Chicken or eggs: What is the difference?

In ancient and traditional medicine systems of health, food is not looked at for its physical qualities only. Food is viewed in a holistic manner – how it affects the digestion, blood quality, body temperature, mineral balance, activity levels, organ health, emotions, mind and the whole person. Besides all these, it takes into account the individual person – what is their body type and current health and immunity condition.

In modern nutrition, food is broken down into its physical attributes like nutrients, calories and protein content etc. There is a difference in the way we view food in ancient holistic systems as opposed to modern nutrition. It is not that nutrients, calories and protein content of food is not necessary to assess. It is fine to calculate or know these, but not rely on this as it isn’t the full story or whole picture. It is half information and hence often less effective in building energy or healing disease conditions.

From a modern nutrition point of view, chicken is more protein dense and less fat while egg has more complete nutrients and more fat. According to traditional Ayurveda viewpoint, no food is 100% eliminated from one’s diet but chicken and egg protein is not the most desirable or promoted foods due to the excess heat they build in the body and also because these foods build more toxic matter and acid content in the body. This excess toxic-acid matter may lead to fatigue and/or inertia.

However, if a person is deficient and has a high vata dosha (one kind of energetic deficiency in Ayurveda, where the body is light, airy and dry and the mind is too quick, anxious and nervous), then eating a little heavy foods which could be plant based of small amounts of animal protein may help. Some Ayurvedic doctors prefer to promote more plant based solutions while some doctors don’t mind using poultry in moderate amounts to help someone achieve their health goals. Both ways are considered to be okay. This is a personal human choice – of the Aurvedic practitioner as well as the patient – to be 100% plant based or 85%-90% plant based.

From a far eastern practice perspective, chicken and egg are both more heat producing as well as contracting and so their consumption should be eliminated or reduced to the minimum. The main emphasis in both ancient systems is that the consumption of either of these should be kept at the minimum if choosing to have these. For some people minimum would be once a week while for others it may be more frequent, say 3 times a week though in tinier quantity at one time.

From an energetic perspective, an egg is denser and it charges the left side of the body including the left brain. So people who have a lot of eggs may develop a strong sense of logical thinking and some people may even reject intuitive thinking if they eat too much of eggs. While chicken is the same in terms of affecting the left side of the body, it is has a less contracting effect. In this energetic macrobiotic view, if eggs are consumed in excess they affect the pancreas and reproductive organs negatively. They are said to be particularly bad for problems like prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, fertility issues and PCOD. In a simple way it is said that how a thing is in nature it affects the body in that way. So for example, eggs belong to the reproductive organs of an animal and hence affect the reproductive organs of the human body when consumed in excess.

Another factor to keep in mind is the use of growth hormones and high pesticides used during poultry farming and hence these can have a worse effect on a human being’s hormonal system. This is usually higher in chicken than eggs.

Many vegetarians are surprised to hear that from an energetic perspective eggs are more contractive on the mind and body than chicken as many plant based people are okay to eat eggs but nor chicken. An egg has the same shape as the womb and hence it has a more negative effect on a woman’s body and hormonal system. All in all, if one chooses to have eggs, they should be consumed in lesser quantities per week. Daily or frequent consumption of eggs or chicken is known in many researches to do harm to the body.

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