4.4.5.2 Eeprom Access Functions

You must access objects in EEPROM using special library routines, such as eeprom_read_byte() and eeprom_write_word(), accessible once you include <avr/eeprom.h>.

Code to access EEPROM based objects will be much longer and slower than code to access RAM-based objects. Consider using these routines to copy values from the EEPROM to regular RAM-based objects if you need to use them many times in complex calculations.