The first people to eat eggs took them from nests in the wild and ate the eggs raw. There is no way to know who ate the first egg. What researchers do know is people living in Egypt and China were the first to keep hens. It's also believed that when Columbus returned to the New World in 1493, he had chickens on board.
According to food historians, humans have been eating eggs for about 6 million years, originally eating them raw from the nests of wild birds. Jungle birds were domesticated for egg production in India by 3200 BC, and it is thought that Ancient Egypt and Ancient China were the first societies to domesticate hens.
Record from China and Egypt show that fowl were domesticated and laying eggs for human consumption around 1400 B.C.E., and there is archaeoligical evidence for egg consumption dating back to the Neolithic age. The Romans found egg-laying hens in England, Gaul, and among the Germans.
The first amniote egg—that is, a hard-shelled egg that could be laid on land, rather than remaining in water like the eggs of fish or amphibians—appeared around 312 million years ago.
The largest egg producer
In 2021, 29,315,766 tons of eggs were laid in China, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). India produced the second most eggs at 6,710,000 tons followed by the United States with 6,643,722 tons.
The egg industry faces supply issues impacted by rising feed costs and a hangover from the pandemic restrictions which reduced laying flocks. Egg Farmers of Australia told SBS in 2022 the industry had been impacted by bushfires, floods, droughts, the mice plague, COVID-19 and increased production costs.
In fact, hard-boiled eggs date all the way back to Ancient Rome. Legend has it they were invented around 5,000 B.C. when pottery was invented. After all, Ancient Romans needed a vessel to boil the water in.
So if you're familiar with your breakfast egg, that's pretty much the same for all birds. And therefore, that's likely to be the egg that was laid by the very first bird all the way back in time. So one quick answer is the egg comes first.
Scientists have unraveled the origins of human pregnancy by tracing how our early mammal ancestors first evolved to give birth to live young. They found rogue fragments of DNA that jumped around the genome millions of years ago caused switched off the processes needed to lay eggs.
Workers needed protein and fat— slow-metabolizing energy sources—to get them through the day, and eggs provided a cheaper alternative to meat. The need for a filling breakfast meant that eggs would serve as breakfast's primary protein—uniting workers of the world.
From Old Norse egg n (“egg”), from Proto-Germanic *ajją (“egg”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ōwyóm (“egg”), likely from *h₂éwis (“bird”), possibly from *h₂ew- (“to enjoy, consume”).
The chicken probably was domesticated for its eggs (from jungle fowl native to tropical and subtropical Southeast Asia and Indian subcontinent) before 7500 BCE. Chickens were brought to Sumer and Egypt by 1500 BCE, and arrived in Greece around 800 BCE, where the quail had been the primary source of eggs.
Jains abstain from eating eggs. Many Hindu and Orthodox Sikh vegetarians also refrain from eating eggs. An egg that naturally contains a spot of blood may not be eaten under Jewish and Islamic tradition, but eggs without any blood are commonly consumed (and are not considered to be meat, so may be eaten with dairy).
Culture of Eating Raw Eggs
Since eggs are such a familiar food, the Japanese have developed a unique culture of eating eggs. The most distinctive characteristic is the use of “raw” eggs.
Today, people tend to have their own food preferences, but tamago-yaki is still a favorite for everyone, regardless of age. It is very easy to make at home, but oddly enough, no one knows when tamago-yaki was first made. Chicken eggs were first eaten in Japan in the Edo period (1603-1867).
Armed with knowledge of evolution, the answer is straightforward. Eggs came first. Next time you crack open an egg, think of its many unusual features, and the hundreds of millions of years of evolution that preceded its appearance. Dinosaurs, the animal group that includes birds and their ancestors, laid eggs.
The modern biological approach revealed that a red junglefowl subspecies is the main wild ancestor of the domestic chicken. However, other red junglefowl subspecies and wild junglefowl species also contributed to the modern domestic chicken genetic profile.
Scientists have debated where domestic chickens originated from for decades. Southeast Asia, India, and northern China have all been proposed places of origin, with the chicken's first appearance ranging between 4,000 to 10,500 years ago.
People have been eating eggs for a very long time— about six million years! The first people to eat eggs took them from nests in the wild and ate the eggs raw. There is no way to know who ate the first egg. What researchers do know is people living in Egypt and China were the first to keep hens.
Is it OK to eat eggs every day? Because of their numerous benefits, it's OK to eat one whole egg, including the egg yolk, every day if you don't have cardiovascular disease and you do have a healthy level of blood cholesterol. Or you can mix two egg whites with every egg yolk to give yourself more protein.
It is known for sure that ostrich eggs were fried by fire in ancient Egypt. The Romans used fried eggs as a dessert with honey. The ancestors of the populace of modern Iran mixed the yolk with milk and spices, and the French, in the middle of the seventeenth century, came to call it an omelet.
Australian egg yolks are artificially brightened with additive food dyes placed into the chook's feed pellets. IF you think a bright yellow or orange egg yolk is a sign of a healthy well-cared for chicken think again.
In Europe it's a health risk to store eggs in the fridge. In Australia, it's a health risk to store them out of the fridge. Who is right? The answer is all about Salmonella, the general name for about 2,000 types of bacteria that lead to food poisoning.
Woolworths Fresh Poultry is 100% Australian. Poultry and eggs are an important component of many of our customers' daily diets and the welfare of these birds need to be met at all times. 100% of the fresh poultry and eggs used in our Australian products are produced from farms regionally across Australia.