I love some eggs. I don’t trust runny ones, though. Took too much microbiology to eat undercooked anything, for the most part. Scrambled, fried, hard boiled, egg salad, it’s all good.
Egg white has a natural antibiotic activity thanks to two proteins in particular, ovotransferrin and lysozyme. They act, respectively, by depleting the environment of iron, essential to bacterial growth, and by destroying the walls of some bacteria. This antibiotic activity was already known but researchers were able to show that it is partially inheritable and that hens can therefore be selected on the basis of the antibacterial activity of the egg white. These two proteins only explain part of the antimicrobial potential. Other antibacterial agents present in the egg white are yet to be identified. Source.
Egg white was sometimes used as an antibiotic before the discovery of penicillin. I buy eggs from a neighbor, who lets the chickens run free during the day. The eggs have thick, firm shells which require some effort to break.
