13/06/2026
Phil Arnold 's weekend thoughts:
Egg Whites and Anti-nutrients
For a long time many professionals have warned against feeding too many eggs. This is due to the presence of Avidin, a protein that binds with Biotin (B7).
Avidin serves a purpose in nature, it protects embryos in Bird, Reptile and amphibian eggs, exerting an antibiotic effect by binding with B7 to starve microorganisms.
The fear is that consuming too many raw eggs will cause a B7 deficiency. This however, is never going to happen.
Here's why there's no risk whatsoever in giving your Dog (or Cat) a couple of raw Eggs, a few times a week.
Biotin is produced by beneficial bacteria in the canine intestinal tract. But not enough to meet your Dogs daily requirements. The real contribution comes from their food.
Liver, Kidney, Spleen, and Heart are all high in B7, as is Broccoli, Spinach, Apple, and Salmon. These are things that most Dogs consume ample amounts of on a daily basis.
Avidin binds 4x the amount of B7 that it comes into contact with. Which sounds like alot, but there is plenty of B7 in Egg Yolks to offset that.
Some quick math to back up the safety.
In a typical 80/10/10 500g pack of Beef mince there is 54.4mcg of Biotin.
1mg of Avidin will bind 14.6mcg of Biotin.
This means you would need to feed 3.78mg of Avidin to bind all the B7 from the mince.
A large egg white is only 0.005% Avidin, to get 3.78mg, you would need 75.6g of egg whites, this is equal to 2.5 large eggs worth of Whites only.
A large Egg Yolk has 25mcg of Biotin, so that's already enough to neutralise the Avidin and have some left over.
So you would need to be feeding the Egg whites only, and adding 76g per day, just to break even!
2.5 Eggs, including the Yolk, would leave the B7 in the mince untouched, and leave about 8mcg extra, resulting in a net gain!
That doesn't even account for the naturally produced B7 in the intestinal tract.
Eggs are nutrient powerhouses, a staple part of a healthy dogs diet.
