Thursday, January 22, 2009

The Sunny Side of Eggs

Eggs are breaking free from their past reputation as being a high cholesterol food.
Whereas in previous years, folks were discouraged from eating too many eggs, it's now ok for people to eat eggs several times per week, reports nutritionist Tamar Shriger.

Dr. Bruce Griffin from the University of Surrey led a study where two groups of overweight but healthy people were put on a reduced calorie diet. One group was given two eggs per day to eat; the other had no eggs. Along with losing weight, both groups' blood cholesterol went down.
Indeed, other research are showing that eating cholesterol-rich foods like eggs does not necessarily raise blood cholesterol levels.

In the US, Americans eat two/three eggs per week-which is considered low compared to other countries!

What's so great about eggs?

It's high quality protein. It contains choline a B vitamin that helps with brain function and health. And for pregnant women, choline is crucial for the fetus's brain development. Choline also keeeps the cholesterol moving in the bloodstream. Plus, there's fatty acids EPA and DHA that are involved in the functioning of the nervous system.

Eggs also contain carotenes (natural pigments with anti-oxidant properties). Lutein and zeaxanthin helps prevents cataracts and other eye problems in the elderly. And (is there more?) eggs also contain fat soluble vitamins A and D.

Note: Fat soluble means that the body absorbs these guys in the present of fats. So, eggs should be enjoyed with some fat, like extra virgin olive oil. (The best kind of oil, y'all!)

Just beware of powdered eggs. They are dehydrated eggs and although they have a longer shelf life and cheaper price, they've also got harmful oxidized cholesterol-which we are trying to avoid in the first place...

Check out
http://www.physorg.com/news139156140.html

Whfoods:Eggs

G-d bless!

2 comments:

The First Domino דומינו said...

It seems that eggs have received an undeserved bad rap all these years.

I'm thinking that someone--group, organization, institution, movement--must have benefited from this maligning of eggs.

Some of these self-styled food Czars have mislead us for years as well, declaring certain foods as harmful without the requisite research data to back it up, or misrepresenting the data to push certain foods and processes that they knew were harmful.

Thanks for the blog entry. I'm looking at eggs again, thanks to you.

Namaste

Cilantro said...

I'm lookin' at eggs, too. And, hey, I always did like a good omelette...