Can the nutrition in eggs defeat the bad rap they’ve been given over the last half-century? Do we dare consider them superfoods? Absolutely! The truth is, dietary cholesterol has little to nothing to do with high LDL cholesterol or heart disease. First, you need to understand that LDL cholesterol is not “bad,” but the way your body attempts to repair damaged blood vessels. High levels of LDL is not the problem, but a symptom of a problem, usually of overconsumption of unhealthy fats.
Second, back before the age of processed foods, people ate high amounts of dietary cholesterol and any kind of heart disease or arteriosclerosis was rare. In addition, among “primitive” peoples today whose diet is void of processed food and rich in dietary cholesterol, such conditions are non-existent, even among the elderly.
So now that you understand that the cholesterol in eggs won’t kill you, let’s talk about the right kind of eggs to eat. The best are those that come from your own backyard, pasture-fed hens. Second best are eggs that come from a local farm that allows their hens to free range.
Then come store-bought organic eggs from cage-free hens. While you will get some nutrition from conventionally-raised hen eggs, it will be much less than from an organic egg and the hens that laid them are forced to live under horrendously unnatural and stressful conditions.
Nutrition in eggs
Eggs are a great source of the following nutrients:
- Tryptophan,
- Selenium,
- Iodine, and
- Vitamin B2.
Health benefits of eggs
If you want a healthy source of animal protein but your food budget is tight, you can’t beat farm-fresh eggs. This foods, due to its high iodine and selenium content, promotes a healthy thyroid as those two minerals are essential for proper thyroid function.
Eggs also contain choline, which is a critical part of three different components of the brain. In addition, a deficiency of choline leads to a deficiency of folic acid, another nutrient necessary for proper brain function.
The nutrition in eggs also helps with eye health, because it contains lutein. Don’t avoid the egg because of the cholesterol issue. Instead, eat the right kind and it will prove to be a valuable superfood in your diet.
Comments on this entry are closed.