Egg yolk

Egg Yolk

The egg has a bad reputation. While the egg itself is very nutritious food it also has a drawbacks. Some people will tell you to eat eggs. Others will tell you to avoid them. In fact, one recent study suggests eggs maybe as harmful for you as smoking.

The egg yolk is the villain in the story. Even those who eat eggs routinely discard the yolk. There are many who advocate egg whites. Products like eggbeaters are marketed as eggs without yolks.

What is the really story? Should you eat eggs or avoid them? Should you discard the yolks and only eat the egg whites?

Egg Yolk

The chicken egg (or any bird egg) is the method of reproduction for chickens. Instead of carrying an fetus in the womb like a mammal, the chicken lays the eggs which contains the embryo. Of course, modern eggs in the supermarket lack embryos, so don't cringe.

The chicken embryo must develop on its own. It is not fed like a human baby in the womb with the umbilical cord. Instead, all the nutrients the embryo needs are contained within the egg.

This explains why the egg is so nutrient dense. The embryo needs a considerable amount of nutritional energy to grow into a chick a break free from the shell. The egg is one of the most nutrient dense and biologically valuable foods you can eat.

Egg Yolk

The egg yolk contains about one half the protein of the egg. If a large egg contains about 9 grams, then the yolk has 4 or 5 of those grams.

Plus, nearly all the nutrients are in the yolk. It is packed with vitamin A, D, C and K. These are the fat soluble vitamins you need. Plus it has large amounts of the water soluble B vitamins too. In addition, it has calcium, iron and a long list of other good things.

The chicken embryo is adjacent to the yolk. It consumes the yolk as it grows.

If you discard the yolk, you are throwing away much of the nutritional benefit of the egg.

Egg Yolk

The downside to the egg yolk is that it contains cholesterol and lots of satured fat in general. The young chick requires fat to develop. Even young mammals require large amounts of fats, which is used to insulate nerve cells and perform various functions in the body. The third trimester is when babies tend to add fat.

For adult humans, all that cholesterol and fat is not a good thing. A certain segment of the population must carefully monitor their cholesterol, and thus avoid high cholesterol foods like the egg. Even people without current high cholesterol levels must not over eat eggs because it can build over time.

The current medical community says we should eat no more than 4 egg yolks a week.

Egg Yolk

Ok, so you know the egg yolk is full of good stuff. Better yet, it's not flash pasturized or anything, so you are getting the full benefit of those vitamins. But at the same time it is very high in cholesterol. What should you do? Eat the yolks or avoid them?

I like a balanced approach. I discard one yolk for every two eggs. If a normal serving of scrambled eggs is 2 eggs, remove one yolk. That way you get a benefits from one yolk. If you eat five egg based meals a week, with two eggs per meal, you've only had 5 yolks. 5 yolks is unlikely to cause any short or long term cholesterol effects.