Eggs-actly! An Old Favorite is Back.

Still afraid of that sinister cholesterol lurking in your favorite egg?

The time has come to put away those fears whipped up by the media in years gone by. By most current accounts, eggs have been given a bad rap and they belong once again on the menu of a balanced diet.

As a source of nutrition, eggs provide considerable bang for the buck!

A large egg provides only 71 calories and is a good source of Riboflavin, Vitamin B12, and Phosphorus. Eggs are also very good sources of protein and Selenium.

Eggs also pack in a significant amount of saturated fat and cholesterol, so this is a food source that you use carefully. As part of an overall balanced diet, eggs can certainly be part of the variety that makes eating so much fun.

What can get us into trouble with an overconsumption of eggs are the foods that use eggs as a constituent part. Baked goods regularly use eggs for the protein necessary to hold the recipe together.

So being aware of what makes up the food we eat becomes an essential part of our involvement in our eating habits. This is where consuming foods with the least amount of processing becomes important.

Did you ever try to decipher the ingredients label on a packaged foodstuff in the grocery store? What makes something organic vs. pesticide-free? And what the heck is monosodium glutamate anyway?

Getting to be familiar with these concepts and terms is important in learning about food safety. In the meantime, please consider consuming foods that generally don’t have to come with a label.

That’s right! Fruits, vegetables – and even eggs! They come with their own tamper-evident packaging and they have not lost all of that terrific nutrition that commercial foods have processed out.

Things in moderation.

The humble egg was originally slammed for its pretty high cholesterol content but research in recent years is showing that dietary cholesterol is not the same character as the naturally produced cholesterol from our livers. It is this body cholesterol that seems to be the culprit in the atherosclerosis and heart disease.

Dietary cholesterol is still something to be wary of since the sources of tasty cholesterol are usually from animals. And animal sources provide a goodly amount of saturated fat along with the cholesterol. Saturated fat does have a definite track record as a player in heart disease.

Things in moderation.

So look at more foods that have not come from a factory (or bakery!) but don’t deprive yourself. A balanced diet will allow a place for richer foods like meats and eggs. They are not an every meal occurrence but certainly something to be enjoyed when you consume them guilt-free.