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!
Mayonaise, Tartar sauce omg those are the worst for me, and any eggs where the yolk isnt fully cooked. YUCK :(
Dear Amy, I started having problems with eggs after a car accident when I was in my mid forties. I am now 66. Ever since I started puberty, I noticed that I felt better if I didn't eat food. I also realized after I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in my 40's that I got more and more food sensitivities after every physical or emotional trauma. I also have to be very careful with FODMAPs. I don't know if certain eggs are okay for me because I don't have the nerve to experiment. Nutrient deficiencies are now plaguing me because of dietary restrictions. i cannot take vitamin supplements because of migraine headache with B vitamins. I have sensitivities to sulfa drugs and other sulfur containing foods. I am also a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and have a history of abuse by personality disordered people in my past. I have said all this because it is all related....one thing leads to another. I don't now if I have the genetic component associated with sulfur, it is something I will have to talk about with my doctor. Emotional, mental, physical...all are related. I miss eggs desperately sometimes! Thank you for this article.
I'm so sorry to hear that, that all sounds awful. And yes, I totally agree that many of these things are related. I've heard so many stories from people who have multiple sensitivities and diseases. I'm extremely lucky that I only have a few things going on (dairy, eggs, and no gallbladder). It's easier for me to figure out what is affecting what.
Thankyou so much for this article ive recently been experiencing this too on holiday with cooked eggs in omelettes! So annoying as I really like them but the pain isnt worth it. So glad it isnt just me haha this article helped a lot thanks
Kathleen & Amy, I can relate though my experience does not seem to be as extreme. I developed food sensitivities around around the same time as I was processing trauma. But I also realized these “new” sensitivities were really things that my body always had an aversion too, but tolerated well enough to remain sub-conscious (eggs, fructans, lavender, mold, dust mites, etc). HSPs go through life on a balance beam and trauma can make it feel like a tight rope or a thread. Just feeding yourself can feel monumental. But I’m grateful to people sharing tricks (like the age of eggs, avoiding scrambled eggs) to help avoid unnecessary stresses and solve some mysteries. Thanks Amy! And others can learn from what highly sensitive people are reacting to, because chances are, your body is affected by those things as well, just not as obviously. Take care all!
I'm so glad you've found some help here!! And your comment makes me wonder if I was having less noticeable symptoms before this hit, that maybe just blended in with my lactose intolerance.
Interesting that it took me so long to find your blog. Yes, I've had this exact problem for 10 years (I'm 62), and figured out that farm-fresh eggs are the only kind I can tolerate.
The thing I've noticed about the mass produced eggs is the metallic taste, no matter how they are prepared.
Thanks, Amy. That’s sort of what I was afraid of. I do hope you will find something that will work. Well, back to the old drawing board!
Hi. Thank you so much for this article! I found it very revealing, as I have become intolerant to eggs I buy at the store. Mainly they cause gastric problems, like stomach pain, diarrhea and nausea. I haven’t noticed fever, back pain or brain fog. It doesn’t matter how I fix them—hard boiled, scrambled, over easy, etc. BUT I CAN eat egg sandwiches from McDonald’s and Bojangles, no problem. Same thing with some diners I have eaten at, and eggs used in baking gives me no problems. I haven’t tried brown eggs yet. Truth be told, I’m too chicken (pun not intended!), because the potential gastric problems caused by eating store-bought eggs is too much for me. I haven’t tried farm fresh eggs, either, for the same reason. There is too much randomness in what the chickens eat and drink for me to spend that much money and effort with (possibly painful) trial and error going from farm to farm. Is there a brand or type of egg that can be poured from a carton that is known to be safe for those with egg intolerance?
That's so weird because as far as I know, McDonald's restaurants use real, whole eggs! As far as the carton stuff, I only know what's "safe" for me, from my own experience. What I've learned from years of comments on this post is that so many people have different reactions, it might be impossible for you to find out without experimenting, which just sucks, I know.
Hi, Amy! Thanks for replying. Yeah, that does suck, as I am allergic to pain! Lol! I guess I just don’t have the patience for all the trial and error or the tolerance for the pain that experimenting would probably bring. I live with chronic pain from back injury on a daily basis, so any added pain is something I want to avoid if possible. And eating eggs isn’t a necessity for me, but I sure would enjoy having them from time to time! Maybe a liquid egg substitute, like Egg Beaters? I don’t know how much like egg that stuff tastes, but it might be better than the alternative.
My problem with products like Egg Beaters is that they're all egg white with no yolk, so they just don't taste good. I would love to find a liquid egg product like Burger King uses, that's the whole egg. Those taste great! I looked a few years ago but gave up. If I find one I'll definitely post it!!
Thank you Amy! I should have googled this issue years ago. I had figured out that hard boiled eggs don’t bother me and eggs baked in a breakfast casserole or quiche don’t bother me either. While my symptoms are not as severe as yours I had come to realize that eating eggs was always a gamble and I needed to be very careful about when I eat them. When I make eggs over medium of scrambled at home I almost always have trouble later in the day. I thought it was the cooking time or maybe the egg plus butter combination that was the problem but I have had Eggs Benedict for brunch at a restaurant with no issues so I was stumped. I think the age/quality of the eggs is probably the issue. As a side note I had not realized until reading your post that a bacon egg and cheese biscuit from McDonald’s has never given me trouble so I will now order that guilty pleasure without hesitation.
I'm so glad my post could help! After I figured it out, I did wonder if I'd been having milder symptoms for a longer time, but I'm also lactose-intolerant so all the different stomach upsets can be difficult to sort out. Enjoy the McDonald's sandwich! (Can't remember if I mentioned it in the post, but Burger King and Dunkin' Donuts eggs also don't bother me at all.)
Ugh. Just got home from breakfast, had quiche and knew I had to take a nap to get rid of this terrible feeling.
I did a crazy very restrictive diet a few years back and at first you couldn’t have eggs, but it was one of the first proteins you were allowed to add back in. I’d missed my eggs for breakfast so much! So the first day I could have eggs I made this huge omelette with tons of veggies and ugh I felt SO sick afterwards...I just blamed it on over eating after being so restricted. Well next time I ate eggs same thing. For me the feeling is almost flu like symptoms achy lethargic and just down right crummy. The more I thought about it I started to realize it had been this way for awhile and I just always tried to blame other factors i.e. the greasy bacon or just plain over eating. But in baked goods it never seemed to bother me at all.
We grew up with chickens and always had fresh eggs. I love eggs so haven’t completely given them up. Once I realized the eggs were the problem at first I tended to really limit them and noticed it was hit or miss whether or not I’d feel sick and as time has passed I tend to eat them more often again. Mostly without issue, ugh but today was terrible and got me to googling and led me to your blog. The age of the egg never occurred to me to be a factor, or the brown or white or free range, etc. But even after today’s feeling awful experience this gives me hope to keep trying and some ways to experiment! Thankfully I have learned that for me the only way to kick the terrible feeling is with a nap. Thanks for sharing your experience!
I know this is an older post but I have issues with eggs "sometimes" usually hard boiled ones, causes me cramping and upper abdominal stomach pains. I ran across an article that stated it could be a gallbladder issue. Your gallbladder might have a harder time breaking down the egg components and thus causing pain and other problems.
Unfortunately that's not the case with me. The problem started when I had my gallbladder, but continued after I had my gallbladder out (I was hoping that would be the end of it, too). Hopefully that info can help someone else though!
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.
it has long been known that there are 4 F's of gallbladder disease: Female Forty Fertile Fat. this may address a lot of 40 y.o that are noticing a change in their dietary intolerances. another F was added: Fair. not sure about that as many dark skinned people have this problem. but 40 is a sure thing.
For myself I have found that the yolk is the issue. A fully cooked yolk gives me no issues but even a hit of liquid and it makes me sick. To scramble eggs I usually have to scramble them until almost brown. Fried eggs the same. Hard boiled no issues, soft boiled deadly.
I have the same problem with eggs that are not hard-boiled or scrambled. posted my story. I'm fine with casseroles or thoroughly cooked eggs.
Okay.. i have the same issue but for me, i noticed that when i eat brown eggs (the ones i get for the kids are organic cage-free) i Always get sick!! Even mixed up into cake or food.. but when i eat WHiTE eggs.. i am totally fine!!!! So weird and i cant find an explanation why!
I also have issues eating some eggs. I can eat hard boiled eggs fine and I can eat products containing eggs but if it’s scrambled it gives me the same queasy feeling as drinking milk because I’m lactose intolerant. Not that the two are related but it’s a mystery to me. Maybe it has to do with the yolk and how it’s cooked???
Oh my gosh, I'm almost in tears reading all of this! I've been having this problem for years and couldn't pin it down. And the odd back ache that comes with it made it even more of a mystery. But now that I think about it, most of the days that I have that crummy, sick feeling are on Saturdays, and my husband cooks breakfast on Saturdays, of mostly bacon and eggs. Duh, Karen! Thank you so much for bringing this to light. I have neighbors with chickens and I'm going to go bum some fresh ones and see how I do with them. Otherwise, I hate it but I'm giving up eggs!
Trust me, I know the "duh" feeling you're talking about. It seems obvious after you figure it out, but nobody talks about egg sensitivity! It's all about dairy and gluten.
I disscovered this problem on a cruise. I had been having the big (D) for weeks...Had the pleasant hat tests..Even went to the ER and ultimately a GI doctor to be told I ave viral induced IBS. I had been feeling oK...thought I had stuff under contrl and the on the cruise I had scrambled eggs the first two days and got that old sick feeling and the bid D just like it was before. I have experimented a little but that seems to be the culprit. But like you said..I don't think it is all eggs. at chic fil a I had the sandwich with mayo and some of the sauces with eggs...no problem. made my own fried chicken with egg wash to coat...that old feeling returned. I will have to do some more experimenting. I miss my eggs.
This is such a late comment but I'm really glad I came upon this article. I've noticed lately how whenever I eat fried eggs (medium well I think it's called lol) I get an upset stomach to where it almost stops me from going about my day. If I eat scrambled or hard boiled I'm fine. My brother thought maybe he just needed to cook the eggs more well done if they're fried and that didn't work either so I'm thinking you're right and the eggs need to be super fresh. Thanks again! I'm Glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this about themselves.
I learned I had this problem when I was on some back medication that advised "not to be eaten on an empty stomach". I had brunch at my father's place and my stomach felt like cement for the next six hours. I noticed some of the same triggers: undercooked eggs are more likely to cause it than hardboiled eggs, and I've pretty much had to give up eggs since. This weekend my uncle mentioned something about this not being an issue with farm fresh eggs, and that her daughter (genetics!) had the same issue until she switched to farm fresh eggs, where the protective exterior keeps the air out. She also mentioned that when in Europe (where they don't scrub the protective exterior) she never has problems with eggs. I've also been told the egg whites are the issue and not the yolks, but to be honest I don't even like yolks so yolk-only isn't really an option for me.