You probably eat eggs, in some form or another, weekly or maybe even daily. While eggs have likely been a food you’ve eaten throughout your life, have you ever actually looked into the health details of eggs? Read on and I’m fairly certain you’ll walk away even happier about eating your eggs.
First off, in general, eat your yolks! The yolk is the main source of vitamins in your egg. Egg whites have some vitamins, but there are greater amounts of almost every one of the vitamins in the yolks. When you eat the yolks, you are getting calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D, and many more vitamins. At the same time, don’t plan on using eggs instead of fruits or vegetables to be your main source of vitamins. While egg yolks do contain a wide variety of vitamins, they are all in small amounts relative to what your recommended daily intake is. Fruits and vegetables are much more effective in giving you the high amounts of vitamins your body needs.
An even more important reason to eat the yolk, though, is that the yolk is where a good chunk of the protein and amino acids are. Each time you say no to the yolk, you are missing out on 2.7 grams of protein and on about half of the full amount of amino acids eggs can give you. Protein helps with many different body processes and is known for its role in muscles function and growth. Amino acids help directly with protein, as amino acids are the different components of protein. One reason eggs are especially good for you is that they have all nine of the essential amino acids in them, which means eggs fuel your body with the amino acids your body is not able to make on its own.
One reason a lot of people pass on the egg yolk is for its high cholesterol levels—but know that for most people, you can still eat the egg yolk without worrying about increasing your cholesterol levels. For the general population, eating one full egg daily hasn’t been shown to increase cholesterol levels.
If you are trying to use eggs as a major protein source, try adding in egg more whites. Egg whites are where even more protein is in the egg-- specifically, there are 3.6 grams of protein in each egg white. Simply eating one full egg and one extra egg white in the morning will bring your morning protein intake to about 10 grams of protein. In other words, you can get about 20% of your recommended daily intake of protein with a full egg and an extra egg white combination in the morning.
With all of this talk about eggs, I am starting to get hungry and I am thinking eggs might be just what I am craving. Go and eat some eggs too and let me know any creative ways of how you like to cook your eggs in the morning!