A Harvard medical student recently completed an intriguing “eggxperiment” by eating a total of 720 chicken eggs over 28 days to test their effect on his bad cholesterol.

Eggs have long had a bad reputation for raising LDL (low-density lipoprotein) or ‘bad’ cholesterol, and even though that perception of the protein-rich food has changed in recent years, many health experts still warn that eggs should be consumed in moderation. However, the results of a recent experiment are bound to once again spark a heated debate around the effects of consuming eggs on a daily basis. Nick Horowitz, a Harvard medical student with a PhD in metabolic health, set out on an extreme experiment to find out what the effects of eating an egg every hour for 28 straight days would have on his health. Not only did he survive the challenge, but the results of his tests during the unusual diet were surprising, to say the least.

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Photos of white-yolk boiled eggs have gone viral on Japanese social media, with thousands of people asking whether they are real or just digitally altered.

It all started with an X (Twitter) post by Tsuda Junko, the editor-in-chief of the online magazine Design no Hikidashi, featuring a photo of a boiled egg cut in half. It doesn’t sound like the most exciting post ever, but it ended up going viral for a very intriguing reason – the cooked yolk was about as white as the egg white around it. Junko himself expressed his astonishment, claiming he had heard about this variety of Okinawa eggs with white yolk but never imagined it could be this white.

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A Chinese woman stunned the internet with photos of a 20-year-old boiled egg that she had preserved as a young girl and then forgotten about. It has fossilized and now resembles a ruby.

The woman, surnamed Fu, posted photos of the fossilized egg on Chinese social media platform Douban, where they quickly attracted people’s attention and went viral. It wasn’t long before mainstream news outlets started contacting her about the unique egg, wanting to know its story. Apparently, the woman’s mother bought it for her 20 years ago, when she was still in primary school, because it was unusually small in size. Her mother boiled it for her to eat at school, but after storing it in a side pocket of her backpack, she forgot about it for three days and dared not eat if after that, thinking it had spoiled. But she didn’t want to throw the delicate egg away either, so she put it on top of their refrigerator and completely forgot about it for a couple of months.

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A landfill near the small city of Marneuli, in Georgia, recently turned into a chick hatchery, after the scorching heat caused hundreds of spoiled eggs disposed of by a local poultry farm to hatch.

A video posted on Sunday by Facebook user Sahid Bayramov shows the landfill crawling with cute yellowish chicks chirping continuously and looking for their mother. Also visible in the video is a large pile of eggs which is presumably where all the tiny birds came from. As you can imagine, the video quickly went viral on social media, before being picked up by national and international media.

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A video doing the rounds on Chinese social media these days shows chicks hatching in the back of a truck stacked with egg cartons as it’s driving around on what must have been a very hot day.

Ever hear the phrase “it’s so hot outside, you could hatch a chicken egg”? Me neither, but it’s apparently a thing that can happen, at least judging by this viral video from China. It shows a truck carrying dozens of egg cartons, and chicks literally hatching from the eggs as it’s driving along. It’s only a few seconds long, but you can clearly see at least five hatched chicks, as well as some tiny feet breaking through the egg shells and some empty shells.

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Only in Japan can you find strange foods like garlic flavored cola, deep-fried maple leaves, and delicious water cake, but citrus-scented eggs are pretty strange, even by its standards. And yet these fruit-smelling eggs do exist thanks to a producer in Kochi Prefecture, in the southwest corner of Shikoku island.

The special eggs, called ‘yuzu tama’, supposedly smell and taste like yuzu – one of Japan’s most loved citrus fruits. A yuzu looks like a wrinkly cross between a lemon and an orange and tastes like a combination of grapefruit and mandarin. It grows in abundance in Kochi and is used widely in Japanese cuisine.

Surprisingly, the yuzu tama don’t contain any chemical additives or flavorings. They are produced merely by feeding chickens copious amounts of yuzu peel, along with kale, non-GMO corn and sesame seeds. The resultant eggs don’t look very different from regular eggs, but they supposedly smell tantalizingly citrusy, even before they’re cracked open.

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72-year-old Howard Helmer can produce a delicious gourmet omelette faster than anyone else in the world. Over the years, he’s managed to hang on to two Guinness World Records – one for the fastest omelette (in 39 seconds) and the other for turning out a whopping 427 omelettes in 30 minutes.

In every demonstrative video he makes, Helmer shares his secret – he mixes two eggs with two tablespoons of water, and fries them in a 10-inch omelette pan. His routine goes something like this: “Butter in the pan – two eggs and two tablespoons of water – bring the cooked egg to the center of the pan and tilt the pan so that the raw egg finds some base to cook on until there’s no more runny egg but the egg is still very moist on top. In goes some cheese, some spinach, fold the omelette in half, and then the whole thing goes upside down on your plate.”

Helmer’s association with eggs actually began 42 years ago, when he took up a job at the American Egg Board, writing copy about the wonders of chicken eggs. Since then, he has promoted eggs at country fairs, restaurant conventions, culinary schools, and on national television. Over the years, he’s also worked with famous chefs and taught movie stars to make omelettes.

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It amazes me how some people will eat anything. Especially if that anything happens to be disgusting-looking. If you are like me and can’t even eat eggs that are a wee bit undercooked, I must warn you to read this article with caution. What’s coming next is not pretty. We bring you the three most revolting egg dishes in the world.

Century Eggs

These preserved eggs aren’t exactly a century old, but judging by how they look I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. The slimy, grayish yolks and the herbal tea colored ‘egg-white’ makes these snacks quite nauseating to even look at. And yet, the Century Eggs, also known as Preserved Egg or Thousand-Year Egg, is considered a delicacy in China. They are prepared by taking fresh duck, chicken or quail eggs and preserving them for several weeks in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime and rice. The 600-year-old process is said to have been invented when someone came across a few old eggs in a pool of slaked lime. Instead of just tossing them out, they actually tasted the eggs and then made modifications to the recipe. And that’s how modern-day century eggs were born.

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Just when you think you’ve seen everything, along comes another mind-boggling art form that you didn’t think existed and probably never even imagined. This time it’s embroidered eggs.

I can say I’ve seen my share of wonderful Easter egg artworks, including intricate eggshell sculptures, colorful Easter Egg mosaics, an Easter Egg Tree and even an Easter Egg theme park, but I had never seen something as beautiful and original as these embroidered eggs. It’s something I know I will never be able to do, but like Mary Corbett says, it’s amazing to know someone out there did do it.

I know they look pretty unbelievable, and at first glance you’d be tempted to think the embroidered motifs are done separately and glued on the eggs, but after taking a closer look you notice the holes, and realize these are real embroidered eggs. I don’t know who invented this incredible technique, but I’m pretty sure they require years of practice and a lot of patience to create. So, even though Easter 2011 is behind us, you can start practicing now, and you might just have something to brag about to your friends, next year.

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Gary LeMaster has to be one of the world’s most gifted sculptors. After all, how many people can take an egg and turn it into an intricate and detailed work of art?

Born in New Zealand, where his father, a US soldier, was stationed at the time, Gary showed a passion for the arts, at a very young age. After the family moved to the States, he grew up learning how to use tools, and do woodworking alongside his father, while, at the same time, learning to appreciate fine arts, from his mother, a talented ballet dancer. It was his mother’s guidance that got him a scholarship in music at the University of Iowa, which he turned down to pursue a teaching degree in history and English. Although he practiced drawing with pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, the fact that he was color-blind made Gary LeMaster think his visual art was limited, and that he wasn’t good enough for art school.

After enrolling in several school programs and obtaining numerous degrees, he decided it was time he took some art courses at the University of Iowa, where he enjoyed every class he took. Although Gary regretted not turning to the arts to begin with, his graduate art courses helped take his drawing skills to a whole other level, which proved to be very important in his career as a professional eggshell sculptor.

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While anything boiled and soaked in boys’ urine doesn’t sound tasty at all, Virgin Eggs are considered a Spring delicacy, in China’s Zhejiang Province.

In most places, Spring is all about the smell of blooming flowers, but in Chinese cities like Dongyang, the streets reek of urine. No, the smell doesn’t come from drunk people reliving themselves in dark corners and back alleys, but from the large pots of Virgin Eggs. Called tongzi dan (literally “boy egg) they are an old culinary tradition listed as part of the Dongyong cultural heritage, similar to tea eggs – hard boiled eggs soaked in soy sauce and vinegar. The only difference is Virgin Eggs are soaked in urine.

Vendors collect virgin boys’ urine from elementary schools around the city and use it as a main ingredient for their unusual street food. Plastic barrels are placed outside the classrooms and boys are reminded to pee in them, unless they are sick.  The pee is then used to boil eggs, their shell cracked to allow the flavour to slip through, then soaked in urine and boiled again. The whole “cooking” process takes an entire day. I know it sounds disgusting, but some people say they “have the taste of Spring”, while others claim “they’re so delicious that I could eat 10 a day”. Read More »

Wang Huaping, a Chinese artist and huge fan of football, has found a unique to celebrate the World Cup 2010. Using a fine chisel, he managed to carve the faces of famous football players on eggs.

Wang Huaping has so far carved hundreds of eggs, and is an established artist in his home city of Tianjin. Now he has extended his collection of artworks with the portraits of famous football players like Lionel Messi, David Beckham, or David Villa. He has also carved the logos and mascots of the 2010 Football World Cup.

No info about the actual carving, but this man must have a real gentle touch, if he can keep from cracking the eggs with that chisel.

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It makes sense doesn’t it? Easter is a major Christian holiday too, so it should have its own version of the popular Christmas Tree.

Strangely enough, such a thing as an Easter tree already exists, and it can be found in Germany. Around 1945, when he was just a young boy, Volker Kraft saw his very first Easter Tree (Eierbaum, Osterbaum or Ostereirbaum, in German), and decided he would have one of his very own, when he grew up. Time passed and young Volker became a married man, with a family and everything. But his childhood dream stuck with him and he decorated his first Easter Tree, in 1965. He used 18 colored plastic eggs.

But the tree was growing fast and he and his wife, Christa couldn’t afford to waste so many Easter eggs. So they began drilling holes into the eggs, using the contents in the kitchen, and the painted shells as decorations. When their children grew up, they started helping with the decorating,and the Easter Tree became a family tradition, known not only in their home town of Saalfeld, but all of Germany.

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John Lamouranne, also known as The Egg Man, has been creating celebrity egg sculptures, for over 30 years.

His career as The Egg Man begain 1978, when, during an Easter vacation to Disney World, John Lamouranne was inspired to paint a Disney character, on an egg, for his daughter. At first, he painted one egg sculptures, but after a dream, in which he himself was a tiny egg man, he began using more than one egg for his artworks.

The 63-year-old artist, from New Orleans, uses wooden or ceramic eggs for the bodies of his celebrity sculptures, and hollowed goose eggs for their heads. When needed, he builds entire sets for his creations. John Lamouranne charges between $37 and $300, and can be bought through the artist’s website, or on sites like eBay.

Photos by JEFF MOORE PHOTO via Telegraph.co.uk

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I love a good omelet and I’ve been known to gobble down boiled eggs from tme to time, but Century Eggs? No freaking way!

Known also as preserved egg, hundred-year egg, thousand-year egg or thousand-year-old egg, the Century Egg is a Chinese delicacy used in many traditional dishes. Fresh duck, chicken or quail eggs become Century Eggs after weeks, sometimes months of preservation in a mixture of clay, ash, lime, salt and rice. The process of “cooking” Century Eggs is believed to date back 600 years, when someone apparently found some old eggs preserved in a pool of slaked lime. Upon tasting them, he decided to produce some more, but this time with some added salt.

After the preservation is complete, the hull mixture and egg shell are removed to reveal the now dark-brown egg-white and a dark-green, creamy and pungent yolk.  It’s the alkaline that raises the ph of the egg from 9 to 12 or more and gives it a strong smell of ammonia and sulfur.

Century Eggs are consumed either raw, or as ingredients in other Chinese foods. There are those who associate them with smelly cheese, pungent but really delicious. Sadly there are others (myself included) who just can’t get past the disgusting colors and smell.

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