7 Cool Things to Do With Eggshells

Eggs are one of the most popular foods in the world. They have crossed all cultural, geographic and social boundaries, and almost everyone in the world has enjoyed an egg at some time or other. They are a great source of protein and essential vitamins.

But what about egg shells?

Egg shells also have a great many uses. They contain a large amount of calcium. Their primary use is thus in gardening, where egg shells are ground up and mixed with the soil to give the soil a calcium boost.

You can also eat egg shells and use them in various other ways. Some of the cool things you can do with egg shells are given below.

1) Mix with hen feed

Eggshells are about 95% calcium. Clearly, hens need a large amount of calcium to lay eggs with a strong shell.

You can grind up egg shells and mix it with chicken feed in order to give your chicken its necessary dose of calcium. It is not unhealthy for the chicken, as long as you ensure that the egg shells are properly sterilized. This is particularly important if you get your eggs from a source where you are not sure if they are being sterilized properly

2) Calcium for your pets

Stop giving your pets calcium tablets, and switch to egg shells. When sterilized and ground up properly, they provide an effective source for bone strengthening calcium for your pets..

3) Treat yourself to some calcium

If you are suffering from calcium deficiency, you can easily add some eggshell to your diet. Be sure however, to sterilize and thoroughly bake the shells first, as they might contain harmful bacteria. Grind them up and add to a food you can swallow down (they can be unpleasant to chew.

4) Add to garden soil

This is by far the most popular use of egg shells. Egg shells contain about 95% calcium carbonate. This mineral helps ensure proper fruit growth, and is thus particularly important with fruit and vegetable plants. You have to grind it very finely, so that the calcium is made available to your plants faster.

Calcium enriched soil gives you some of the best fruit grows you can achieve. You can also add ground egg shells to your compost bin, and then use the compost to fertilize the soil to good effect.

5) Pest deterrent in your garden

Garden slugs are not fond of jagged, roughly ground egg shells. Cutworms aren’t very fond of them either. So to deter these bugs from crawling up your precious plants, you can sprinkle roughly ground egg shells al around the stems of your plants. This is a really effective and considerably cheap insect deterrent, and its great for your plants and the environment too.

6) As an abrasive

Ground egg shells are quite rough, and you can use them as an abrasive for cleaning particularly difficult stains on your cooking utensils. However, they are bound to leave scratches on the surface of the pans. So make sure you don’t use egg shells if you don’t want to see any scratches on the surface.

7) Give your coffee new flavor

You can add ground egg shells while brewing coffee. The calcium in the egg shells react with the acid in the coffee, which leaves coffee sweeter and much more pleasant tasting. You can them filter off the coffee grounds and the egg shells with a cloth filter.

The key to using egg shells in any way is to always make sure that they are very well sterilized. Most uses of egg shells require grinding.

For dry grinding, first thoroughly sterilize the eggshells, and then plop them into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. The eggshells should be very dry. Then all you do is fold the egg shells into a thick cloth (thin cloth will tear up due to rough edges) Hammer with a heavy object. Repeat the process to get a fine powder.

Egg shells have a diverse range of uses if you know how to use them properly. Just be creative, and never forget to sterilize.