When you hear the word “eggs,” don’t you immediately think of how you want them cooked? Lets have them scrambled, fried, soft, or hard. Some want the yolk still a little runny while others prefer it a little more firm. Some opt for poached or hard boiled – all good. Behind our primary thoughts about form, most of us think “Yummy!” Why? A review of available statistics indicates we like eggs.
Just how many eggs do we eat?
The Washington Post reported that every American ate about 279 eggs (2019). As high as that number seems to be, according to a chart found by Helgi Library, egg consumption per capita shows that the USA was eleventh in line when compared to 155 other countries. Kuwait, Mexico and Japan came in first, second and third respectively.
Eggs are brought to stores from somewhere by someone so we can get some and bring them home whenever we want to. How many chickens are needed to lay eggs at the rate we consume them? What about the production of and care for the eggs? How about transporting them from the farms and barns and locations where these egg laying chickens are found, to where we secure them for our pantries, stoves and stomachs?
Chicken eggs aren’t always the same in appearance but there are some things about them we can always count on. They may be smaller and larger. They may be darker and lighter or even sometimes blue in color! But they come with regularity and when you peel or crack the shell – there is almost always a yellow yolk inside surrounded by a mass of soft white liquid like substance, formally identified by those involved as albumen.
Something as relatively simple and easy to take for granted as a dozen eggs in our refrigerator involves so much more than we thought.
Do you think for one minute, that the very God who put all this together, the Creator, Governor and Preserver of all things, would know how much pleasure these eggs provide for so many people from so many places over such a long period of time? How could He make eggs even appealing, considering watching a chicken lay an egg and deciding to put in our mouths? Yet, here we are eating them, whether seen as a main dish or hidden away in some recipe for cakes, breads, casseroles, pancakes – whatever! Yes, I think it’s eggsactly like Him!
Although it has pagan origins, the early Church adopted the egg as part of Easter because it was a metaphor of the new life of being born again. The birth scenario, whether it is an animal or a human, inspires awe. How could life come about like that? And yet, God makes it happen in the physical world. Even more amazing is that it happens spiritually. The first birth introduces us to life in this world but one that will eventually pass away. The rebirth is meant for eternity as we fulfill all that He would have us become.