# Egg Sizes - whats more healthy ?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-sizes-whats-more-healthy/154719>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 13, 2003, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-sizes-whats-more-healthy/154719 "2003-02-13T01:09:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![andy\_fl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@andy\_fl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andy_fl)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-sizes-whats-more-healthy/154719/1 "2003-02-13T01:09:32Z")

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Try to buy eggs and you know that size does matter. But seriously is there any significant difference in nutritional composition in small/medium/large/extra-large eggs.

I normally avoid buying the small or extra-large ones because I think they are “genetic abnormalities”. Is there any truth in that ? Also, does the same hen sometime lay small eggs and sometimes large ones - or are there hens who are consistent about this ?

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**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-sizes-whats-more-healthy/154719/2 "2003-02-13T02:21:56Z")

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By that logic, jockeys and basketball players should be considered “genetic abnormalities”. I guess we should avoid eating _them_ at any rate.

All that is being done here is selective breeding for a desired characteristic, here either large or small eggs. Our chickens always produce pretty consistant eggs, some consistantly smaller than our average from one particular hen, one consistantly larger from another. I have no data that they are different nutritionally, other than the fact that larger ones have more calories. I would not expect there to be other nutritional differences.

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**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\
**Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egg-sizes-whats-more-healthy/154719/3 "2003-02-13T05:52:53Z")

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Larger eggs are bigger.  
What this means is, on an egg-per-egg basis, a larger egg will have more of everything. I’ve not come across any information that the proportions of the components differ, though.

From a cooking standpoint, egg size can matter because most US recipes are optimized these days for the “large” size egg.