Raw Eggs Make You Stronger

Buff with salmonella.

"When I was a lad, I ate four dozen eggs
Every morning to help me get large!
And now that I'm grown, I eat five dozen eggs
So I'm roughly the size of a barge!"

— Gaston, Beauty and the Beast

When a character is training to get stronger, his routine will almost always involve drinking raw eggs at some point. It was originally believed that raw eggs have more protein than cooked eggs, and it makes the character look tough and determined since it takes a real hardass to down something so unpalatable.

It was later learned that cooking the egg fuses its protein strands together and increases the amount of protein that will be digested compared to a raw egg. Consuming raw eggs also puts you at risk of salmonella poisoning (unless the eggs are pasteurized ahead of time), turning this into a Dead Horse Trope. Consequently, a common modern version is to have the character down the eggs and then immediately puke them up.

Note that some dishes are prepared by adding a raw egg to a hot dish just before serving, such as the popular Japanese breakfast, tamago kake gohan, which is egg rice. That is not this trope, as the heat from the food cooks the raw egg.

Made famous by Rocky, so this trope shows up frequently in Training Montages set to "Gonna Fly Now" or "Eye of the Tiger." See also Hideous Hangover Cure. See also Prefers Raw Meat, which is often inspired by the same assumption behind this trope (i.e. that uncooked food has more nutritional value).

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Examples

Advertising

• Subverted in an E*Trade commercial in which a young boy goes through a Training Montage. He fills a glass with raw eggs, takes a sniff...and immediately changes his mind.

Anime & Manga

• Saeba in City Hunter drinks raw eggs every morning.
• Ed's father does this in Cowboy Bebop.
• Spoofed in Excel♡Saga when Pedro does it and then immediately spits them out.

Comic Books

• A thing the Red Hulk picked up with his tenure with The Avengers was eating raw eggs whole (as if he needed it; and even if the writers remembered the real-life rule, there'd be no problem since, as a Hulk, he's got a Healing Factor and since Red Hulk also can raise his temperature, they probably just end up cooking inside of him anyway). Marvel Boy seems to like these too (well, he is an alien). Spider-Man, on the other hand, is so disgusted he throws up with his mask on.

Comic Strips

• In one Peanuts strip, Charlie Brown adds a raw egg to Snoopy's dog food to give him a shiny coat. Snoopy doesn't like this.
  Snoopy: BLAH!! So much for suppertime!

Film — Animation

• Disney's Beauty and the Beast: In his Villain Song, Gaston mentions eating several dozen eggs for breakfast every day. Possibly with shells on.
  Gaston: When I was a lad I ate four dozen eggs
  Every morning to help me get large
  And now that I'm grown, I eat five dozen eggs
  So I'm roughly the size of a baaaaaaaaaarge!
• In the Footrot Flats film, Wal begins his rugby training by smashing two handfuls of eggs together into a glass, drinks them down... and rushes off to the toilet to vomit them back up.

Film — Live-Action

• The Serial Killer in Angel (1984)—who is a bodybuilding fanatic—is shown consuming a raw egg in the most disgusting way possible.
• Variant, for vocal powers instead of stamina ones: in Brazilian biopic Dois Filhos de Francisco, the children who will grow up to be a famous country duo (one of them, at least; the other dies young and is replaced by another brother) is forced to eat raw eggs by their father who wants them to be musicians.
• In Electra Glide in Blue, Wintergreen's Morning Routine includes drinking two raw eggs during his workout.
• Played for Laughs again in Grudge Match. Lightning gives Henry "Razor" Sharp a glass of raw eggs, and Henry asks him if fighters still do this.
• Played reasonably straight in Hanna. After being on the run and having met up with Knepler, Hanna asks if she can have an egg when being offered breakfast, which she drinks raw, displaying both her survivalist roots and how badass she is.
• The serial killer protagonist in Hunting Humans mentions once having a neighbor who saw herself as a health nut, so she ate raw eggs every morning. He puts her out of her misery by poisoning a few of them.
• In the 1930s silent film I Was Born, But..., a boy brings a sparrow's egg to school and drinks it in front of his friends to show off how tough he is. This gets him in trouble and leads to him Standing in the Hall.
• In Miracle Run, Phillip tries to drink raw eggs like his hero Rocky, only to immediately vomit them back up.
• In Nacho Libre, Ignacio climbs up a cliff to gather and eat the yolk of an eagle's egg to become empowered by it.
• Played for Laughs in Never Back Down. The protagonist and his best friend are shown drinking eggs during a training montage, and the friend immediately chucks them back up, to the dismay of the hero.
• Also parodied in The Prize Fighter with Don Knotts and Tim Conway. Tim is Don's coach and tries to make Don drink raw eggs. Don demands Tim drink the eggs first to prove that it works and Tim ends up making scrambled eggs.
• Jimmy King tries to do this in Ready to Rumble. He spits them back out.
• Rocky. The famous "egg-drinking scene" is the Trope Maker.
• Referenced in the song "I Will Make You A Man" in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
• In Stand by Me, this trope is subverted, where Lard Ass Hogan eats a raw egg to ready himself to vomit on cue.
• Parodied in They Call Me Bruce. The main character tries to do it but decides it would be better to make egg foo-young with them.
• The introduction scene for Francis (Chow Yun-fat) in Tiger on Beat, where he's shown ordering half a dozen raw eggs in a cafeteria and then gulping down all of them with a glass of warm milk. In a friendly nod to other 80s' action icons which inspired Hong Kong cinema, Francis remarks he "learnt that from Stallone."
• In You Don't Mess with the Zohan, the Phantom hatches eggs and eats live full-formed chicks from them.
• As part of the Training Montage in Run Fat Boy Run, Dennis attempts to drink raw eggs. but immediately spits them back up.

Literature

• Downplayed-to-averted in the Mr. Men books. The text explains that "the more eggs Mr Strong eats, the stronger he becomes", but it doesn't specify raw. (The accompanying illustrations suggest fried or boiled, but the text doesn't actually specify that either.)

Live-Action TV

• An episode of Boy Meets World began with Shawn and Corey making some form of protein shake. Shawn suggests adding a raw egg. Corey, slightly disgusted, asks him why.
  Shawn: Sylvester Stallone drinks raw eggs!
  Corey: Yeah, and he's, like, five foot two.
  Shawn: And you're, like, two foot five!
  [beat]
  Corey: Go with the egg!
• Diff'rent Strokes: When Kimberly is training for the Olympics (she's a figure skater) Mr. Drummond feeds her raw eggs.
• In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will prepares to fight the guy who spun him on his head on the opening credits. He goes through a full Training Montage, complete with drinking raw eggs, and by that we mean, trying to swallow them and then instantly spitting them out and fainting.
• Hospital Playlist: Raw eggs make you sing better. Song-hwa, who insists on being the singer for the Five-Man Band despite not being able to sing very well, drinks a glass of raw eggs before the band plays, to lubricate her throat. It doesn't help her very much.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: In the episode "Mac's Big Break", Mac drinks several blended raw eggs as part of his Training Montage. There is also a clip of him puking them back up.
• This is Jin's signature meal in Kamen Rider Amazons, but it comes with at least some justification: he needs high amounts of protein to fight the Amazon craving for human flesh and to keep himself energised enough to stay transformed, and by necessity he eats them right before transforming so has no time to heat them. On at least one occasion he gives Haruka one for the same reasons.
• Sylvester Stallone and David Letterman drank eggs on The Late Show while Stallone was on promoting Rocky: The Musical. Later in the show Letterman got Theo James (there to promote Divergent) to drink them too.
• In a Living Single episode where Khadijah is training to face off against an old high school basketball rival turned professional NBA player, she initially trying to drink the raw eggs, only to eventually just pour them into an open skillet.
• Lizzie McGuire's mother served her glasses of raw eggs as she trained for a rhythmic gymnastics competition, but Lizzie dumped the eggs into a frying pan instead of drinking them.
• Hal on Malcolm in the Middle trains for a race-walking competition by drinking a shake mixed with this, plus raw ground beef and some supplement powder. He prepares and consumes the shake on-camera, in one take.
• A Married... with Children episode has Kelly training to be a boxer to get a role in a feature film. Her method of "raw rggs" has her putting the (unbroken) eggs inside of a glass and attempting to "drink" it, to trainer Bud's embarrassment.
• Trip tries this in Power Rangers Time Force in front of Circuit, who swiftly exclaims "that's just gross".
• Subverted and Played for Laughs in That '70s Show. Kelso attempts to impress Jackie by working out and during a conversation with her announces that he's going to drink a cup of raw eggs. She tries to say something and he rudely stops her, drinking the eggs anyway. When he's done, she reminds him that he's allergic to eggs.
• SCTV did a parody of Rocky where boxer Hefty Neil (John Candy) cracks a half-dozen eggs into a glass - then pours them into a frying pan.
• The Wire: the Stevedore breakfast of a raw egg cracked into a pint of beer and a shot of whiskey
  Ziggy: most important god damn meal of the day!
• World's Dumbest... Performers 11 has #2 downing a dozen raw eggs. He doesn't last long before puking them up. Naturally, Danny Bonaduce decides to do this himself — and doesn't vomit the eggs.

Music

• The music video for “Decided to Break It” by Marianas Trench includes plenty of raw eggs in the Training Montage the band has to go through.

Theater

• In A Very Potter Sequel, Dolores Umbridge is an impossibly strong, buff, 6ft+ woman. Apparently she used to be a "little booger like Hermione", with no self-confidence, but she became incredibly strong through a diet of "protein shakes, falcon eggs, and ROCKS". Presumably the falcon eggs were raw.

Video Games

• Along with the standard herbs and first-aid sprays, Resident Evil 4 and 5 both feature freshly-laid eggs as healing items, which are eaten raw simply because there's no better option at hand for consuming them in mid-mission. 5 explicitly shows your character cracking the egg on their hip and downing it in one gulp.

Visual Novels

• When the protagonist of Double Homework describes his eating habits, he mentions a raw egg as an ingredient in his smoothies.

Web Comics

• Seymour on Sinfest drinks raw eggs as part of a Training Montage.

Web Video

• A regular contributor to The Annotated Series mocks a scene from Captain N: The Game Master episode "Videolympics" in a sing-along bonus video.
  Don't drink eggs! / They're high in cholesterol / They'll kill you dead!
• An early episode of Binging with Babish featuring foods from The Wire ends with Andrew trying the "stevedore breakfast" of a raw egg cracked into a pint of pale lager. Andrew reported that the drink just made him sleepy and a bit sick and wondering how anyone could get anything done after drinking it.
  Andrew: As usual, this is all Ziggy's fault.

Western Animation

• Steve Rogers apparently drinks raw eggs for breakfast in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
• In Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Enter the Outsiders!", Retired Badass Wildcat is shown using raw eggs in his "Tiger Tonic." Lampshaded when Batman points out that it's actually incredibly unsafe to consume raw eggs, but Wildcat can't hear him over the sound of the blender. Wildcat heartily drinks a cup of the resulting gunk, but Batman tosses his into a potted plant, killing it near-instantly.
• Captain N: The Game Master episode "Videolympics" has a scene during a Training Montage where Kevin drinks a glass of several raw eggs, much to the disgust of his teammates.
  Don't drink eggs! / They're high in cholesterol / They'll kill you dead!
• Done in the Duck Dodgers episode about Queen and High telling anecdotes about Dodgers based on gags omitted from other episodes. One flashback has Marvin trying to invoke this trope, but finds out that Dodgers loves raw eggs and that the way he drinks it is too disgusting for poor Martian eyes.
• Family Guy: In "New Kidney in Town", Peter Griffin makes his own energy drink. One ingredient is a raw egg, including the shell.
• Hey Arnold!:
  • Harold tried drinking raw eggs while training for an arm-wrestling match, but they made him want to throw up.
  • In another episode, as part of a Training Montage, Grandpa cracks some eggs in a glass... only to pour them into a skillet.
• King of the Hill episode "Bill, Bulk and the Body Buddies" has Bill hiring three meatheads as his personal trainers while preparing for his army physical and he gets so into his weight lifting regimen that he ruptures his rectum while doing leg presses. Unaware of his injury, the meatheads just think Bill is fatigued and they pour raw eggs down his throat via a funnel to give him a boost. Needless to say it doesn't help.
  • Referenced in "Bill of Sales" when Peggy is trying to sell the guys protein shakes, and Boomhauer declines, saying that all he needs is "dang ol' chopped beef and eggs in a blender talkin' 'bout body by Boomhauer man"
• The Loud House: The episode “The Loudest Yard” deconstructs this trope. When training Lincoln for football, Lynn prepares the typical raw eggs for him, however all they do is make Lincoln get sick and throw up. Another instance of this trope occurs in "Sitting Bull", where Lynn has a couple of little kids she's babysitting guzzle down some raw eggs after making them do strenuous exercises. One of the kids is seen puking up the egg he swallowed later, to which Lynn remarks that it was a waste of "two perfectly good eggs", implying that the boy's sister likewise threw up her egg off-screen.
• South Park
  • Subverted when Randy is trying to get in shape. In a scene lifted pretty much exactly out of Rocky, he gets up early, staggers into the kitchen, cracks a couple of eggs into a glass...and then pours them into a frying pan and starts scrambling them. While cracking open a beer.
  • Also subverted in an earlier episode; Jesus must train himself for a boxing match against Satan, and he refuses Kyle's offer of raw eggs.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In the episode "The Great Snail Race", SpongeBob puts Gary through Training from Hell to win the snail race. At one point, he mixes Gary an "energy drink" which includes raw eggs, "because they're cliché!" Amazingly, one of the other ingredients being metal nails "for toughness" almost makes raw eggs seem downright sane.
  • In another episode, "MuscleBob BuffPants", SpongeBob, wearing fake muscular arms to impress weightlifters at the beach, boasts "I start off with 20 raw eggs everyday. But that's just me."
• In The Venture Brothers, Hank gives Brock a glass of raw eggs when he starts training to get his secret agent license back. Brock suspects he spat in it.
  Hank: When I'm through with you, you're going to eat lightning and crap thunder!
  Dean: It looks more like he's going to eat eggs and crap...eggs.
• Stōked: Part of Fin's Training Montage in "Dirty Little Secret, Nerdy Little Secrets". She throws up halfway through attempting to drink the eggs.
• Parodied in the VeggieTales episode "Sumo of the Opera":
  Italian Scallion (Larry the Cucumber): [upon being given a glass full of raw eggs] Yuck! I'm supposed to drink this?
  Mikey (Pa Grape): Of course not! They're raw! Ya scramble them!
  [the chef proceeds to dump the eggs into the frying pan]

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