The vindication of eggs is starting to sound like old news.  Most respectable sources have long since come to accept that eating eggs not only doesn’t cause heart disease, but that eggs are an excellent food, full of fat-soluble vitamins, good fats, protein, and other benefits.  Even usually dietary-fat-phobic New York Times health columnist Tara Parker-Pope published a piece acknowledging the protective benefits of eggs. 

A study published in February in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism adds another point to the scoreboard for eggs and heart health, not to mention further support for the effectiveness of low-carbohydrate diets against overweight. 

This study placed and observed overweight men ages 40-70 on carbohydrate restricted diets.  One group ate three eggs a day, the other ate the same quantity of fat-free, cholesterol-free egg substitute (gag).  

Both groups lost weight, but the egg-eating group did even better; they showed a reduction in risk factors for coronary heart disease, particularly a reduction in types of inflammation closely associated with heart disease risk.  People in the egg-eating group showed an increase in protective hormones like adiponectin, which modulates glucose tolerance and is negatively associated with body fat percentage.  They also showed a reduction in C-reactive protein, whose prevalence is associated with high risk of heart failure.  The egg-eaters experienced an increase not only in HDL cholesterol, but specifically the large HDL particles that are hypothesized to be protective against heart disease because, as the authors explain, of their role in helping the liver process the body's excess cholesterol.  The egg-substitute-eaters didn’t experience any of these additional benefits.

I did see some limitations in the study, although they weren’t ones that challenged the main conclusion.  The authors surmise that the anti-inflammatory effects are due partly to lutein, a carotenoid (pigment), and partly to the dietary cholesterol itself, although I don’t think their data show what component or combination of components in the eggs causes the protective effect.  There are a number of other factors differentiating eggs from “egg substitute.”  It isn’t clear what was in the egg substitute mixture, other than its lack of fat; there may have been something detrimental in the egg substitute, and they don’t tell us what was in there.  That lack of fat may be important, though, if the saturated fat or fat-soluble vitamins in eggs play a role in the protective effect of the eggs, which I’d think is more likely than the lutein or cholesterol.  Also, eggs are a complex, whole, natural food in and of themselves, rather than a set of independently existing vitamins and nutrients stuffed in a nicely-shaped shell; we probably don’t even begin to understand the full relationship between all the nutritional components in an egg.

Something the authors didn’t get deeply into was the specific relationship between the low-carbohydrate diet and the addition of eggs, with all their saturated fatty, cholesterol-enriched goodness.  This merits further discussion and research, and brings up some interesting questions.  Is it possible that low-carbohydrate diets are less effective when undertaken without nutritious sources of animal fat and dietary cholesterol?  Or that foods like eggs are more protective consumed with a low-carbohydrate diet?  Do the two elements (low-carb, egg-eating) simply build upon one another because they’re both beneficial or do their benefits add up to more than the sum of their parts? 

One important thing to remember is that not all eggs are created equal.  This study used conventional pre-cracked, liquid eggs (yikes!), and I wonder if the effect would have been more profound with good-quality, pastured eggs from a small farm.  I think it would be.  We’ve talked before about the benefits of pastured eggs, or eggs from chickens allowed to wander far and wide over a large area of land, or moved to a different part of pasture frequently.  Pastured eggs are much higher in vitamins and nutrients than their supermarket counterparts, as this study comparing pastured and supermarket eggs demonstrated.  And let’s go back for a moment to the authors’ theory that lutein might be playing an anti-inflammatory role, in case there’s merit to that.  While the egg-comparing study didn’t measure lutein in eggs, it did measure another carotene; the beta carotene level was seven times higher in pastured eggs than conventional ones.  Given that they’re both carotenes, I wouldn’t be surprised if the lutein was higher as well.

I appreciated this study as yet another demonstration that natural, unrefined saturated fats, like eggs and butter, are not the pariahs they've unfairly been made out to be, but are protective (and tasty) parts of a healthy diet.  

A few ways to add eggs into your diet this week

Eggs score so many dietary points in my book, it’s hard to keep track.  For one thing, they’re inexpensive.  The priciest chicken eggs at my farmers’ market (jumbo) are $6/dozen, which means that two eggs, or the bulk protein for a meal, will cost you a whopping $1 at most.  Eggs are a fairly sustainable, easy, and quick-to-prepare source of animal protein, fat, and vitamins.  You can feed them to your vegetarian friends or yourself if you’re a vegetarian (sorry, vegans; I know you don’t eat them).  You can eat them for any meal of the day.

Maybe you already eat eggs every day, but maybe you could use a few more ideas for egg consumption.  Here are a few quick ideas for eating eggs this week:

Quick breakfast at work

The second trick does involve cooking an egg in the office microwave... but don’t run away in fear!  I’m not talking about dreadful microwave-scrambled eggs.  I’m talking about poaching.  Poached eggs are my safety food; when stuck on the road eating breakfast in a potentially-margarine-infested diner, I almost always order poached eggs so I’ll at least know what they were cooked in.  At work, too, where there’s likely a microwave and not a stove, not to mention limited time for food preparation, poaching is simple and quick.  Heat a bowl full of water, with an optional small spoonful of vinegar, until the water is just boiling.  Open the microwave and crack one or two eggs into the bowl of water.  Cook on high for 45-80 seconds, or however long it takes your microwave to cook the eggs.  Enjoy the strange looks from coworkers.

Or, eat a raw egg at work and enjoy the really strange looks from your coworkers.

Put an egg on your dinner

It’s not just savory Thai food that goes well with eggs.  I love making kefta tagine, a Moroccan meatball and tomato stew with eggs, especially in cooler weather.  Most rice dishes work well with egg added, as do some Italian meat-and-pasta dishes (not that I’m saying eating large amounts of carbs is good for you, given this post, but I’m not denying it can taste delicious).  Spicy dishes, meaty dishes, lentils... all can be enhanced with eggs.

What dishes do you eat that would be enhanced by an egg or two?  Think about your favorites and, if you’re stuck, try out a few Thai recipes. 

Eggs baked in ramekins

Thanks to pshab, brianhendrix, and roboppy for the CC photos (egg carton, cubicles, Thai food)