Eating eggs in Sikhism.

[punjab5]

'What is 'egg white' and can we eat products that contain 'egg white ?

[DSG]

How do you know if an egg is fertiised or not ?

IF you are depriving the chicken to meet the rooster , then is that not cruelty ...maybe ... or a good thing

[kullykhalsa]

ok if hens and roosters are kept seperate then the egg is not fertilised, to make it very simple if men and women are kept away women wont have babies!

yes indeed you could be depriving the hen/rooster of meeting their one true love, but for me forcing a cow to stay away from its children not feed them etc is worse

[Wingz23]

i used to love eggy bread man!! Jesh it tasted good :D

[Gurpreet14]

Thank you to everyone who has replied. It has been very good reading all the responses.

I agree that when an egg is first released by the hen from it's ovaries there is potential for life/fertilisation. However, when you know that the egg is going to be unfertilised does that not make a difference? Even in human females there is a potential for life when they release an egg each month from the ovaries. However most of the time it remains unfertilised and is expelled along with the period. But because it is not fertilised we do not consider it as loss of life/killing an embryo.

However, sort of touching on the point you made, I had a discussion yesterday with a friend who made a good point that eggs are probably not eaten in India by vegetarians because for the large part there is no guarantee whether they are going to be unfertilised or fertilised. This is because the cockerels are not kept separate from the hens in traditional Indian farms. But then that begs the question whether we are not allowed to eat all eggs or just fertilised eggs specifically?

In terms of the animal proteins, as luckysingh99 mentioned (along with other good points in his previous posts), even cow milk contains animal proteins and a small quantity of blood cells.

Your first part is definitely correct. As written by Bhagat Kabir Ji:

Jao Sabh Mey Ayk Khudae Kehat Hao Tao Keo Murgi Maarai.

You say that the one Lord is in all, so why do you kill chickens?

However, like I said previously I am not discussing whether or not it is ok to eat meat (which I am personally against). Rather I was more interested in finding out about the consumption of eggs if they are not fertilised = no potential for life. Yolk is not the same thing as a dead embryo. Only if the egg becomes fertilised would a chicken have been born. The yolk is only there to provide nutrition to the embryo if the egg had become fertilised. The hen still lays the egg each month regardless.

Anyway thank you again to everyone for their replies. It has been very informative and given me lots to think about. It would be great if others shared their opinion on this as well.

WJKK WJKF

I have a question for you...

Would u eat egg? now.... whats ur conclusion ? from this ?

Ur answer will help me too... coz one of my cousin shouted on me when i ate egg after becoming amritdhari.... n i was nt having appropriate answer to give

[jang123]

We can argue and debate whether to eat egg or not for ages. Apart from taste and some proteins and minerals, I don't understand why would you want to eat it when you have fruits and vegetables of many kind to eat. Milk is of course from animals but if we go according to Gurbani, Milk is amrit:

pasoo mileh chang-aa-ee-aa kharh khaaveh amrit deh.

naam vihoonay aadmee Dharig jeevan karam karayhi. ||3||

Leaving milk aside, is there anything from animals that Gurbani tells us that is good to take (including consuming eggs - fertilised/unfertilised)? Lets put the full stop here.

[TheFancyBanana]

cracked up

I see what you did there... "cracked up" like an egg :D

Well, this eggs is just an unfertilised egg. No sperm, no embryo, NO LIFE. Human women have periods, this is where an unferilised egg is removed. Does this egg turn into a baby? Nope.

We all wear leather shoes, feathers (in pillows), animal skins on your instruments (in the gurdwara too). Why can we use these products? They are all unused bits that would go to waste so we use them. Don't drink milk or have honey you are depriving young animals.

I don't eat egg but it doesnt seem bad

[Sewadar]

Langar concept is going in our historic gurdwaras since Guru Jees time. No meat and No eggs are to be found in our historic gurughars in India, example: Harmander Sahib in Amritsar.

Thread closed as we don't allow discussion on meat topics.