[Question] are eggs good or bad?

[Bones]

I have been trying to find things I like for breakfast other then sugar cereal and doughnuts.( i know my diet is horrible, but I am working on it) I talked with my doctor about adding eggs to my weight loss rotation on occasion. my nutritionist went nuts about how they are terrible for me and I should not be getting that much cholesterol if I want to be heart healthy. so eggs good or bad?

 

[PatrThom]

I subscribe to the Lewis Black school of thinking about eggs.
Also, they are delicious and I am going to go have some right now.

--Patrick

 

[Jay]

Great source of protein and other things. If you don't like frying them, simply boil them to save on a few more calories. Don't go crazy. A pair of eggs with a little side (greek yogurt) should keep you well fed until lunch with plenty of energy.

 

[LittleKagsin]

I think eggs are great! And are probably my favorite breakfast food. I like going the omelette route and putting spinach and mushrooms in mine. =^^= But there are a bunch of ways to have eggs, so you'd get variety which is nice. Eat all the eggs!

 

[Bowielee]

There's no "Absolutely Awesome" choice, your poll is flawed.

 

[Bones]

There's no "Absolutely Awesome" choice, your poll is flawed.

im sorry i had to eat and work at the same time, BOWIELEE IVVVVEE FAAAAAILLLLLEDDD YOOOOOUUUUU! *explodes in a boss fashion*

 

[Shakey]

The other weekend while at my parents, our girl found an unhatched chicken egg. We explained it was one that the hen was sitting on, but it for some reason didn't hatch and become a baby chicken. You could see her face change as she finally realised what the eggs we eat are and what they could become. We won't be having eggs for a while...

To add on to that, her and her mother thought it would be OK to take it home in my vehicle. Yes, they forgot it in there. We had a really warm day after that, and it exploded. Shells and rotten egg and I'm sure you can guess what else. Good lord the smell. It's still stinks something fierce.

 

[Bowielee]

I remember back in the day when we got actual farm fresh eggs and accidentally occasionally got a fertilized one. Nothing like cracking open an egg and having a chicken embryo fall out.

Don't care, still love eggs

 

[Tinwhistler]

I have been trying to find things I like for breakfast other then sugar cereal and doughnuts.( i know my diet is horrible, but I am working on it) I talked with my doctor about adding eggs to my weight loss rotation on occasion. my nutritionist went nuts about how they are terrible for me and I should not be getting that much cholesterol if I want to be heart healthy. so eggs good or bad?

I think your nutritionist is a bit behind the times on egg thinking. My grandfather had a heart transplant for 10 years before he passed, and had 4 heart attacks (with resultant bypass surgeries) prior to that. So we were always cholesterol conscious when spending time at my grandparents' house in the summers. "Egg beaters" was on the menu for breakfast, as eggs were considered little cholesterol grenades.

These days, the thinking is changing--that the amount of cholesterol you eat doesn't affect you nearly as much as was once thought. The Mayo Clinic says that eating 4 eggs a week doesn't increase your risk of heart disease. The Harvard School of Public Health says you can have an egg a day, and also talks a bit about the changing trends in cholesterol thinking.

I personally eat the fuck out of eggs, and have never had high cholesterol--but I realize that's anecdotal and isn't authoritative.

Here's an article talking more about the effects of eating cholesterol, according to more recent thinking.

A relevant quote:

Interestingly, in controlled trials -- the best kind of research -- where people were instructed to eat up to three eggs per day while on a weight loss diet, good things happened.
These folks lost weight, decreased inflammation and either maintained or improved their blood cholesterol levels.
(They were consuming 555 mg of cholesterol every day from eggs alone!)

 

[drifter]

The occasional egg is probably fine. Eggs are high in cholesterol, true, but the impact on blood cholesterol is generally overstated.

If you want to play it safe, just eat the egg whites. The yolk is the part high in cholesterol. Plus it would give you an excuse to do this:

 

[Gared]

The cynic in me wants to say that whether eggs are good or bad at any given point depends entirely upon whether or not the egg lobby has paid their bribe to the FDA/USDA food study groups recently. But yeah, aside from the fact that they tend to make me really gassy, they're awesome. I could probably do a re-creation of the entire Forrest Gump shrimp scene with eggs, but one of my favorite ways to eat them is to make a frittata, and then just heat slices of it up in the microwave for breakfast (or eat it cold even, still good). A little cheese, some spinach, maybe some zucchini or yellow squash. You have to make sure you cook the veggies first and get as much moisture out of them as you can, or you'll end up with a soupy mess that takes longer to cook, but it can be an awesome way to get some veggies and protein into your breakfast rotation.

 

[drawn_inward]

It's sugar and sodium that you need to worry about. Decrease both of those, stat; especially processed meats (they're awful for you).

I agree with @Jay. Eggs + Greek yogurt = tons of protein, which keeps you full longer.

 

[Shakey]

I remember back in the day when we got actual farm fresh eggs and accidentally occasionally got a fertilized one. Nothing like cracking open an egg and having a chicken embryo fall out.

Don't care, still love eggs

You can always tell if someone is used to farm eggs or not by whether they crack them into a cup first or not.

 

[Emrys]

I could probably do a re-creation of the entire Forrest Gump shrimp scene with eggs.

Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs, eggs Benedict, egg frittata, eggs with cheese, eggs with spinach, eggs with peppers, eggs and bacon, egg soup, egg salad, egg-based religion.

 

[Tinwhistler]

egg drop soup is da bomb and so simple to make[DOUBLEPOST=1410536864,1410536782][/DOUBLEPOST]

Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs, eggs Benedict, egg frittata, eggs with cheese, eggs with spinach, eggs with peppers, eggs and bacon, egg soup, egg salad, egg-based religion.

Don't forget fried eggs on a burger. It's the only proper way to eat a burger.

 

[PatrThom]

These days, the thinking is changing--that the amount of cholesterol you eat doesn't affect you nearly as much as was once thought.

As Kati puts it regarding health and blood cholesterol: "Firemen always show up wherever there's fire, but that doesn't mean firemen cause fires."

--Patrick

 

[PatrThom]

Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, poached eggs, eggs Benedict, egg frittata, eggs with cheese, eggs with spinach, eggs with peppers, eggs and bacon, egg soup, egg salad, egg-based religion.

Oh, I frequently think
every now and then
of the glorious fruit
of the noble hen

Eggs, eggs, E, double-G, S-eggs
My knowledge of eggs
is tremendously wide
I've eaten them boiled,
I've eaten them fried

Poached and shirred
and deviled and scrambled
Hummeled, shmummeled,
cuddled, and frammeled
I've eaten them beaten
and swizzled and swuzzled
Frizzled, cadizzled, bamboozled, and fuzzled

I know every way
that an egg can be guzzled
And thinking of eggs
reminds me of Sam
Whose favorite dish
Is green eggs and ham.

--Patrick

 

[Emrys]

That's beautiful!

 

[phil]

Gaston eats 5 dozen eggs a day and look how jacked that guy is.

 

[drifter]

Truly eggsquisite

 

[Hylian]

I love eggs and as long as you eat them with moderation (like everything in life) you should be fine.


Of course all this talk about eggs has me hungry for tater tots with shredded cheese and an over easy egg.

 

[Frank]

The last time I had blood work done, they found my good cholesterol was low and I was told to eat more eggs.

So, eggs good.

 

[Dave]

Have we ever been unanimous on anything?!?

You have found the Holy Grail.

 

[Bones]

Have we ever been unanimous on anything?!?

You have found the Holy Grail.

I pat myself on the back I guess...

 

[Dave]

I pat myself on the back I guess...

I'm against that.

 

[PatrThom]

That's beautiful!

Dr. Seuss On The Loose

--Patrick

 

[figmentPez]

From what I've been told: the original studies that found that eggs raise blood cholesterol were done with powdered eggs. Later studies done with fresh eggs did not find the same connection. There may be some correlation between powdered egg consumption and higher blood cholesterol, but moderate consumption of fresh eggs doesn't have any correlation with blood cholesterol levels.[DOUBLEPOST=1410546240,1410545923][/DOUBLEPOST]

My nutritionist went nuts about how they are terrible for me and I should not be getting that much cholesterol if I want to be heart healthy. so eggs good or bad?

Nutritionist or registered dietician? Just about anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, and what information they're working from will vary widely. Some will be using cutting edge data, others will be stuck back in the 1960's or earlier, some will be outright quacks. Registered dieticians, at least in Texas, have more stringent qualifications, and have to adhere to certain federal standards of nutrition guidelines, and stay current. So you know more of what you're getting going to a registered dietician, but they also may be more subject to the pressures of political lobbying, and their standards may not have caught up to the latest in medical research.

It's easier to know what you're getting with a registered dietician, but there's potential to find someone who really knows what they're doing with a nutritionist (though it's really hard to find someone like that. Goodness knows my mom has had me go to some weirdos over the years.)

 

[Charlie Don't Surf]

http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog...-lives-and-deaths-of-factory-farmed-chickens/

Egg-laying hens
As bad as conditions are for chickens raised for meat, they are even worse for birds in the egg industry. Erik Marcus, making a comparison to the better-publicized cruelty done to veal calves, says in his book Meat Market: Animals, Ethics, and Money:

I personally believe that the average battery hen has it worse than the average veal calf. I think it’s probable that a forkful of egg comes at a cost of greater suffering than a forkful of veal… For people making a gradual switch to vegetarianism out of concern for animals, I therefore believe that the first food to give up should be, not meat, but eggs.​

There are about 300 million laying hens in the United States; of these, some 95 percent are kept in wire battery cages, which allow each hen an average of 67 square inches of space—less than the size of a standard sheet of paper. For perspective, a hen needs 72 square inches of space to be able to stand up straight and 303 square inches to be able to spread and flap her wings. There is no room even for the hens to perform self-comforting behaviors such as preening and bathing. Hens are usually kept eight or nine to a cage; long tiers of these cages are built one upon another in sheds that hold tens of thousands of birds, none of whom has enough room to raise a wing. Excrement falls from the top cages to the lower ones, causing the same “ammonia burn” problem as in the broiler houses. Like chickens raised for meat, laying hens are debeaked as chicks. The hens are deprived of the ability to create nests for their eggs, which instead drop through the wires of the cage for collection. This inability to engage in instinctive behavior causes great frustration.

A sad side effect of the egg-production industry is the wholesale destruction of male chicks, who are useless to the egg industry. These chicks are not used in the meat industry either, because they have not been genetically manipulated for meat production. Male chicks are ground up in batches while still alive, suffocated in trash cans, or gassed.

The methods used to maximize production include manipulation of lighting to change the hens’ environment and hence their biological cycles; unnaturally long periods of simulated daylight encourage laying. Periodic forced molting creates an additional laying cycle: during this time, the hens are kept in darkness and put on a “starvation” diet (reduced-calorie feed) or starved altogether for up to two weeks.

Caged in this way, hens are unable to exercise, and constant egg production leaches calcium from their bones; these two factors cause severe osteoporosis, which leads to broken bones and great pain for the hens. The syndrome is called Cage-Layer Fatigue. Additionally, the wires of the cage injure the feet of the chickens, as the hens must sit in essentially one position their whole lives with their feet pressing into the wires. They rub against the sides of the cage, which causes severe feather loss and skin abrasions. In essence, hens who would normally be able to use their whole bodies and have lives as full as those of any other animal in nature are reduced to immobilized egg-laying machines, existing for that one purpose only.

The hens live like this for about two years or less, until their bodies are exhausted from the stresses of constant laying and their egg production decreases. At that point, they are shipped to slaughter to be turned into animal feed or sometimes human food or are simply discarded. In 2003 a public outcry brought attention to a California ranch that was reported to have discarded thousands of live hens using a wood chipper; no charges were brought because, as it turned out, this is a common industry practice.

 

[Ravenpoe]

I love eggs and veal.

 

[PatrThom]

I love eggs and veal.

I know, right? Sprinkle a little powdered rhino horn on 'em, really gets you going in the morning.

--Patrick

 

[Emrys]

I prefer mine with filet of unicorn.

Rare, of course.

 

[blotsfan]

Eggs are delicious.

Therefore, they are unhealthy.

 

[Shakey]

I didn't realize we could use a wood chipper to dispose our chickens! This changes everything!

I suddenly had an image of all your kids lined up behind the chipper with their mouths open while you shovel chickens in to feed then.

 

[PatrThom]

I suddenly had an image of all your kids lined up behind the chipper with their mouths open while you shovel chickens in to feed then.

Oh...I can only imagine the noises.

--Patrick

 

[PatrThom]

I could put a microwave on the output so the bits and pieces were cooked as they flew past. A salt shaker after that. Can't think of an easy way to remove bone shards and feather pieces though.

Mechanically separate them prior to the fryer, mebbe?

--Patrick