Eggs are one of my favorite foods: nutritious, delicious, quick-cooking, and conveniently individually packaged. I specifically advocate eating fresh farmers’ market eggs from chickens who graze on a natural diet of green plants, insects, and grains. When cracked open, these eggs reveal a bright orange yolk and a white that gels together. They are rich in color, flavor, and nutrients (especially omega-3s, which support brain and nervous system development as well as cardiovascular health). Both the nutrients and omegas are concentrated in the yolk of the egg. Yes, eat the yolk; it is packed with good stuff! I freely admit that I pay $6/dozen for these superior quality eggs. Find this price hard to swallow? You can easily drop the same amount for a single cocktail at a bar. It’s all relative and a matter of priorities.
I am not a proponent of conventional eggs from mass-produced, corn-fed chickens who are raised in their own filth (sorry to be grim, but it’s true) and never see the light of day. Eggs from these chickens typically have a pale yellow yolk and a watery white. They are inferior in both taste and nutrition (around 20 times more omega-6). Although omega-6, like omega-3, is an essential fatty acid and we get way too much of it in the typical Western diet. Excessive amounts of omega-6 can promote inflammation, bog down the metabolism, and decrease insulin sensitivity.
If you can not get to a farmer’s market, the next best thing is free range omega-3 enriched eggs. How do they get those extra omega-3s in there? Farmers supplement the chicken’s diet with flax seed, which intensifies the omega-3 content in the eggs they lay.
What others have to say about eggs…
Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions, informs us that “Many cultures recognize that eggs are a brain food and encourage pregnant and nursing mothers to eat as many as possible.” She also emphasizes the importance of buying eggs from farms that allow their chickens “to eat bugs and graze on green pasture” as well as the benefits of these nutrient-rich eggs for the development of brain, nervous system, and visual function in babies and children. (605)
Rebecca Katz, culinary goddess and author of one of my favorite cook books “The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen”, points out a “huge study of 121,000 women [which] suggested that eating three eggs a week during adolescence dropped the risk of breast cancer by 18 percent.” (35)
According to Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories Bad Calories, “Dietary cholesterol… has an insignificant effect on blood cholesterol. It might elevate cholesterol levels in a small percentage of highly sensitive individuals, but for most of us, it’s clinically meaningless. …[However] telling people they should worry about cholesterol in their blood but not in their diet has been deemed too confusing.” (19)
Susan Allport, author of The Queen of Fats, brings our attention to “…the work of William Connor at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and [other] studies that have found no association between egg consumption and either heart disease or serum cholesterol levels.” (141)
Health Magazine’s (Nov. 2009) article titled “Your A-to-Z Guide to a Flat Belly” had this to say… “Dieters who had two eggs with breakfast whittled their waists more than those who ate the same number of calories but had a bagel instead, research published in the International Journal of Obesity says.” (48)
