Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Egg-cellent advice


I was reading the short story of Andy Weir, where he expresses his point of view on a philosophical sense, stating that the universe is "An Egg". Eventhough I think that the story is inspiring I am not going to discuss this theory in here. Neither am I going to try and find an answer  to the ancient question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? Instead, I am going to be very practical and let you know the key points you need to know to convince yourself to profit as much as you can from this excellent and easily available superfood, which by the way is very similiar to the planet we are living on. 

Earth as an egg  The egg is formed of four distinct structures such as the ovum or yolk, the albumen or white, consisting of thin and thick regions, the shell membranes that seperate inner and outer layers and the shell, made of separate and identifiable layers. All of these structures have remarkable nutritious properties. Let start from the inside out. The egg yolk is best known for CHOLESTEROL. We all tend to run the opposite direction as soon as we hear this word. But... Things are never as they seem to be. With the egg being such a philosophical creature as well, you can not expect otherwise. It has also been shown countless times that dietary cholesterol raises the “good” HDL, while it’s the sugar, especially fructose, grains and omega-3/omega-6 imbalances that raises the “bad” LDL and the triglycerides in the blood. Remember that cholesterol is the precursor to all sex hormones and is used by every cell of the body. The yolk contains high amounts of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K as well as all the carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin, calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin, folate, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12. 

This is why I have always thought that egg whites are pretty useless and the egg yolk is the most precious part of the egg since it is the source of nutrition for the life to come. In a conversation with a family member of mine, who frequently goes to the gym I expressed my opinion and the answer I got was hilarious and made me change my whole point of view on the matter. Ok, the yolk is very important for the little chick to grow, but have you ever seen a chicken with muscles?!  
This leads me to the white of the eggs. There are countless articles that describe the benefit of the egg white, so I am just going to limit myself by saying that it is one of the top sources of protein, ranking up there with lean meat, poultry and fish. More than half of a full egg’s 6 g of protein, in fact, comes from the white. A single egg white offers 4 g of protein without the yolk’s fat and other detriments. So the best to do is to combine 4 egg whites and two egg yolks in order to get the full benefits. 

Egg is so incredible that it even has high amounts of valuable calcium in the outer shell. Yes, the shell that we always throw away. Chicken eggshell powder has been proposed as an attractive source of calcium for human health to increase bone mineral density in an elderly population with osteoporosis. Also lately it has been scientifically proven that it can improve the calcium absorbtion from the intestinal cells. You can google and find a thousand ways on how to make an eggshell calcium powder. I was myself pleasantly surprised, since we all know that the most easily accesible source of nutrients for the body is through food. 

   

2 comments:

  1. Eggs are also an important source of protein due to the good content of essential amino acid. Very nice post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. True. A lot of goodness for a very reasonable price.

    ReplyDelete

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