Herbs Supplementation for Designer Eggs

Herbs Supplementation for Designer Eggs

Bilal Chamadia¹, Bhavsar Tanvi², Rashika Srivastava¹

¹ Animal Nutrition Division, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal

²  Animal Physiology Division, ICAR-NDRI, Karnal

Designer food refers to the food that is designed to have some health benefits other than its traditional nutritional value. ‘Designer food’, ‘functional food’ and ‘fortified food’ are synonym, which refers to the food fortified or enriched with nutrient content already present in them or other complementary nutrient. Eggs are the most excellent vehicles to incorporate health-promoting components in it. Herbal enriched eggs can be produced by the incorporation of herbal active principles like allicin, betaine, eugenol, lumiflavin, lutein, sulforaphane, taurine, and many more active principles of the herbs, depending upon the herbs fed to the hens (Table 1).

Phytobiotics or plant-derived products containing several plant secondary metabolites can be used in poultry feed to improve the performance of hen and to produce herbal enriched super eggs. Chicken feed will be supplemented with herbs like garlic/onion leaves, spirulina, basil leaves, turmeric powder, citrus pulp, flaxseed, red pepper, fenugreek seeds etc. These super eggs will be having a lower LDL cholesterol, immunomodulator property, antioxidant, anticarcinogenic properties, higher omega-3 fatty acids etc. For example normal egg have vitamin E content of 90-100 µg /g yolk whereas herbal supplemented egg have 220 – 240 µg / g yolk which added to its increased antioxidant property. All these indicating that the overall health promotion in hens as well as possible health promotion in humans is possible by popularizing herbal enriched eggs.

Table 1: Active ingredients present in herbs/herbal enriched functional eggs and their function concerning human health (Narahari et al., 2004)

Narahari et al., (2005) fed different herbs such as garlic, fenugreek, bay leaves, basil leaves and spirulina and reported there was significant differences (P<0.05) between the regular and Herbal Enriched Designer Eggs in Iodine values. The reason behind this finding can be higher levels of unsaturated fatty acids, in all the 6 Designer Eggs. Moreover, these eggs had about 25% lesser cholesterol in their yolks, compared to ordinary eggs. Feeding such Herbal Enriched Designer Eggs to human volunteers has resulted in a significant reduction in their Triglycerides (TG) levels, increased the good HDL cholesterol, improved immunity, and hematocrit. The peroxide value and percent Free Fatty Acids (FFA) also showed significantly higher, values for certain Herbal Enriched Designer Eggs than the regular egg.

The ferric reducing ability of plasma value (FRAP value) of the eggs, which is the direct estimate of the antioxidant property of any substance suggested that the Bay Leaves enriched eggs had the highest antioxidant property. Garlic and Basil leave supplemented eggs also possessed better antioxidant properties. The active principles of Murrayanol, Mahanibine, and Mahanine present in Bay leaves might get incorporated in the egg and enhanced the antioxidant property of these eggs. The FRAP value observed in Herbal Enriched Designer Eggs was comparable with the FRAP values of apricot, mango, and peach reported by Guo et al. (2003). Similarly, observations were made earlier by Ryu et al. (2001), Tachibana et al. (2003), Michealraj (2004), and Narahari et al. (2004).

Among the Herbal Enriched Designer Eggs, Basil leaves and Garlic was found to be more effective in reducing the yolk cholesterol levels. Chowdhury et al. (2002) and Michealraj (2004) reported earlier the powerful hypercholesteremic effects of Garlic. Kirubakaran (2003) and Narahari et al. (2004) reported the cholesterol-lowering property of the Basil leaves.

Narahari et al., (2005) found Herbal Enriched Designer Eggs had significantly (P<0.01) higher IgY levels than regular eggs indicating that the herbs, especially the Garlic, Fenugreek, and Basil leaves were having powerful immunomodulating properties. In the hens also the immunity levels were boosted due to the designer feeds and herbs. Michealraj (2004) and Narahari et al. (2004) also reported higher immunomodulating status in eggs and hens due to designer feeds and herbs.

Narahari et al., (2005) found the consumer acceptability of the hard-boiled designer eggs, except Garlic, were comparable or better than regular eggs. Garlic supplementation in hens’ feed had incorporated the strong flavor of the garlic, which was not much accepted by the panelists. On the other hand, Bay leaves and spirulina supplemented eggs recorded better consumer acceptability due to richer yolk color. Michealraj (2004) reported a lesser consumer acceptance score for Garlic.

Herbal Enriched Designer Eggs had significantly (P<0.01) higher levels of yolk carotenoids and Roche yolk color values, due to more pigments present in these feeds. Bay leaves, Basil leaves and spirulina enriched eggs had high pigment levels than other eggs. Sujatha (2002), Kirubakaran (2003), and Michealraj (2004) observed darker yolks due to more carotenoids in the functional feeds.

Herbs for egg shell quality

Eggs with inferior shell quality are a major economic loss to poultry industry. It is estimated that due to poor shell quality about 6-8% of eggs are lost in different phase of egg handling system from point of production to point of consumption. A number of factors regulate egg shell quality viz. genetics, age, nutrition and environment (Batshan et al., 1994). As age advances proportion of yolk increases, whereas proportions of albumen and shell thickness decreases. Calcium is the key macromineral involved in shell formation and is also required for maintenance and production of laying hens. However, hens’ ability to absorb Ca from digestive tract and medullary bones is reduced with age (Ousterhout, 1980). Both shell thickness and shell stiffness decrease as age advances because increased demand for Ca deposition to construct eggshell may be compromised since requirement is not met by normal diet and additional sources of Ca are required to be supplemented (Summers and Leeson, 1983).

Many herbs are known to positively influence the absorption and assimilation of minerals such as Cissus quadrangularis, Zingiber officinale, Lepidium sativum, Terminalia arjuna, Cestrum diurnum and Uraria picta. Cissus quadrangularis is a medicinal and culinary plant native to India and Africa. It is reported that aqueous extracts of plant Cissus quadrangularis have calcium and phosphorus mineralisation properties and this helps early completion of calciferous process and remodelling phenomenon. Its anabolic steroidal principles (β-sitosterol, δ amyrone and δ amyrin) have marked antistress activity.

Sharma et al. (2009) supplemented birds with ayucal premix and ayucal liquid and studied egg weight, shell thickness, breaking strength, number of shell defects and specific gravity of egg in the treatment as well control group. Researcher found that there was improvement in the overall egg shell quality in the treatment group and they correlated this results with the activity of herbal constituents fed to the treatment group.

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