Nutritional significance and health benefits of designer eggs

Abstract

Designer foods of animal origin are produced either by feeding specific diets, or using new techniques like genetic engineering, cross-breeding. Designer eggs are an important type of functional foods. With the advancement of poultry industry, there is a rising interest in poultry biotechnology for altering the egg composition by genetic and nutritional manipulations for human health. This can be done by modifying cholesterol concentration and its fractions, lipid profile, fatty acids, amino acids and minerals or through adding therapeutic pharmaceutical molecules. Designer eggs provide vegetarian, safe, immune powered, specialty or organic foodstuffs which can have improved vitamins, minerals, balanced ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, lowered total cholesterol, additional boost of antibodies and essential pigments such as carotenoids. From the relevant scientific literature, functional eggs can be considered as human designer food. This review describes the concepts of designer eggs and their health benefits and nutritional values.

Keywords::

• designer eggs
• health benefits
• cholesterol
• omega-3 PUFAs
• poultry

Acknowledgments

All the authors of the manuscript thank and acknowledge support of their respective Universities and Institutes.