The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Eggs

the eggs of birds, primarily domestic, used as human food. Eggs consist of the yolk, white, membranes, and shell. Goose eggs weigh 110–180 g, turkey eggs about 110 g, chicken eggs 55–65 g, guinea fowl eggs 45 g, and quail eggs 8–10 g.

The eggs most often used fresh are from chickens. They contain virtually all the substances necessary for human nutrition: protein (about 12.5 percent), fats (about 12 percent), minerals (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron, and others), and vitamins (A, D, E, K, and others). The nutrients are almost completely assimilated by the human body. The caloric value of 100 g is about 160 kilocalories.

Chicken eggs are divided according to weight, storage length, and quality into dietetic eggs, table eggs, and reject eggs. Dietetic and table eggs are classified by weight and quality into two grades. For convenient transport and storage, fresh eggs are mixed, pasteurized, and frozen or powder dried (see).

The eggs of other types of fowl are used mainly by the processing industry.

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References in classic literature

And Bashti, who had not tasted a megapode egg in half a year, and who was keen for the one recrudescent thrill of remote youth still left to him, led the way back across the mangrove swamp at so prodigious a pace as quite to wind his high priest who was many years younger than he.

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At last Jemima told him that she intended to begin to sit next day--"and I will bring a bag of corn with me, so that I need never leave my nest until the eggs are hatched.

"Come into the house as soon as you have looked at your eggs. Give me the herbs for the omelette.

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The vaults which hid the eggs until they were ready for the incubator were located many miles south of the incubator, and would be visited yearly by the council of twenty chieftains.

Their foster mothers may not even have had an egg in the incubator, as was the case with Sola, who had not commenced to lay, until less than a year before she became the mother of another woman's offspring.

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'Oh!' answered the man, 'that is not my sort of tailoring; come with me, and you will learn quite another kind of craft from that.' Not knowing what better to do, he came into the plan, and learnt tailoring from the beginning; and when he left his master, he gave him a needle, and said, 'You can sew anything with this, be it as soft as an egg or as hard as steel; and the joint will be so fine that no seam will be seen.'

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She was still thinking of the egg, though; so presently she asked:

"It has always been my pride to lay a fresh egg every morning, except when I'm moulting.

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He bit off the tops of the eggs as fast as he could, taking care to crush the young cobras, and turned over the litter from time to time to see whether he had missed any.

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Peter put the eggs into this hat and set it on the lagoon.

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Eggs or very young animals seem generally to suffer most, but this is not invariably the case.

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Certain that he was dreaming, he turned the egg over and over in his hands, fondled it, kissed it, and talked to it:

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