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If you’re watching your food intake, you may be asking yourself: How many calories are in an egg? Eggs are an excellent source of protein and fat, so you can definitely incorporate them into a healthy diet. Here’s how many calories you’ll find in eggs laid by different types of poultry.
Chicken eggs come in five sizes: small, medium, large, extra large and jumbo. A small egg contains 50 calories. A medium egg has 60. A large egg, which is the standard size used in cooking, has 70 calories. Extra large chicken eggs have 80 calories, and jumbo eggs tip the scales at 90 calories.
The color of the egg has nothing to do with its nutritional content. Rather, it’s a reflection of which breed of chicken laid it. Chicken eggs may be white, brown, cream, blue or even green — so, yes, you can fulfill your fantasy of having green eggs and ham.
Duck eggs are usually much larger than chicken eggs, and they average around 130 calories each. Stores don’t commonly sell duck eggs in the United States, but you can often find them at farmers markets.
They have a slightly higher fat and protein content than chicken eggs. Otherwise, they look and taste the same with the exception of their color. Duck eggs may have white, green, grey or black eggshells depending on which breed they came from. You won’t find grey or black chicken eggs.
Delicate, spotted and roughly the size of a grape, you may burn more calories just preparing a quail egg than you’d gain from eating it! A single one has approximately 14 calories. They’re fun to eat for the novelty factor, if nothing else, and they certainly look cute when hardboiled in their paint-splattered brown-and-white shells. They taste the same as a chicken or duck egg.
How many calories are in a goose egg? Approximately 270, though you’ll be lucky to ever find one for sale. That’s because geese only have one laying cycle per year, and they don’t lay nearly as many eggs as chickens or ducks.
Toulouse geese, for example, only lay around 35 eggs per year. That’s ten times fewer than the highest-producing chicken breeds! Emden geese lay slightly more — around 40 — and Chinese geese, the most prolific layers, only produce an average of 50 eggs per year. If you manage to get ahold of a goose egg, remember to savor every bite.
A turkey egg has around 135 calories, roughly equivalent to a duck egg. You might wonder why you’ve never seen one for sale. After all, the birds are one of the most common animals raised for meat, so why not collect their eggs?
For one thing, turkeys require a lot more space and food than chickens do, making them more expensive to raise. Despite this, they only lay around two eggs per week. In contrast, the most prolific chicken breeds lay well over 300 eggs a year. Turkeys also start producing eggs a lot later than chickens do, so they’re simply not economical to raise for eggs.
But, their eggs are just as tasty and good for you as a chicken’s.
Odds are you’ve never had an ostrich egg. If you do get your hands on one of these massive delicacies, be sure to invite some friends over before cracking it — a single one is the equivalent of two cartons of chicken eggs.
Although the exact number of calories in an ostrich egg is unknown because it isn’t a common food item, a medium-sized chicken egg has around 60 calories. Multiplied by 24, an ostrich egg probably falls close to the 1,500-calorie mark, if not more. Hope you’re hungry!
The answer depends on which species and even breed you’re talking about. In general, small chicken eggs have the fewest calories, while ostriches lay the most calorie-dense eggs you could possibly consume. Ultimately, however, you can decide how many calories to consume by eating smaller or larger portions of eggs in one sitting.
