29/10/2021
Quail Eggs: Nutrition, Benefits, and Precautions
Quail eggs are rapidly gaining traction in cooking as a tiny and cute alternative to chicken eggs.
They taste remarkably like chicken eggs but are small — typically just one-third the size of a standard chicken egg. They have cream-colored shells with brown splotches and deep-yellow yolks.
For their size, they are packed with nutrients, but there are some precautions to take when dealing with them, especially if you are pregnant or have an egg allergy.
Nutrition
Quail eggs are small, so three to four of them roughly equate to the serving size of one chicken egg.
One quail egg (9 grams) contains (1Trusted Source):
Calories: 14
Protein: 1 gram
Fat: 1 gram
Carbs: 0 grams
Fiber: 0 grams
Choline: 4% of the Daily Value (DV)
Riboflavin: 6% of the DV
Folate: 2% of the DV
Pantothenic acid: 3% of the DV
Vitamin A: 2% of the DV
Vitamin B12: 6% of the DV
Iron: 2% of the DV
Phosphorus: 2% of the DV
Selenium: 5% of the DV
For being so small, these eggs are surprisingly rich in nutrients.
A single quail egg provides a significant chunk of your daily vitamin B12, selenium, riboflavin, and choline needs, along with some iron — all in a serving that contains only 14 calories.
Selenium and riboflavin are important nutrients that help your body break down the food you eat and transform it into energy. Selenium also helps ensure healthy thyroid function (2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source).
Meanwhile, vitamin B12 and iron promote healthy nervous system function and help maintain optimal energy levels through their roles in red blood cell formation (4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source).
In addition, choline is vital to helping your body make acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that sends messages from your nervous system to your muscles (6Trusted Source).
Benefits
Quail eggs are rich in nutrients and full of health-promoting antioxidants that may help reverse cellular damage and treat allergy symptoms (7Trusted Source).
One 7-day study in 77 people with allergic rhinitis found symptoms like sneezing, congestion, and runny nose improved within 1 hour of taking a quail egg antioxidant and zinc supplement. However, it’s unclear if the egg compounds alone were responsible for the benefits (8Trusted Source).
Plus, a mouse study found that quail egg yolk alleviated symptoms of eosinophilic esophagitis, a severe inflammatory condition caused by food allergies (9Trusted Source).
Although these findings are promising, more research in humans is needed.