Eggs.
I could eat them for every meal.
They are inexpensive, nutritious and versatile.
Most days, I eat two eggs for breakfast.
Extra large eggs.
This past week I had my normal breakfast fare of about a quarter cup of
spinach, black beans and turkey sausage fried up with a couple of eggs.
Been a daily staple of mine for months but as of late, I’ve been left not quite
satiated at the end of the meal.
So I kicked it up to three eggs.
Three eggs was good, but it was just a bit too much. I think two and a half eggs
would have been just right.
Half an egg though? This got me thinking about the size eggs. Medium, large,
extra larger, even jumbo? What’s it all even mean?
Fortunately there was a Wikipedia page detailing egg sizes:
| Size | Ounces |
|---|---|
| Peewee | 1.25 oz |
| Small | 1.50 oz |
| Medium | 1.75 oz |
| Large | 2.00 oz |
| Extra Large | 2.25 oz |
| Jumbo | 2.50 oz |
Keep in mind that these sizes are for United States chicken eggs as agreeing
upon chicken eggs sizes collectively as a society has eluded us this far.
Okay, so to achieve a fraction of an egg, I needed to figure out how many ounces
I wanted to each and then figure out the best sized egg to fit within there.
2.25 ounces * 2.5 eggs = 5.625 ounces of eggs
Best I could come up with would be to move to medium eggs and eat three of them
for 5.25 ounces of eggs. A bit shy of the 5.6 ounces but about the best you can
do without a mixed lot of eggs.
So this solved the fraction of a egg dilemma, but this spawned another thought.
Are eggs priced in such a way that you always pack the same amount per ounce
regardless of size or are different sizes of eggs more expensive than others?
My go-to egg these days are the Hill Country Fare Grade A eggs from my local
neighborhood H-E-B. We buy a dozen and a half ever week or so but for the sake
of the per ounce comparison, I’ll be comparing them by the dozen for the egg
sizes they carry.
For whatever reason, they only list medium, large and jumbo size online in the
twelve count variety. Come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure I’ve even seen
the extra large eggs in anything smaller than the dozen and a half cartons.
| Size | Ounces Per Egg | Price Per Dozen | Price Per Ounce |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medium | 1.552054 oz | $1.10 | $0.059061519 |
| Large | 1.763698 oz | $1.34 | $0.063313938 |
| Jumbo | 2.222260 oz | $1.43 | $0.053624088 |
Hold up, those sizes don’t marry up with what the USDA has deemed as the
appropriate sizes for those eggs. If I had to speculate, the USDA sizes are
merely a suggestion and YMMV depending on the brand of eggs.
What’s also interesting is that large eggs clocked in as more expensive per
ounce than both medium and jumbo eggs. The wife mentioned that you’re supposed
to use large eggs when baking, so I suspect that increased price is just due to
supply and demand in that regard.
All right, so the sizes of the eggs didn’t marry up with the official egg sizes.
That probably means my beloved extra large eggs probably aren’t 2.25 ounces.
I did a bit more digging and sure as shit, they are 1.975342 ounces each and I
had to adjust my egg-quation (sorry, not sorry) accordingly:
1.975342 ounces * 2.5 eggs = 4.938355 ounces of eggs
Same conclusion though, without a mixed lot of eggs, three medium eggs are
probably the sweet spot for my breakfast.
Oh, and just for fun, here’s an egg calculator for ya. It defaults to the
standard size eggs, but you can adjust it to accommodate your local sizes:
Egg Calculator
| Size | Ounces Per Egg | Egg Count |
|---|---|---|
| Peewee | ||
| Small | ||
| Medium | ||
| Large | ||
| Extra Large | ||
| Jumbo |
