Bacon & Eggs

I’m not sure when I decided to take an educational slant to this blog. But regardless, I am going to make you LEARN. Mwahahahahahaaaa…

Aaaaanywho. After a brief and factually deficient conversation with a couple of friends last night, I have decided to dedicate this blog to the subject of eggs. Because that’s always going to be a crowd pleaser, am I right?

A special thank you to goes out to The Internet and associated experts (egg-sperts!? Sorry...) for providing all factual facts in this post. My own, less-factual remarks are the ill-informed ones underneath.

WARNING!

Even though you might eat them for breakfast, and sometimes they come with delicious bacon, the actual ‘making of an egg’ process is ‘gross’. So probably don’t read about it WHILE eating eggs. Muesli in fine.  Bacon is always fine.

HOW TO MAKE AN EGG, IN FIVE EASY STEPS.

STEP 1: Yolky Goodness

Experts think: "An egg starts as an egg yolk inside a hen, which is produced by the hen's ovary in a process called ovulation."

I think: I guess this resolves the question of ‘what came first’, but I think there are a few things here that remain to be explained. Like, why is the yolk orange? Is there some kind of orange-enzyme that are common to egg-yolks, orange juice and cheezles? And if so, how come they all taste so different, and yet all are delicious with bacon?

STEP 2: Fertilisation

Experts think: "The yolk is released into a long, spiraling tube in the hen's reproductive system, where it can be fertilized by a sperm."

I think: This makes a little more sense… except for the bit about the ‘spiraling tube’. How spirally are we talking here? Spirally as in… one of those silly straws that go around your eyes; but get clogged really easily because they are too thick on the inside - in order to be structurally sound? And if so, how does the yolk get through such a thin tube, when banana smoothies cannot?

STEP 3: The Egg White

Experts think: "The yolk continues down the oviduct (whether or not it is fertilised) and is covered with a membrane structural fibers, and layers of albumin (the egg white)."

I think: So the egg yolk is kicking along down the silly straw tube, just hanging out and BAM!, gets covered in these grossly ambiguous “fibers”. I don’t think that I would like to be covered in fibers.

STEP 4: Chalazae…

Experts think: "As the egg goes down through the oviduct, it is continually rotating within the spiraling tube. This movement twists the structural fibers (called the chalazae), which form rope-like strands that anchor the yolk in the thick egg white."

I think:  This is an impressive word don’t you think? “Chalazae”. It kind of sounds like a perfume. In the Chalazae-Perfum advertisement, I imagine there would be some kind of scantily clad, Kate Moss look-alike, casually reclining in its coop, seductively looking into the camera and saying, in a fake-French accent “Chalazae…”.  I would totally buy that.

STEP 5: The Eggshell

Experts think: "The eggshell is deposited around the egg in the lower part of the oviduct of the hen, just before it is laid. The shell is made of calcite, a crystalline form of calcium carbonate. This entire trip through the oviduct takes about one day."

I think: This is the bit that BLOWS MY MIND. So basically all these other things happen, including this, in ONE DAY. This is a lot to achieve, don’t you think? And seriously, the shell is so hard! Imagine if we could harness that egg-shell hardening enzyme. We could use it for all kinds of amazing technologies! Like… instead of cement in houses, or… to put people into space. I’m not sure how that would work.

Aaaanywho... the moral of my story is definitely unclear. I have talked a lot about chickens and eggs (and resolved the age old mystery of which came first, not bad for a weekly blog), and also made a lot of comments about silly straws and bacon.

Consider yourself educated.

Once again, a special 'thank you' to The Internet, particularly this website: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/birds/info/chicken/egg.shtml.

Proof that I have seen chickens before.