For the Love of All That is Yolky

Posted by Brian - 09/04/08 at 09:09:18 am

A recent Gyminee post by SonOfKrypton regarding eggs got me thinking of this, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a point about the nutritional value of an egg and the oh-so-wonderful goodness that many people are missing out on.  What goodness am I referring to?  Why, the yolk, of course!

Show of hands.  How many people out there eat egg whites, but throw the yolk away?

Go ahead…it’s okay…raise your hand…I know you’re out there…I saw your comments on SonOfKrypton’s post.

Let’s take a look at the incredible, (completely) eatable, egg.

Fat, calories, and protein

First, let’s take the 45,000 foot view of the two basic things the human body needs to function: water and an energy source (and we need the former more often than the latter).  So, what’s the energy source for the human body?  Food!  Broken down into fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, we tend to think of these in terms of grams, but to the body it is nothing more than pure, raw, energy used to sustain every aspect of our body.

So, by using the Gyminee food search functionality, and limiting our results to USDA nutritional data only, let’s compare whole eggs vs. egg whites.  Since carbohydrates are not only less important than fats and proteins but, in this case, represent a minuscule difference of only one gram between the two, we’ll focus on the other two energy sources.

On the left, you’ll see a whole, large egg, with its 7 grams of fat, and 7 grams of protein.  On the right, the egg white lags behind with its embarrassing 0 grams of fat, and only 4 grams of protein.  The proof is in the numbers.

Some of you may pick up on the higher level of cholesterol present in the egg yolk, but don’t let that dissuade you.  A recent study in the Advanced Online Publication area of the International Journal of Obesity (1) comparing four groups of overweight individuals shows, among other things, that adding a couple of (whole) eggs per day to your diet in no way affects your level of cholesterol.  Dr. Michael Eades gives a great summary of the study here.

Diving head first into an explanation of my position on cholesterol would take us away from the subject at hand.  Suffice to say, I’ll save that one for a future post.  In the mean time, I implore you to check out THINCS or any of the writings of Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, author of The Cholesterol Myths.

A little thing called nutrients

I would have preferred an actual breakdown of mg of each of the following nutrients rather than the “recommended daily percentage” based on a 2,000 calorie diet, but for the simple sake of comparison, these numbers will be more than adequate.  Again, this data is from Gyminee and again the whole egg is on the left, with the egg white on the right.  Look at all the goodies that the egg yolk has to offer!  Vitamins A, D, E, K!  Calcium!  All contained within the yolk of the egg, not the egg white.

Mother Nature (by way of a helpful chicken) has provided us, yet again, with a natural, healthy food that needs to have nothing added or removed to benefit our bodies.  It should simply be eaten the way she intended it: yolk included.

On average, I eat about two dozen eggs per week purchased, of course, fresh from the local farmer’s market (if you’ve never tasted “real” eggs from a farmer’s market, you don’t know what you’re missing out on).   Just keep in mind when cooking your egg that the more heat you apply, the more nutrients you are removing from the yolk.  A good rule of thumb for yolk is the runnier, the better!

Citations:

(1) Egg Breakfast Enhances Weight Loss

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