Egg in Your Coffee versus Egg Coffee

Remember in the movie Rocky when Sylvester Stallone drinks raw eggs before going out on his morning run? The rationale was that he needed all that protein because he was in training for a major boxing match. Now there is a new craze in the world of coffee. People are putting a raw egg in their coffee before going to work out. A couple of years ago it was butter coffee.

Butter coffee, also recently called bulletproof coffee, is currently the rage in some places. Butter coffee is eight ounces of freshly brewed coffee plus a teaspoonful each of unsalted butter and coconut oil. There are variations on the theme but the claim of those who like butter coffee is that it gives you more energy, helps you lose weight and avoids the ingestion of so-called inflammatory sugars. It turns out that butter coffee is not really a new idea. In Ethiopia where coffee was first discovered putting butter in freshly brewed coffee is a custom.

Whether you are putting butter and coconut oil in your coffee or a fresh egg, you are getting more calories which you had better burn off with exercise. Otherwise you are probably reducing some of the health benefits of coffee.

A downside to putting a raw egg in your coffee is that there is a risk that the raw egg contains bacteria and will make you sick. We went to Eggsafety.org for more info.

Always thoroughly cook eggs to destroy pathogens and reduce risk of illness.

These bacteria have the ability to result in human illness, and egg farmers vigilantly work to prevent them.

The bacteria that are dangerous to people and can be found in raw eggs include salmonella, bacillus cereus, campylobacter, and staphylococcus aureus. Mild infections result in mild symptoms and severe infections can result in death.

So, is it really dangerous to put a raw egg in your coffee? The point is that you need to heat the egg to a high enough temperature for long enough to kill any bacteria. That means there is less risk if you drop a raw egg into the coffee that you just made with boiling water than if you drop a raw egg into a coffee house latte or, even worse, cold brewed coffee.

But, didn’t your great grandmother make egg coffee back on the farm? When great grandma made egg coffee she boiled the coffee in a big pot and added a couple of eggs, shells and all, to the pot. The protein in the egg and the calcium in the egg shells helped buffer the bitterness of the coffee resulting in a milder brew. After boiling the heck out of the coffee and eggs there was no risk of infection from Grandma’s coffee!

Is there a nutritional difference between egg in your coffee and egg coffee? Grandma did not add enough eggs to make one per cup of coffee so, yes, there is a lot more egg, protein and calories in you cup of coffee with one egg than with the old farm egg coffee variety. But, remember that the rationale is to drink egg coffee before a workout and make sure to heat the water and egg enough to kill any germs.




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