not to be alarmist, but I've heard of many cases where people with a contaminated food ended up with permanent gut trouble.

Do you have access to kefir? Or a well rounded yogurt like Stonyfield Farm? Something like that can tame the pathogens and at least make them less nasty.

I've had bad gut infections and the doctor said that unless there's (tmi warning) blood in your stool, then all you can do is rest, take a lot of probiotics, and drink water. I slept A LOT today, so hopefully I get better over the weekend.
 

IreneF

Senior Member
Messages
1,552
Location
San Francisco
I live in SF, too, and bought them at the Whole Foods on Franklin.... I'm 3 days in, and my stomach is still killing me
Got the rest of the eggs? Maybe they can be tested for pathogens. At least call the store.

I live in the Sunset. I don't shop at Whole Paycheck. When I was healthier, I used to do most of my shopping on foot along Irving. I'm lucky I can drive enough to shop at all.
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
Got the rest of the eggs? Maybe they can be tested for pathogens. At least call the store.

I live in the Sunset. I don't shop at Whole Paycheck. When I was healthier, I used to do most of my shopping on foot along Irving. I'm lucky I can drive enough to shop at all.

yeah.. hopefully, I will feel better enough to go back over the weekend and tell them.. and get my money back!
 
Messages
1,478
I think this is unlikely to be salmonella or any other pathogen. The incubation time and symptoms don't fit. I am assuming you have noticed symptoms quite close after eating, whereas salmonella symptoms is typically 48 -72 hrs after eating and as well as blood in runny stools you also get dehydration symptoms, actual vomiting and it's serious enough to be carted to hospital.

It seems very unlikely from what you describe.

Most egg related salmonella in the uk anyway has been much reduced due to flock vaccination. Alternative "natural" small holding type sources may have a higher incidence where practices tend to be more sloppy from a risk prevention point of view. I have no idea as to the egg supply chain in America though. Im assuming it's the same as here.

Try not to worry about it but it's always a good idea to monitor things. Your gut will respond to what you eat but it's hardly ever pathogenic...normally diet change.
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
I think this is unlikely to be salmonella or any other pathogen. The incubation time and symptoms don't fit. I am assuming you have noticed symptoms quite close after eating, whereas salmonella symptoms is typically 48 -72 hrs after eating and as well as blood in runny stools you also get dehydration symptoms, actual vomiting and it's serious enough to be carted to hospital.

It seems very unlikely from what you describe.

Most egg related salmonella in the uk anyway has been much reduced due to flock vaccination. Alternative "natural" small holding type sources may have a higher incidence where practices tend to be more sloppy from a risk prevention point of view. I have no idea as to the egg supply chain in America though. Im assuming it's the same as here.

Try not to worry about it but it's always a good idea to monitor things. Your gut will respond to what you eat but it's hardly ever pathogenic...normally diet change.

good to know... I doubt it's something like salmonella, b/c that causes bloody stools from what I understand, but whatever it is, it's def from the eggs... I'm completely stumped... I've eaten cheap eggs from walgreens (a drugstore chain w some limited food items) and had no problems... I get the expensive brown, organic, omega 3 eggs from the expensive grocery store, and get very, very ill immediately after eating them, and I've been knocked out since Tuesday.... It must be what the chickens are fed...

One other time, aug 2015, I got a severe stomach infection that knocked me out for 2-3 months.... I was eating a lot of eggs so that was one of the suspects at the time... I didn't eat eggs for a long time - or the other things I was eating around that time.. I re-introduced the cheap walgreen's eggs and did fine....

I have to make my stomach more resistant somehow.. and no more eggs for me.
 

Jonathan Edwards

"Gibberish"
Messages
5,256
good to know... I doubt it's something like salmonella, b/c that causes bloody stools from what I understand, but whatever it is, it's def from the eggs... I'm completely stumped... I've eaten cheap eggs from walgreens (a drugstore chain w some limited food items) and had no problems... I get the expensive brown, organic, omega 3 eggs from the expensive grocery store, and get very, very ill immediately after eating them, and I've been knocked out since Tuesday.... It must be what the chickens are fed...

One other time, aug 2015, I got a severe stomach infection that knocked me out for 2-3 months.... I was eating a lot of eggs so that was one of the suspects at the time... I didn't eat eggs for a long time - or the other things I was eating around that time.. I re-introduced the cheap walgreen's eggs and did fine....

I have to make my stomach more resistant somehow.. and no more eggs for me.

There are two quite different sorts of problem with salmonella. Some salmonella, like typhimurium, will produce acute food poisoning symptoms almost immediately. I think this is similar to staphylococcal food poisoning, which is due to a toxin produced by the bacteria while the food is sitting rotting in a shop or your larder. It is not due to live bacteria in your gut. Cooking tends to destroy toxins but gentle cooking like scrambling eggs will not.

The second problem comes with salmonella that are pathogenic because they breed in the gut itself. Typhoid and paratyphoid are examples which produce bleeding. I think there are other forms that produce something more like dysentery with diarrhoea. These take a few days to show problems.

My guess is that eggs that had gone off enough to form toxins would smell nasty, although I am not sure about that - so maybe a toxin problem is unlikely to come from the eggs - maybe smoother ingredient?
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
My guess is that eggs that had gone off enough to form toxins would smell nasty, although I am not sure about that - so maybe a toxin problem is unlikely to come from the eggs - maybe smoother ingredient?

I used butter (not the culprit), a little bit of cheddar (not the culprit) and a little bit of cream (possibly the culprit).. but again, I think it would smell if it was off....

The "omega 3" eggs are fed a special diet, possibly using marine algae, so maybe I had a reaction to that? It's either the eggs or the cream... It was immediately after I ate, so I'm sure it was something in that dish..
 
Messages
1,478
There are two quite different sorts of problem with salmonella. Some salmonella, like typhimurium, will produce acute food poisoning symptoms almost immediately. I think this is similar to staphylococcal food poisoning, which is due to a toxin produced by the bacteria while the food is sitting rotting in a shop or your larder. It is not due to live bacteria in your gut. Cooking tends to destroy toxins but gentle cooking like scrambling eggs will not.

The second problem comes with salmonella that are pathogenic because they breed in the gut itself. Typhoid and paratyphoid are examples which produce bleeding. I think there are other forms that produce something more like dysentery with diarrhoea. These take a few days to show problems.

My guess is that eggs that had gone off enough to form toxins would smell nasty, although I am not sure about that - so maybe a toxin problem is unlikely to come from the eggs - maybe smoother ingredient?

I agree there are different toxin effects from different microbes. Just to add a bit:

Staph aureus produce exotoxins externally to the cell so you don't need to digest the cell for it to be released. However for this to be a problem you have to have a lot of staph on the food before ingestion which means that human skin has to be in contact first to contaminate the food either as a gross contamination or more likely it has to grow for hours or days before ingestion. To grow on the food it needs to have had poor temperature control after preparation and time to grow.

Staph is unlikely to have been in the egg to start, only when it's been prepared. You can't tell toxins by taste, but the abuse of the time/temperature/loading will cause other microbes to grow as well, potentially giving you an off smell or taste. In this case the eggs would have had to be prepared by someone with staph on their skin that hadn't washed their hands/ worn gloves etc left on the counter for a few hours on a hot day etc before ingestion .... so very unlikely in a home environment for scrambled eggs.

Salmonella sp will cause food poisoning rapidly (less than 12 hrs) only when the food or water ingested is already very heavily contaminated. This is mainly from direct human faecal contamination as with typhoid. As you say in this case the egg wouldn't have been in contact with enough faeces to have had such a high loading.

All Salmonella species/types produce an endotoxin and is infectious in humans (grows in the gut). The toxin is different to staph in that it is contained in the cell and is only released once digested. So you can get infected by lower levels of cells from food, but there is a delay in symptoms 24-78 hrs (typically 48hrs) to allow the cells to grow and release their toxins Into the gut and give the gi symptoms. The cells can also enter the bloodstream through the gut wall in some cases. Infections of this sort come about mainly from eating contaminated food that has not been cooked fully. But you would still need to wait for longer to see effects. Symptoms would include fever violent vomiting and loose stools enough to cause severe dehydration that would need hospitalisation.

In short you have to try very hard to get food poisoning and this needs a combination of high contamination, poor storage, poor heat treatment during and after cooking to cause a problem.

Symptoms are often far more severe in terms of the violence and duration of reaction than most people think.

Salmonella is rapidly destroyed by heat so if anyone is worried, buy a temperature probe and cook all chicken and eggs to 72deg C or higher and buy food from large manufacturers who have more to lose by not following the correct food hygiene standards.
 
Messages
1
I get diarrhea (bad) and sometimes upset stomach and burping when Ineat organic brown eggs. Don't understand it, cuz I can eat regular "cheap" eggs just fine.
 

IreneF

Senior Member
Messages
1,552
Location
San Francisco
The problem with eggs and salmonella is that the bacteria live in the hen's ovaries, so the egg can be perfectly intact and still harbor germs. I've also been told that poor handling is the problem--probably something like leaving a batch of mixed but not cooked eggs out on the counter, where it can warm up and become a terrific bacterial medium.
https://www.livescience.com/10016-salmonella-eggs.html

The brown pigment in eggs is called protoporphyrin IX, and it's a precursor to hemoglobin. It seems unlikely that a person would react to it. But perhaps you should stick to white eggs. They are usually less expensive, anyway.
 

ebethc

Senior Member
Messages
1,901
Flax is more likely.

This is one month ago (I see there were no reports from the US):

Betaine HCL has been a miracle for me... I think all this time it's possible that low stomach acid caused my chronic stomach infections... Maybe I can't handle mild problems in eggs?? ie problems that most ppl would be able to kill w their own stomach acid... Of course, w a crap immune system, you can't kill an infection once it takes off, so it's a double whammy for me...