Eggs - the egg-ceptional superfood

​Eggs are a superfood. After all, they contain all of the nutrients and building blocks required to grow an entire baby chicken. They are loaded with high-quality proteins (including all 9 essential amino acids), vitamins, minerals, good fats, and choline (very important nutrient for the brain). 

Eat the yolks folks! The yolk is full of vitamins A, D, and E. Eggs are one of only a few foods that provide us with dietary vitamin D. In addition, saturated fat and cholesterol are present in the yolk and these help increase our testosterone levels. Testosterone is needed to build muscle and for cognitive function. Yes, women need this too.

​One of the greatest frustrations I experience is trying to reassure people that eating eggs will not harm their health, but rather improve it. Most people I talk with are afraid that eggs – specifically the yolks – will raise their cholesterol. Many dietary guidelines are either directly or indirectly related to cholesterol phobia. The standard guidelines warn us to limit the amount of cholesterol we eat despite the fact that for at least 95% of the population, cholesterol in the diet has no effect on cholesterol in the blood. Cholesterol is a basic raw material made by your liver, brain, and almost every cell in your body. Enzymes convert cholesterol into vitamin D, sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone), stress hormones, and bile salts for digesting and absorbing fats. It makes up a major part of the membranes surrounding cells and the structures within them. The brain is particularly rich in cholesterol.

What if the whole theory about cholesterol causing heart disease was wrong in the first place?

It is shocking how misinformation about cholesterol-rich foods being dangerous to our health has drastically changed our eating habits.  The cholesterol theory was primarily based on two faulty studies. First, in 1913, a young Russian scientist named Nikolaj Anitschkow discovered a link between cholesterol and vascular damage (atherosclerosis) when feeding rabbits large amounts of cholesterol. After dissecting them later on, he discovered that their arteries were filled with cholesterol-containing plaque that looked like the arteries of people who died of heart disease.  However, rabbits are herbivores by nature and the amount of cholesterol they get in their diets is normally pretty close to zero.  So it is no surprise that filling their small bodies with a large amount of cholesterol will have damaging effects on their health. As I mentioned previously, there is no connection between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in blood – unless of course you happen to be a rabbit. 

​Since fat in the diet and cholesterol in the blood were believed to be linked, this led another scientist to misinterpret his own flawed experiment. In 1955 Ancel Keys set out to investigate fat in the diet and its connection to heart disease. Ancel Keys was not a doctor or a cardiologist. He was an ambitious biologist and his study would be the first of its kind. It examined the connection between lifestyle, diet, and the prevalence of cardiovascular disease in men from different world populations. He started by analyzing 22 countries. However, all his data was not supportive of his theory, so he hand-selected the 7 countries that supported his preconceived hypothesis. In this way, he was able to make a convincing case that there was a direct connection between dietary fat and heart disease. The fact that Keys had chosen to include 7 countries and ignore the other 15 did not go unnoticed. A British doctor by the name of John Yudkin questioned Keys’ research and performed a far more extensive analysis of dietary factors on his own. Yudkin’s more comprehensive data showed that the single dietary factor that has the strongest association with coronary heart disease was…sugar! In other words, it was back in the 50s that we had this information. If you are interested in learning more about cholesterol, The Great Cholesterol Myth by cardiologist Stephen Sinatra delves deeply into this matter. 

Ancel Keys

Which egg yolk would you rather eat?

​So do not be afraid of eating eggs, they are extremely nutritious and delicious. Scramble them in coconut oil for an extra yummy meal. And be sure to buy pastured eggs. These eggs are from chickens that have been allowed to roam outdoors, eating their traditional diet of insects and bugs. They live happier lives roaming the pasture and will deliver healthier eggs. 

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Sources:
Fallon, S. (2001). Nourishing traditions. Washington, DC: New Trends Publishing.
Shanahan, C & L. (2009). Deep nutrition: Why your genes need traditional food. Lawai, HI: Big Box Books.
Sinatra, S. (2012). The great cholesterol myth. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press.