Do eggs raise cholesterol? Does the yolk raise the risk of a heart attack? How many eggs a day are safe? To answer these common questions, BBC Bangla spoke to Dr Arun Kumar, a dietary consultant.
An egg, he explained, has about 60 calories and some six grams of high-quality protein that the body absorbs almost completely, which is why egg protein is used as the benchmark for others. The idea that only the white is good for you is wrong: the yolk also holds protein, plus choline, vital for the nervous system and for pregnant women and foetal growth, and the eye-friendly pigments lutein and zeaxanthin.
A yolk does contain about 200 mg of cholesterol, Dr Kumar said, but not all cholesterol in the blood comes from food. The body needs about 2,000 mg a day, and the liver makes it. Experts say most people can eat one or two whole eggs, yolk included, a day, and the World Health Organization says babies can be given small amounts of egg from six months.
Eggs from free-range hens may carry a little more omega-3, but the protein is the same, so there is no need to pay two or three times as much for free-range eggs if protein is what you want, he said. He also called the belief that chickens are injected with hormones a myth: hens cannot be raised on hormones, and the injections they get are vaccines against disease. Nor, he said, is there scientific evidence linking eggs or chicken to early puberty in girls.
He did advise against eating raw eggs, which can carry salmonella bacteria and contain avidin, a protein that blocks the absorption of biotin. Boiled, soft-boiled or fried makes little difference.
The report is from BBC Bangla, by Shanmuga Priya Selvaraj.
Photo: Joao Estevao A. de Freitas (jefras) / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: BBC Bangla
Comments
(0)