Some eggs are making me sick, and I figured out why!
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Do you feel sick after eating eggs, but not all eggs? I may have cracked the code on why some eggs leave me feeling nauseous and achy, while others leave me feeling fine.
Why do eggs make me sick?
I've been meaning to write about this for a long time. Someone other than me must be suffering from this and not know it. It took me months to figure out that eggs were making me sick to my stomach. Maybe I can help someone else figure it out quicker than I did.
About fifteen months ago, I started feeling sick to my stomach. Not always nauseous, more like how you feel when you know you're going to have diarrhea. And my back was killing me all the time. Sometimes I felt feverish. I felt like this all day, every day, for the summer of 2013. It really sucked. I slept a lot, and was in fog much of the time.
Ruling Out Wheat
My big fear, at first, was that I was having a problem with wheat. I live on bread and pasta. Take away my carbs and you might as well take away my soul as well. But I was feeling so terrible that I actually tried giving up wheat.
My plan was to do it for a week and see if things got better. But I quit after four days because there was no change. On the one hand I was glad - I could still eat bread! But on the other, I still had no clue what was going on.
Blood and stool tests
After about a month I really started to get worried. Did I have some kind of horrible intestinal disease? Were the amoebas that had hitch-hiked back home with me after a trip to South America in 1998 making a comeback tour? Did I have some kind of cancer?
I went to my doctor, who checked me out and ordered some blood tests and stool tests (man, was that an experience, let me tell you…on second thought, I'm not going to, because it was a really really really gross process). I was afraid of what the tests would find, but whatever it was would be better than not knowing and just feeling sick all the time.
The tests showed nothing.
Breakthrough
Then, after about three months of feeling like that (it was beginning to feel normal - I have no idea how I was functioning), I took the kids to my mom's house in Buffalo for a six-day visit.
One of the reasons I love visiting my mom is that my favorite fast food restaurant, Mighty Taco, is on her corner. Usually, when I'm staying with her I just wait to eat until Mighty Taco opens up at 10:30 and have a nice healthy breakfast of burritos and nachos.
Despite how I was feeling, I kept to my usual Might Taco breakfast schedule (I mean, it wasn't going to make my stomach worse). And by day three I realized that I was feeling better! Not just better, but good. By the time I left my mom's house to head back to Brooklyn, I felt totally normal.
And on the drive back it hit me. It hit me like a ton of bricks falling on my head. I hadn't had a single egg in six days.
At home I start pretty much every single day off with an egg or two, scrambled or in an omelet. I've been doing this for decades. And now, suddenly, eggs appeared to be making me sick.
Was it an egg allergy?
I started reading everything I could about egg allergies, and at first it seemed like that was what I had. It was weird, though, to develop an egg allergy as an adult. Everything I read said that it was most common in kids, and that they usually outgrew it. Also, allergy symptoms usually happen immediately, not several hours later. And I didn't have any kind of respiratory or skin symptoms, which usually go with allergies.
Was it an egg intolerance?
Doing more reading, I discovered that there is such a thing as egg intolerance, which is different from an allergy. I seemed to match the most common symptoms perfectly:
- nausea
- diarrhea
- stomach cramps
- acid reflux
- achy feeling
- brain fog
- fatigue
- headaches
- joint pain
- feverish feeling
Experimenting
When I got home I started experimenting. First, I made some cookies using eggs as an ingredient, and ate a couple. I was fine. I could still eat baked goods! Yay!
Then I hard-boiled an egg and ate that. Again, no reaction. Eggs cooked very well seemed to be OK. Egg salad and deviled eggs were still a go!
Then, just to make sure, I scrambled an egg on my third morning back and ate it. And within three or four hours, that sick feeling came back. Bingo. It took almost two days until I felt OK again.
I was glad (dancing-in-the-streets thrilled, actually) that I'd found the culprit. I would miss eating scrambled eggs, but at least I knew what to avoid.
Fresh brown eggs didn't make me sick!
A couple of months later I was back at my doctor's office for something routine and I mentioned what I'd discovered. She suggested that I try a really fresh egg. Like, right out of the chicken fresh. Hmm.
I figured that Fresh Direct was my best shot. I bought the freshest, most expensive eggs they carried. And I ate one scrambled. And I was fine!!!
Then the next time I bought them, I felt sick again. What the heck was going on?
I kept experimenting with different brands, and found one that never makes me sick. They're expensive, brown eggs from pastured chickens. Maybe it's what the chickens are eating, or maybe this farm gets its eggs to the store quickly. I have no idea! All I know is that I can even eat runny eggs with this brand and I feel fine. (For people who have these brands in their stores, brown pastured eggs from Handsome Brook Farms and Vital Farms are both fine for me.)
Is it the egg whites?
A bunch of things that I read said that for most people with an egg sensitivity, it's usually the whites that are causing the problem. I don't think that's what happened with me. I can eat those liquid egg whites no problem.
I also have no problem with egg sandwiches from Burger King and Dunkin' Donuts, which both use a pasteurized liquid egg product, the kind you pour out of a carton.
I'm able to eat egg sandwiches from McDonald's with no problems as well, which initially confused me. I used to be a grill cook at McDonald's and had personally cracked thousands of white eggs on breakfast shifts. I assumed they still used fresh whole eggs, and had originally written here that perhaps McDonald's just went through so many eggs that they never got the chance to get old.
But a reader clued me in that McDonald's now also uses liquid packaged eggs! (I'm not sure why I didn't look this up myself while writing this post instead of just assuming that everything was still the same as when I worked there several decades ago. I guess I didn't want to admit that I'm that old!!)
Sure enough, McDonald's now uses liquid eggs in some of its breakfast menu items, but not all.
Basically, if you get an Egg McMuffin, that egg was a whole egg cracked onto the grill. If you get scrambled eggs, those are made from packaged liquid eggs, but are cooked right there on the grill.
The folded eggs that are used on biscuit sandwiches are also liquid eggs, but they were cooked off-site and frozen, and then heated up on the grill at McDonald's. And lastly, the eggs in their breakfast burritos are made from liquid eggs that are cooked off-site, and then microwaved at McDonald's.
So if you have issues with fresh eggs but not packaged liquid eggs, choose accordingly!
Old Eggs
As eggs age, they develop sulfur, and I'm guessing that that's the key here for me (and it's only a guess-I am very much not a doctor!). Really really old, rotten eggs smell overwhelmingly like sulfur, but it takes a long time for an egg to get to that point. There's an in-between point where they don't smell like sulfur yet, but they're no longer fresh.
You can get a clue as to how old an egg is based on whether it floats, stands, or sinks in water. As an egg ages, its protective membrane gets weaker, and air gets inside. A fresh egg will sink, an older egg will stand on end, and a really old egg will float (doesn't mean that that egg isn't safe, it's just old).
According to the USDA, which regulates eggs, the "use by" date can be as long as 45 days after the egg was packed (and they don't seem to define how long the egg can hang around the farm before being packed, either!):
Terminology such as "Use by", "Use before", "Best before" indicates a period that the eggs should be consumed before overall quality diminishes. Code dating using these terms may not exceed 45 days including the day the eggs were packed into the carton.
But here is a factory egg on the left and an expensive farm-fresh egg on the right. Both sank. So if age really is the culprit, we're talking about an amount of time that's a lot smaller than this test can determine.
If I had the patience, I would buy several dozen eggs with the same dates and eat one a day until I got sick, to determine how old an egg could be before it affected me. But I don't see myself doing that any time soon. I buy a dozen eggs from pastured hens each week, and I use the leftovers from the week before for hard-boiled eggs or baking.
Restaurants
I can no longer eat eggs at any old restaurant. Diner and coffee shop eggs have made me sick.
Sometimes if I'm at a really nice restaurant I'll grill my server on how fresh the eggs are (yes, I've had to become that person) and get some, but usually, I just skip them.
As I mentioned before, fast food egg sandwiches seem to agree with me just fine. I cannot, however, eat breakfast sandwiches from our local bagel place, which really bums me out, because we order from there almost every weekend. I tried it twice, and felt sick both times.
Why Write Now?
So why am I writing about this today of all days? Because I'm still getting tripped up by this and did it to myself again yesterday!
I made fresh pasta the way I always make fresh pasta: one egg per person. And since I was making a large amount of pasta and meatballs, I had to send my husband to the store for a couple cartons of eggs. Cheap, factory eggs, because that's what he buys. And since I wasn't cracking the eggs into a pan and eating them right away, it totally didn't occur to me that I needed to use the good eggs!!!
I had two big bowls of pasta last night and then went to bed. I woke up several times last night with reflux and I felt terrible. Feverish and crampy and nauseous.
I woke up this morning thinking it was just the red sauce, which always gives me trouble if I eat it too late. But as the day wore on I felt worse and worse. I asked my husband if he felt OK. I was scared to ask our dinner guests from the night before if they felt sick. Had I poisoned our friends somehow?
And then my back started to hurt and I realized what was going on. Crap.
The good news is (besides the fact that I didn't sicken my friends and family with a pasta dinner somehow), I know that I should feel fine by this time tomorrow.
So what can you do?
If you suspect that you have an intolerance to eggs, I suggest you do on purpose what I did accidentally: stop eating them and see how you feel.
If you feel better, try eating them very well cooked, like in baked goods and hard-boiled eggs. Try liquid eggs. Find really fresh eggs and see if those are OK. Try brown eggs. Try white eggs. Try eggs from pastured chickens that eat grubs all day. See what happens.
Just make sure you give it enough time between so that you know for sure what is affecting you. It takes me about two days to recover after eating eggs that don't agree with me, so if you're testing, you should probably give yourself three days to see if the symptoms go away.
Good luck!
I've just eaten scrambled eggs and nearly threw up. This hasn't happened for a while and I eat eggs usually once a week. The upset tummy has started over the last couple of years and like many of you, has me confused. After reading a few articles this morning, some interesting comments refer to the gallbladder! I found out this week that I have a gallstone, following a painful attack. My gallbladder has already been removed, but stones can still occur. So, I'm thinking that there is a relationship between eggs and gallstones. Gallstones grow from excess cholesterol and 1 egg yolk has half of recommended daily allowance of cholesterol! Curious.
You might be right about the last comment, at least for me. I'm 49 and I believe my cholesterol level is too high now. It would explain why I also had the same stomach problems when I eat fried shrimp which are very high in cholesterol.
Keep in mind that shrimp raises high-density lipoprotein (HDL) by about 12% (the good cholesterol) but at the same time it raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL) (bad cholesterol) by about 7%.
This post speaks to me so much. About 9 years ago sometimes I got horrible stomach and back pain and diaherra would follow it soon. It took me awhile to realize it was the eggs I ate for breakfast every Friday. I initially thought it was because the eggs were from my Aunt's chickens and not the store.
I soon just decided it was scrambled eggs so I went to eating fried eggs.
Fast forward to a year ago and fried eggs bother me as well. I like them over easy or medium. Deviled eggs, boiled eggs, and eggs cooked in food still dont bother me. I'm going to try some farm fresh and see if that helps. I really miss eggs. Thanks for sharing your story.
I have the exact same problem. Had eggs this morning and feeling sick within an hour.
It comes and goes with me/ Think I'll give up fresh eggs entirely as I'm not bothered buying and doing the age test.
I'll keep baking but I bake for others so no worries for me.
Thanks for your post. Good to know it's not just me.
I’ve had this issues for years. Finally figured it out it was eggs. The pain is caused by an “allergic reaction” from your gall bladder.
I'd heard that it could have something to do with my gallbladder as well, so I crossed my fingers that the problem would go away when I had my gallbladder out a few years ago. Nope, I still have the same issue!
that's the trouble with taking the gallbladder out. symptoms can still persist. bile still gets produced when we eat cholesterol/fat food. it just leaks into the gut instead of being stored and released as needed.
Wow! You described my condition exactly. Nice to know I'm not the only one. I'm 47 and male. This hasn't always been the case, just maybe the last 8 years. I can't drink milk anymore either.
I was searching for a nsmed medical condition for this when I found this blog.
Thanks
I know you posted this awhile ago, but know that you are not crazy! store bought eggs make me soooooo sick (like food poisoning sick.) but if I buy local farm fresh eggs, I am fine!
The cheaper they are (Aldi .50/dozen) the worse they make me feel! I have absolutely no idea why, but red meat makes me ill as well. I wonder if grass fed local beef would be OK.
I also wonder if it isn't a reaction to the hormones/chemicals/antibiotics they feed their chickens, that aren't getting fed to my friend's chickens, or the local farm.
My symptoms are a lot like your when I eat eggs. I literally feel like I'm getting the flu and am sick for about 2 days. And as I found out from making cornbread with eggs last night it doesn't matter if I bake them into something or scramble them. I really wish the fresh egg approch worked for me but as my eggs are literally straight out of my backyard chickens I know that's not my problem. :(
Oh that stinks! I'm so sorry.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this yet, but many of you may have a genetic CBS snp that makes it difficult for you to process sulfur foods.
I was made to eat eggs as a small child and threw up / got headaches every time. It was no surprise when I found out I have a homozygous CBS and heterozygous CBS mutation.
No, I know nothing about that! But I will definitely start googling! I guess that couldn't be the case for me though, right, if I developed this after 40? Or could that still be it?
First thank you... I also suffer with eating eggs. I have some ideas to try now... but in regards to genetics/ DNA/ genes... the mutation could have been “turned on” so to speak when you reached 40... weirdest thing is that is when my problem started too
This reminds me of a meme I saw on Facebook today: "Welcome to your forties! If you don't have a random ailment, one will be assigned to you soon."
Oh my gosh. My egg issues started at 40, too. Sheesh. I think we’ve found the real culprit ;)
Thank you for this article Amy!
I'm not sure the "difficult to process sulfur foods" is the main problem, but it's possible to play a part. If sulfur was the case alone other foods such as garlic, leeks, chives, onions, cheese, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale ect. would all cause the same problems because of their sulfur. I do think that some changes in genetics/ DNA/ genes can happen with age and life changes such as stress. So this theory digesting sulfur may still have some bases for those people with issues in the metabolism of sulfur amino acids, but what about those that don't have a sulfur problem?
As for myself, like many people here, McDonalds eggs don't bother me. Does that mean their eggs are more fresh from the carton and void of air contact and possible salmonella contamination? If I buy white eggs from the grocery store the smell alone will make me feel sick when scrambled in a pan. I find that some brands of brown eggs don't bother me at all. I also figured out that some brands of mayo with extra eggs added can make me feel nauseous. I've played around with all the different types of eggs and pretty much I just avoid them now, and not worth the risk when I don't have control over the egg variables.
If I had to recall when this started for me, I would say in my 40's, as others have said here. So does that mean this a DNA change that makes this happen? Or could it be something else such as medications we are taking for blood sugars, cholesterol or high blood pressure. Another theory I have is the egg found in flu shots, thus creating a negative response from our immune systems, and it sounds logical, but no studies that back this up. About 30 years ago I was chatting with my grandfather and he talked about eating so many eggs once when he was a kid that he got very sick and after that he couldn't eat them anymore. So what would cause this egg protein to trigger a violent response from the body? Still with all that said maybe this is nothing more than a DNA change when we get older, much like milk for babies, but as adults with lactose intolerance it's not so great. Enjoy those eggs while you can kids, because you never know! ;)
So hard to figure out because it's so different for everyone! But one thing I know doesn't play a part for me is medication. Aside from an occasional Tylenol or Advil, I take absolutely no medication.
I stumbled upon this website because I am currently feeling nauseous after eating some eggs. This isn't the first time it has happened but because I haven't eaten any eggs in a few weeks, I've come to realize that this sick feeling is most definitely associated with the eggs. A couple weeks ago I have been strictly eating bagels or just coffee because I didn't have the time to cook breakfast. Well, today I decided to cook up some eggs (with nothing else) and bam.. I felt immediately nauseous. What makes this so interesting is that I too am 40 and will be 41 in a couple months. McDonald's breakfast sandwiches don't make me sick either. Ugh! What gives? This is so frustrating.
It is frustrating, but at least it looks like you identified the issue! And if you're like me (it sounds like you are), you'll be able to find eggs that work for you at home, you'll just have to be careful in restaurants.
I have never in my 53 years been allergic to eggs. I have eaten eggs from the farmer's market for at least five years. The last year I switched to pasture fed organic eggs from the market. I ate two hard boiled eggs in August and got sick as a dog. Two weeks ago I ate two at lunch and had to be rushed to ER. Last Saturday I had scrambled eggs and I did fine. It appears I can have fried and scrambled eggs and do fine, but not boiled eggs. I'm so confused why and why all of a sudden. Aging is stupid!
OMG, that's so confusing, it's the opposite of me!
Hi I discovered I couldnt eat eggs about two years ago. I love eggs and I miss eggs. I get terrible bowel issues everytime. Yesterday I ate some potato salad with eggs and im staying paying the price.
Ive tried eggs from the farmers market and i still gor sick. I usually can eat just egg whites and nothing happens but sometimes I still feel a little off.
Whats really strange is on our yearly trip to Cuba I can eat as many eggs as I want and because I know this I pretty much have an egg fest! I get to eat the most delicious omlets and the creamiest scrambled eggs. I eat them non stop the whole week and I feel fabulous!
I dont understand why I cant find an egg in Canada but Cuban eggs are fine.
Whoa, that's so weird! I'm going to ask on social if anyone I know has any idea what the big difference could be in Cuban eggs.
First off thank you Amy for posting the egg issue, and all of you who added more info via comments. Has any info been found out on difference with Cuban eggs?
For me, it seems to be all pastured eggs. I made the mistake of trying again tonight when i read a book that insisted free rqmge eggs fed all vegetarian feed were bad for you. So i gave up my wonderful (moderately expensive) Nellies eggs which never make me sick and tried a (very expensive) local pastured eggs from whole foods. Had one egg at 2pm Cooked as always and 9 pm sick as a dog. Ruined my fluid volume experiment too. Before i found Nellies there were some commercial brqnds that may have done it too, but pasturesd eggs 100 percent effect. Just thought of something - pasturesd eggs (chickens) arent contaminated with milk proteins are they? I react to milk. In terms of other pastured animals, oddly the chickens themselves are totally fine pastured. But pastured beef gets me sick too and pastures lamb tends to as well. Man what are those animals grazing on for ne to react that way?
Oh no! I'm not sure about the proteins, but I say if you find something that works, stick to it like glue.
Oh my gosh, this article answers so many of my questions. I had the exact same symptoms but I figured out it was eggs pretty quickly. It was strange though because sometimes I didn’t get sick at all, sometimes I was so nauseous and crampy that I couldn’t move. Eggs baked into things were fine, but eggs on their own were dangerous. Last week I went to Germany to visit a friend, and when offered eggs I declined, telling her about my issues. She suggested I try German eggs because they don’t spray them with the bleach solution they use in the states (and also don’t need to refrigerate them). I ate eggs every day that I was there and never got sick. I’m determined to try farm-fresh eggs now at home and see how I feel!
Oh good luck, I really hope that's the answer for you!! I eat 3 or 4 eggs every single day and I would be so sad without them.
I have a similar problem but a bit different. It could be an egg age thing but I don't know. I've narrowed down my Digestive problem to eggs, but I have been getting them fresh for quite a while now from a distant neighbor. I don't know her except that she sells eggs from her farm. It doesn't seem to matter that I get them fresh, I still get sick. I did notice that if I add water to them, as in when I make an omelet, I don't get sick. Has anyone noticed this? The last two times I added water I didn't get sick. Today I purposely didn't and I'm sick. Maybe a change in chemical makeup??
Oh wow, that's so weird! I have no idea!
I made this discovery a few years ago!!! The egg feeling is awful. But fresh organic eggs seem to not kill me as long as they’re cooked really well.
I have the same problem that whenever I eat fresh eggs... I feel fine, but whenever I eat eggs that are older... I get really bad indigestion. I discovered this 5 years ago. To counteract my symptoms, "Personally" I take activated charcoal capsules and drink lots of water. I have read that both organic farms and conventional farms "May" sanitize their eggs with chlorine or a(n) UV light. I have a sensitivity to chlorine but have no reaction to sulfur (According to my tests). Egg shells are like the skins of humans and can absorb any type of odor near it.