By Lesley Nelson, LM, CPM
I have four chickens. And they lay the most beautiful eggs – every single day I get three or four little brown, bundled-up, nutritious gifts for myself and family. It's the sweetest thing: going out to the little red coop my daughter and I built (mainly my daughter -she's kinda' awesome), and opening the nest door and finding these perfect presents in a small bed of hay from our happy, hopeful hens. It's such a joy!
I have always felt, since my days as a childbirth educator when I often talked about nutrition for pregnant women, that the egg was the perfect food: inexpensive and chock-full of vitamins, mineral and protien. An average egg has 7 grams of protein, vitamin D, B6, B12, fat soluable vitamins, A, D, and E, and minerals such ass zinc, iron and copper with about 75 calories total. But most recently, eggs are also designated as the number one source of choline, a relatively newly discovered nutrient (1998), which has been found to be especially important for pregnant and nursing mothers as it is essential for normal neural tube formation and brain development. The recommended adequate intake (AI) for choline has been set at 425 mg for women, 450 for pregnant women and 550 for lactating mothers. With one egg containing 125mg of choline and figuring most women get around 300 mg according to the National Institutes of Health they conclude that adding an egg to the diet each day would increase the number of pregnant women meeting the AI from 10% to more than 50%. In addition, choline is found to be key in preventing liver disease, heart disease, and possibly neurological disorders among adults. For women, diets high in choline have recently been associated with a decreased risk for breast cancer.
So my chickens leave me these delicious, nutritious packages daily and I gratefully hard-boil, poach, and scramble them and include them with other good-quality ingredients to try to do justice by them. Organic tomatoes, fresh broccoli, steamed spinach and co-op made sausage goes very well with them, along with a big green salad and greens mixed in for a lovely quiche. Eggs are our go-to for breakfast or dinner. Fresh, clean water, organic chicken feed, sunshine, and dirt or a compost pile to scratch in daily are all that my hens require and in return my family is well-fed – what more can one ask for? I hope that however you go about getting them, that you consider eating eggs daily as part of taking good care of yourself and your family. And remember to thank the chickens!
Previously Published in Birthstream Newletter Spring 2016