Some human digestion experiments on raw white of egg

Abstract

Experiments to determine the relative digestibility of raw and cooked white of egg in the human subject were carried out with four young women students in two periods of five days each. As they all had practically the same food requirements, they took the same diet, quantitatively and qualitatively, throughout the experiment, the only variation being the change from raw whites to cooked whites for half the time, and some differences in the ways in which the whites were prepared. The egg whites furnished 48 grams of protein per capita per day out of a total of 67 grams. Besides the eggs the diet consisted of rice, cream, saltines, butter, olive oil, fruit juice and a small amount of lettuce. The cooked eggs were never subjected to a temperature or method of cooking which would toughen them unduly; the raw whites were taken unbeaten by one person, all beaten light by another, and about half and half by the other subjects.

The coefficients of digestibility for the two diets have been calculated for the total protein and for the egg white protein alone.

In these experiments the raw white was as well digested as the cooked if beaten light, and the difference between the two was not striking when taken half beaten and half unbeaten. The greatest difference was observed when the whites were swallowed with no subdivision whatever, and even then the difference between the cooked and the raw was only 11 per cent. when as many as ten or twelve whites were taken per day. The effect of beating on the coefficient of digestibility is under further investigation.