I was on a weekend trip recently with some of my friends. One friend was kind enough to cook breakfast for us. Being just a little health conscious and a lot more curious, I went over to see what he was whipping up for the gang to eat. I peered over his shoulder and saw he was getting ready to make a big batch of eggs. I thought to myself, “Perfect!  I love eggs.”

But, to my shock and horror, I saw him crack the eggs, separate the egg whites and yolks, keep the whites in a bowl and then throw away the yolks! Egads! I asked him, “Why in the world are you throwing out the egg yolks?!” He replied something like this…

“Because I thought the egg yolks were bad for you…where all the nasty fat and cholesterol comes from.”

Before I could even realized what I was doing, I was passionately responding (and possibly correcting) by saying,  “You mean… that is where all of the nutrition is!”

Nutrient Rich. Eating Dumb.

This is a perfect example of how most people are confused about nutrition. In a world full of misconception about nutrition, most people somehow mistake the egg yolk as the worst part of the egg. In fact, the egg yolk is the healthiest part of the egg! As a result of  backward thinking, many restaurants offer all egg-white items on their “healthy” breakfast menu – instead of the whole egg.  Are we really so “fat-phobic” we can’t enjoy a good wholesome egg?

By not eating the egg yolk, you miss the most nutrient dense, antioxidant-rich, vitamin and mineral loaded part of the egg. Truth is, you are missing so much by just eating the egg whites….more than I can list here:

  • B-vitamins
  • Trace minerals
  • Vitamin A
  • Folate
  • Choline
  • Lutein
  • And other powerful nutrients

In fact, egg whites are seriously lacking in nutrition compared to egg yolks. What little protein there is in egg whites lacks the amino acid from the yolks to make the  protein more bio-available.

Yolks contain more than 90% of:

  • Calcium
  • Iron
  • Phosphorus
  • Zinc
  • Thiamin
  • B6
  • Folate
  • B12
  • Panthothenic acid

In addition, the yolks contain 100% of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K in the egg, as well as 100% of the essential fatty acids (EFAs). Egg yolks from free range chickens are even more power packed with nutrition by containing high omega-3 fatty acids.

Misled Makes Mistakes

I’ve heard it before and I’ve heard it often:

“But, I thought eating whole eggs would skyrocket my cholesterol through the roof.”

No, this is FALSE!

1. First of all, our bodies are designed to regulate it’s own internal production of cholesterol when we eat foods that are high in a dietary amount of cholesterol, such as eggs.

2. In addition, if our bodies don’t get enough cholesterol, it will turn up the production of cholesterol from other sources because it is essential for many body functions.

Wait! Here is where it gets really interesting…

Plenty of studies are showing that eating whole eggs raises your good HDL cholesterol. Good news for eating the whole egg! By raising HDL cholesterol over bad LDL cholesterol, you improve your overall cholesterol ratio and blood chemistry.

3. By the way… high cholesterol is NOT a disease!  Heart disease is a disease…but high cholesterol is NOT.  It is dangerous – and perhaps deadly – to “lower your cholesterol” because pharmaceutical companies promote that everyone on the planet should be on statin drugs.

If you are specifically interested in this topic of cholesterol, this Cholesterol Myth article addresses what the side-effects are from lowering your cholesterol, as well as the truth about cholesterol numbers.

If you are worried about heart disease, you can protect your heart from inflammation (the real culprit of heart disease – not dietary cholesterol) with eggs yolks. The antioxidant lutein, as well as other antioxidants, protect your from detrimental inflammation, which is another good reason to eat the yolk.

If that’s not enough for you, a recent article from the University of Connecticut study proves why whole eggs are better for you than egg whites. A group of men in the study ate 3 eggs per day for 12 weeks while on a reduced carb, higher fat diet. They increased their HDL good cholesterol by 20%, while their LDL bad cholesterol stayed the same during the study. Keep in mind, higher HDL levels are associated with lower risk of heart disease.

However, the group that ate egg substitutes (egg whites) saw no improvement or change in good cholesterol.

As you can see, whole eggs should not be feared.  Whole eggs are far superior to egg whites – and will NOT wreck your body.

Worried about extra calories in the yolk? 

This is nothing to worry about. The egg yolks are super high and dense in nutritious calories, which actually helps to regulate your appetite. By increasing your overall nutrient density per calorie you consume, you end up eating less calories overall.  In addition, the healthy fats in the egg yolks help to maintain a good level of fat-burning hormones in your body.

Overall, this means that the extra fats (healthy fats) and calories from the yolk are so nutrient-dense that they actually HELP you to burn off body fat!

From the Farm

Here is the last word I want to say. Your normal supermarket eggs fed from mass factory farming just don’t nutritionally compare with organic free range eggs.  Your typical cheap grocery store eggs will have lower nutrient levels and a higher omega-6 level and lower omega-3 level.  On the other hand, the cage-free organic eggs from healthier chickens allowed to eat more natural feed and roam freely will have much higher vitamin and mineral levels and a more balanced healthier omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio.

I recently compared eggs I bought at the grocery store with a batch of eggs I got at a farm stand where the chickens were free roaming and healthy.

If you have not tried real eggs from healthy chickens, then you don’t know what you are missing! The eggs from grocery stores have pale yellow yolks and thin weak shells.  However, the eggs from healthier free range chickens have strong thick shells and deep orange colored yolks.   Like many natural foods, the more rich and intense the color, the higher nutrition levels.

The healthy eggs – full of rich carotenoids displayed in the yolk – are from chickens allowed to roam and eat a variety of greens, insects and worms, etc, from the land. They provide MUCH higher levels of nutrients than the chickens trapped inside a dark factory storehouse with nothing to feed on but corn and soy.  The horrible living conditions create a drastically different egg, scarce in nutrition.

So, the next time you are cooking breakfast for friends or family, use the whole egg! The next time someone who pretends to know a thing or two and tells you that egg whites are superior, ignore the “professional” advice.  You know the truth about egg yolks.

Go ahead, make an omelet with ALL the egg yolks – and you’ll get real taste and real health benefits with the delicious and nutritious egg.

If you think about it, do you really think that our ancestors threw out the yolk and only ate the egg whites? Fat chance! They intuitively knew that all of the nutrition was found in the yolks.  But our modern society has been brainwashed with misinformation about fats and cholesterol.

Another interesting study about eggs…

Okay, one more thing I want to share!  Recently I read a study of people that ate egg breakfasts compared to those who ate cereal or bagel-based breakfasts. Can you guess the results? Those that ate eggs for breakfast maintained a healthy body weight, while the cereal, bagel and carb eaters consistently gained weight.

How can this be?  We can assume and generally agree that the breakfast egg eaters actually eat less calories throughout the remainder of the day because they were more satisified.  Those that eat cereal/bagel/carbs for breakfast are prone to have food cravings and wider blood sugar swings.

Oh, one last thing I almost forgot… I personally eat 4 whole eggs almost every day with breakfast, and I maintain single-digit body fat most of the year.

Enjoy your eggs and get a leaner body!

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