Continuing with our Child Food Special today we will talk about egg, one of the most common foods of the human diet.
He egg It began to be considered an important food during the first half of the twentieth century, when most of its vitamins and amino acids were identified, becoming classified as a health protective food.
Types of eggs
Eggs can be classified, according to their color, into white, yellow or brown. This characteristic depends solely on the breed of the hen and does not affect the nutritional value or the quality of the egg at all.
They are also classified, at the legal level, according to the characteristics they have and therefore according to their quality. In this classification they are called category A, B or C:
- Category A eggs: They are fresh eggs that have a normal, intact and completely clean shell. The yolk is visible in the light and maintains its central position when we turn the egg. These are the best quality.
- Category B eggs: These eggs are the ones that have been refrigerated and preserved. The presence of up to 25% of spots in its shell is allowed and they are also of good quality.
- Category C eggs: They are eggs that are not fresh and are not marketed for direct use, but as raw material in the food industry.
They are also classified according to your weight:
- Super large or XL: When they weigh more than 75 g.
- Large or L: Between 65 and 75 g.
- Medium or M: Between 55 and 65 g
- Small or S: They weigh a maximum of 55 g.
Nutritional characteristics
The egg is a food rich in proteins that are also of a very high biological value, so much so that the egg is considered by many experts in nutrition as the reference food when talking about proteins.
This is because it contains in an optimal proportion for humans the eight essential amino acids that our body needs to ingest.
Egg white consists of water (86%) and proteins of high biological value, while the yolk is rich in saturated and unsaturated fat, cholesterol and other fatty components. In the yolk we can also find iron, phosphorus, zinc, selencio and sodium, in addition to vitamins A and D.
As for its composition, speaking of 100 grams of food, the egg has a caloric value of 149 kcal and contains 12.5 grams of protein and 11.1 fat. It also provides 500 mg of cholesterol, 2.2 mg of iron, 1.5 mg of zinc and 140 mg of sodium.
The egg in infant feeding
During childhood, children need to eat both proteins, carbohydrates and fats. It is true that fat is one of the most persecuted elements of any food, now abounding the "0%" or "light" food that try to preside over it. But nevertheless, children need to eat fat and so they should drink whole milk, for example, and they should eat egg if possible.
It is an easy food to chew that, having a very high nutritional value, is of great value for children, since it helps them to have a correct nutritional status.
The allergenic potential of the egg
The egg is the most allergenic food in children 1 to 2 years old. Egg albumin is the protein with the highest allergenic potential and is found in the white. However, there are children who can be sensitive to white and yolk as well as only one of these components.
The treatment in case of allergy is the total exclusion of the egg in the children's diet, monitoring with the derivatives and with the products that contain egg in their ingredients.
The prognosis of an allergy of this type is good, because Most children end up tolerating the egg when they exceed 3-4 years.
How to keep them
When buying them we must look at the expiration date, that they are not broken and that there are no traces of feces or feathers.
In the refrigerator they can be up to 7-10 days and, although the doors carry a tray for the eggs, it is preferable to leave them inside the refrigerator, where they will suffer less temperature changes. However, they easily absorb odors, so it is convenient to separate them from other foods.
Is better that they are kept with the tip down, since in this way the yolk is in the center, away from the air bag that is located at the opposite end.
There are people who wash them before storing them in the fridge. It is preferable not to do so, since this eliminates the surface layer that protects it from the entry of microorganisms, including salmonella.
From when they can start eating egg
As we have already mentioned, it is one of the foods with the most allergenic potential. For this reason It is recommended to start offering it after 12 months.
There are pediatricians and centers where it is suggested to start offering the yolk before the year. There really is not much problem, since the greatest risk is caused by the clear one, which should not be administered before 12 months, not only because of the risk of allergy, but because it contains a so-called antitryptic factor that hinders the digestion process of proteins
There are authors who are opposed to separating yolk and egg because it has been observed that, when this separation is made, part of the white ends up leaving with the yolk, however there are many children who do not have symptoms when they have tried the yolk and when they have started eating the white.
As if separating yolk and egg whites and giving it separately, nothing will happen, it is preferable to do it this way, offering the yolk, for example, when the baby turns twelve months and the egg whites one or two weeks later when it is found that the yolk It is well tolerated.
How to prepare it
The egg should always be consumed cooked to avoid the risk of disease transmission (basically salmonella), preventing it from being raw or semi-rough.
It takes eight minutes since the water begins to boil so that the egg is well cooked.
Once cooked, the yolk can be mixed with some puree, chop it with meat, mix it with soup, etc. At the time when the child can eat both yolk and egg, French tortillas, potato tortillas, scrambled eggs can be made ...
As for the amount of eggs, two a week are recommended, since ESPGHAN recommended not to exceed 300 mg a day of cholesterol. The yolk of a chicken egg has 270 mg. If we do not exceed two eggs a week, the cholesterol intake (we must have the rest of the meals) will not exceed those 300 mg per day indicated.
