Eggs – to eat or not to eat?

What do you do when you’re faced with a breakfast menu?

Breakfast is often touted as the most important meal of the day, and rightly so. So it stands to reason that your breakfast choice should be healthy, even if you are attending a business breakfast meeting. You want to avoid the muffins, croissants and pastries on offer. You know that much. But what about eggs? It seems impossible to avoid eggs on a breakfast menu. Do they cause high cholesterol? Do they deserve the bad press they’ve received?

There is a lot of contradictory nutritional advice when it comes to eggs. So let’s unscramble the facts from the fiction.

Do eggs cause high cholesterol?

The truth is that it is the saturated fat in your diet that will increase blood cholesterol levels, and eggs are low in saturated fat. Dietary cholesterol has less impact on our blood cholesterol than we have been led to believe. Saturated fat is the real culprit when it comes to clogged arteries and an increased risk of heart attack.

Research seems to indicate that you can safely eat one egg a day without negatively affecting your blood cholesterol levels. However, it must be mentioned that you should eat a balanced diet and have your cholesterol levels checked as part of your general health check-up.

Eggs are a great example of why it is important to stay up to date with nutritional research. Although eggs got a lot of bad press in the past, that might be because they were less nutritious back then. Eggs are now said to have as much as 64% more vitamin D (as well as less cholesterol) that a decade ago, thanks to hens being given more wholesome feed.

As with all food, organic and natural is best. To get the most protein and all the benefits of eggs, opt for naturally laid rather than commercial eggs.

 

So the only question that remains is: how would you like you eggs? Scrambled or poached?