Coco laid a cholesterol free egg

I'll bet that got your attention.

Sometimes I think I missed my calling as a tabloid writer with some of the outlandish titles I come up with for my blogs.  Or maybe it's just me rebelling against all my past English teachers.  Either way, this blog really is about cholesterol.

Eggs have gotten a bad rap over the years for being high in cholesterol.  I've read that eggs from hens like mine, hens that free range, have access to bugs, greens and lots of sunshine, contain significantly less cholesterol.  They say as much as a third less cholesterol than standard store bought eggs.  But I have no way of proving this.

When we go out to breakfast, I personally can't eat the eggs.  I just refuse to eat eggs when I don't know how the hens have been treated.  But my husband will easily order a three egg omelet.  And he will typically ask for egg beaters or egg whites since three eggs for breakfast, is way over one's cholesterol intake for the day, even if they did contain a third less than cholesterol.

So this morning at breakfast, the menu said that the eggs were "cholesterol free".  And that got his attention.  I explained that it must either be egg beaters or egg whites but that there was no such thing as a cholesterol free egg.  To which he replied that our hens really should learn to lay a cholesterol free egg.  I didn't really think anything of it until I came home to find that his wishes had been answered and that Coco had indeed laid a cholesterol free egg.

One of Coco's typical eggs, covered in dark brown speckles, and tipping the scale in the XL category.

Coco's typical egg on the left and the cholesterol free version on the right.

The cholesterol free egg doesn't even make the scale budge.

And the cholesterol egg cracked open.  The lump of egg white did kind of look like a super duper pale yoke but it is indeed all egg white.

Now these cholesterol eggs are not the norm, but I have seen them before.  They are basically a mis-fire and the hen's body goes through the motion of laying an egg and forming a shell, but no yolk ever joined the party.

I'm sure it's a symptom of me giving out too many treats.  Which I'm working really hard not to do.  But anytime a hen is eating something that doesn't have balanced protein and calcium, can mess up their system.  And Coco certainly likes to eat my parsley and other greens so I can see how a half hour in the big garden might be just enough time for her to get enough to tweak her system.

The term most chicken folks give them, is a "fart egg".  But I do have to be careful where I say that.  I can see me telling the neighborhood kids that my hen laid a fart egg and having them share that little tidbit at show-and-tell on Monday and, well, you can see how that would come full circle in a hurry.

I thought my husband would be pleased that indeed my hen had laid him a cholesterol free egg.  But he determined it to be sub-par and refused to eat it.  He's very much a city kid and he wants his eggs to contain a yolk.  Whether or not he chooses to eat it.