Recently I came across some frugal websites that recommend eating eggs as a cheaper alternative to get protein than meat. Are eggs really a cheaper alternative? Let’s calculate.
As a sample, let’s pick eggs and chicken from Aldi supermarket, a supermarket in Melbourne, Australia, where products are sold generally cheaper than most supermarkets. A dozen of 600-grams eggs is $3.09 and 2kg-chicken drumsticks (normally contains 10 or 11 pieces) is $7. This means one egg is 26 cents, and one piece of chicken drumstick is 64 cents, for 11 pieces in a 2-kg pack.
Many people would assume they’d just need one or two eggs per meal, which means, they’d need 52 cents per two eggs as opposed to 64 cents per chicken drumstick. Therefore, it’s tempting to conclude that eggs are cheaper than chicken.
Let’s Calculate Again
Chicken drumsticks, even though, they appear to be more expensive, when we break them down to how many proteins they have, they’re cheaper than eggs. Let’s have a look at the below calculation:
One egg of 50 grams has 6 grams of protein.
Chicken drumsticks of 133 grams with skin has 23 grams
This means, for every 100 grams, the amount of protein in an egg is 12 grams and in chicken drumstick, it’s 17.29 grams.
In practice, for example, a person will only need to eat 1 piece of chicken drumstick per meal instead of 4 eggs to get more or less amount of protein.
Why Protein Matters?
As quoted by Neil Osterweil, a medical writer on WebMd,
“Protein is an important component of every cell in the body. Hair and nails are mostly made of protein. Your body uses protein to build and repair tissues. You also use protein to make enzymes, hormones, and other body chemicals. Protein is an important building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and blood.“
(Source: WebMD)
For further information about protein, like how much protein is needed, head to this website.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that not only chicken is cheaper than eggs, but also that when we have enough nutrition, we’ll have a healthy body, and thus, won’t be needing medical attention as much as those who are not healthy, which at the end, save even more money.
