When eggs taste too much like eggs

An investigation into a phenomenon plaguing the nation

Have you ever eaten an egg and felt nauseous after? Have you ever taken one bite of scrambled eggs and been unable to continue? Do you ever have a weird poop after eating eggs? Do you go through months of eating eggs perfectly normally and then suddenly have to stop eating eggs for a few months, before returning to them as normal? If any of these apply to you, then you may be entitled to financial compensation.

It’s time we talk about eggs, one of the greatest food enigmas. Eggs are ultimately an insane food: a clear goop with a yellow, thicker goop in the middle, enrobed in a thin, delicate shell. When cooked, they turn into a more solid goop. If they are not cooked, they sometimes turn into a living animal.

I don’t have a problem with the concept of eating eggs, but I have a problem with the fact that hundreds of people sometimes feel a lil funny after eating eggs. Thousands of people stop eating an egg mid-bite because it “tastes too much like egg" and no one knows what's happening.

Let’s investigate.

Personally, I like eggs, but sometimes I'm nauseated by them. Sometimes they hit the spot and other times they give me digestive issues. In general, the earlier in the morning I eat an egg, the worse I feel. And, this one’s pretty weird, if I drink a glass of water while eating an egg, and I come back to the water later, it smells terrible to me. That one might just be a me problem, but I'm grateful to know I’m not alone in this journey. 

There are dozens of TikToks of people reenacting the moment while eating eggs when "it starts tasting too much like eggs." Anecdotally, I know friends and family members who have this same tumultuous relationship with the humble egg. I gathered some data (ran a Twitter poll) about the issue, and out of 64 votes, 70% of people expressed some issue with eggs; 50% responded that they have a love/hate relationship, and 20% responded “literally nauseating.” My friend Sabine said “like once a year for a 2 month stretch yeah egg yolks are too weird and strong in animal flavor and I can’t bear them.”

Strong animal flavor might be what we’re talking about here. Can eggs be “gamey?” Chefs on TV are always describe meat from boar and elk as “gamey” and I don’t really know what that means because I don’t think I’ve ever had gamey meat. But maybe eggs are gamey?

It’s hard to find information on this egg issue because in general, food media loves eggs. For years now, food publications have been frothing at the mouth over the perfect "jammy egg" or poached egg with a runny yolk. They put it on burgers (terrible), avocado toast (poop city), pizza (no comment), and all kinds of other foods. But I've come to realize a lot of people don't feel this rapturous about eggs, or at least not all the time.

TV personality and Flavortown mayor Guy Fieri infamously hates eggs. He’s the only food personality I’ve seen that literally refuses to eat eggs. He’ll visit a restaurant on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and have the chef make their signature dish without the egg! It’s insane that someone can sell something called “donkey sauce” and not eat a humble egg, and yet I respect it. He’s not in the pocket of Big Egg.

In the era when I still enjoyed watching Bon Appetit’s (cursed) YouTube content, I remember seeing a video where all the test kitchen staff had to show their favorite way to cook eggs. All these little cooks are making hard-boiled eggs with “jammy” yolks and poached eggs and soft slow scrambled eggs.

Priya Krishna is the only one in this video who bravely admits to not like egg yolks, instead sharing her childhood snack of hard boiled egg whites with salt and pepper. “The yolk just tasted so intense and eggy to us,” she said of not liking yolks as a kid. 

I tried doing some research online but it’s hard to google things like “eggs make me feel weird sometimes.” Most of the answers that come up claim an egg allergy. This doesn’t feel right, because it seems weird that so many people would have an undiagnosed egg allergy that only occurs sometimes. 

Someone on the cooking subreddit asked “Eggs make me very nauseous but only under certain circumstances?” to which one commenter replied “psychological.” Another commenter with the username chickenmonkeypenis also had a sassy response which I’ve pasted below mostly because their handle is chickenmonkeypenis.

I found a long and exhaustive blog post from 2014 called “Some eggs are making me sick, and I figured out why!” on a blog called Amy Ever After. This woman went as far as getting blood and stool tests from her doctor, which leads me to believe her reaction was stronger than most people’s. Amy figured out that eggs make her feel bad, sometimes for days. But hard boiled eggs felt fine, as did fresh brown eggs and egg whites. I didn't get the sense that she actually figured out why.

This leads me to my main theory, which is that commercial, mass produced eggs are what make people feel weird. I have no evidence to back this up, except for the fact that these are the eggs most people are buying. Commercial farming is weird and fucked up so it wouldn’t surprise me if the eggs are too. 

Once I bought a cartoon of eggs from Giant Eagle and four of the eggs had a double yolk. An egg with a double yolk is supposed to be good luck but four is certainly a curse. Maybe it's the same reason that I don't like buying chicken from Aldi and prefer to get more organic and local chicken from the farmer's mark or co-op. Maybe we could all feel better if we only got our eggs from a very local organic farmer with happy little free roaming eggs. 

Or maybe the answer is that eggs, like people, can be both beautiful and disgusting.