Reintroducing Foods: The egg yolk

The pictures in this post were taken by none other than KT. Not bad, kiddo. Not bad at all.

Last week we did our first major food reintroduction: egg yolks. Reintroducing foods is, in my opinion, really important to do but you want to do it correctly. I’ll direct you to a good explanation and write up on this topic here. This site includes the reintroduction guide so you’ll know which foods to reintroduce when and how best to do this. 

We did reintroduce black pepper a while back so that’s why I include it in the recipes I post. Now you know why I keep adding that really annoying “AIP reintroduction” or “Omit for AIP” when ever I use the word pepper. You were thinking I’m just neurotic and afraid some AIP police would come after me if I didn’t. Images of Paleo Mom at my door with a cave woman club in hand swirl through my head. Kidding, kidding. Seriously though, reintroductions are important and you want to do it right. So, I’m going to keep putting my “Omit for AIP” after the word pepper, okay!

I didn’t count pepper as a huge reintroduction. When we tried egg yolks, though, I considered it a big deal. I knew that if KT and EC could tolerate egg yolks that would open up a whole range of recipes we could use, not to mention the great nutritional benefits of egg yolks for them.

The reintroduction went great. First, because neither of them had any reaction to the egg yolk. But also here’s something we learned that’s really cool. EC has always had an aversion to eggs, no matter how they were prepared. Even in baked goods. We took her to an allergist when she was little because she’d sometimes throw up after eggs or she’d complain she was sick and nauseated. She never tested positive for any allergy though. So, we just didn’t give her eggs since it didn’t agree with her. When we reintroduced egg yolks I was hesitant to give it to her, thinking she’ll just never really agree with eggs, but she wanted to try the yolk. We gave her the challenge. No nausea, no sickness. She actually really liked them and eats them no problem. We’re pretty sure it was the egg whites that were throwing her stomach off. To understand why egg whites can be so troublesome, check out Paleo Mom’s explanation. Cool, right? If we hadn’t done the AIP as a family we would never have figured that out for EC.

Ok, how did we do the egg yolk thing? Isn’t getting just the yolk a bit of an issue? It’s not so bad. 

We started out by using hard boiled eggs. It’s really easy to take out the yolk and we wanted to keep it simple. Besides, you start with just a very small amount. 

After the reintroduction was done and we’d waited the few days after, I started baking again using egg yolks. It’s a party in the kitchen! But how, oh how, do you completely separate the whites from the yolk of a raw egg? It’s kinda fun. 

There are other ways to separate raw egg whites from the yolk, including purchasing a nifty little kitchen tool to help. But I’m cheap. And I’m too lazy to wash yet another kitchen gadget. So I use my hands. 

To start, do this at your kitchen sink. Have a bowl for the yolks nearby and your garbage or green bin close too for the shells.

Crack the egg and let the yolk sit in one half.

Next, gently (gently is key all along here) slide the yolk into your hand. 

See that white string? You want to gently pull that and toss it. All it does is connect the yolk to the whites.

Now, run the yolk under (gentle) running water to get rid of all the whites. You can move it back and forth between your hands if that helps.