Lacto Ovo Vegetarian: Are Eggs Good For You?

Eggs have been consumed for thousands of years. It is considered one of the first foods eaten by humans. However times change and an enclosed limited hunter-gatherer society has morphed into one that has large grocery stores that contain almost every food under the sun. Are eggs useful, needed, or harmful? Here are the pros and cons and you can decide for yourself.

Pros:

(1) Digestibility: Eggs are highly digestible. In fact, on the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAA) scale, eggs score a perfect 100. However so does whey protein, so take the rating with a grain of salt (not literally because eggs contain sodium).

(2) Packed with Protein: The typical egg has 6.5 grams of highly digestible protein. The World Health Organization requirement for protein is 0.66 grams per kg of weight. Therefore the average healthy American who is 5’9’’ and 150 lbs (~68kg) needs about 45 grams of protein on a daily basis. 2-3 egg whites for breakfast can knock out almost 40% of that daily requirement. In addition, eggs contain all the amino acids needed in the human body. Therefore it is a complete food.

(3) Eggs Have 60 Calories: Considering the active healthy vegetarian man needs nearly 2,000 calories (maybe more) on a daily basis, eggs can be a good option.

(3) Rich In Other Nutrients: Eggs contain vitamin A, riboflavin, folic acid, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, choline, iron, calcium, phosphorus and potassium. So much nutrition in such a little package is hard to come by.

(4) Eggs Are Cheap: You can buy a dozen for less than $2 at your local grocery store.

(5) Eggs Are Versatile: From omelets to hard boiled, poached to fried – eggs can be prepared in many tasty ways.


Cons:

(1) Eating Yolks May Be Detrimental: If you just eat the egg white you are missing out on a great deal of nutrients. In fact, the egg white is mostly water. The egg yolk is where most of the nutrients are located. However there is debate as to whether the pitfalls of consuming yolks. Egg yolks have 200 mg of cholesterol while the recommended daily intake is 300 mg. Although some nutritionists believe that consuming bad saturated fats is the cholesterol culprit, others believe egg yolks are part of the problem. Furthermore there has been scientific evidence linking Type 2 Diabetes (the bad kind) with daily egg yolk consumption.

(2) Contamination: Given the poor state of this country’s factory farms and a history of egg salmonella contamination, there is a possibility you can get sick from consuming eggs. However you can mitigate this risk by purchasing and eating pasteurized eggs. If you go to restaurants, you typically have no control over what type of eggs they buy and serve.

(3) Antibiotic Resistance: Once again, given the large amount of antibiotics fed to eggs, we see a resistance to the antibiotic forming in humans. Makes you wonder if this will come to bite us later on.

I personally do consume about 3 eggs per week. I do eat yolks despite the negative press and have not noticed any adverse effects....just so you know.

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