I.M.120 Helping you to BE YOUR BEST SELF

The poor, homily, every day, misunderstood egg. Is it nature's perfect food? Or a sinister vehicle enhancing the risk of cardiovascular disease?

Like most issues regarding nutrition, the answer is a bit more complex than meets the eye. When we consider the food we take it, we also need to consider the person who is taking them in. The same fact holds true for eggs. We also need to consider volume and what the other alternatives might be.

The good thing about eggs is that they are high in protein, typically around 6 g per egg. They're also a controlled portion food. That is to say you have to make a conscious decision before you open up each little "package" of food. This is in contrast to other "open" sources of food such as cereals that come in a box, and other foods that are easy to replenish without stopping to think. Therefore, they can be part of "premeditated discipline,"  (Which those of you who are in our program will recognize as the skill of structuring your nutritional environment in a way that makes it hard for you to make bad decisions.)

The concern regarding egg consumption has to do with the connection between cholesterol and the risk of heart disease. Having an elevated cholesterol level, with an unfavorable ratio of good to bad cholesterol is one of a number of risk factors for heart disease. However, these risk factors must always be put in context.

Let's go back to our original premise of the individual response to nutritional choices.

If you are a person who has had a heart attack already, or has a genetic mutation that causes you to have elevated cholesterol, then it may be prudent to eliminate the yoke of your eggs thereby eating only the egg whites. This will eliminate the consumption of the cholesterol part of the egg, preserving the protein portion.

However, for the vast majority of you, there is no good evidence that eliminating the egg yolk will diminish your risk of heart disease. In fact, the high-protein, low-calorie combination possessed by eggs is often a valuable component in a diet that favors supporting your most healthy body weight.

Somehow in America, breakfast foods in particular had evolved into a high carbohydrate range of choices. Whether it's a bagel, muffin, pancake, or perhaps worst of all, cold cereal with milk, many breakfast choices are low in protein and high in carbohydrate. This type of food intake enables us to consume large quantities of volume and sets us up for rebound hunger as the body rapidly stores the carbohydrate generating a need for more food in a short period of time. This cycle of overheating and rebound hunger can cause us to live at a higher than ideal body weight.

The increased in body fat storage is a powerful risk factor for not only heart disease but cancer, arthritis, even dementia and neurocognitive illnesses have been correlated to the inflammatory effects of excess body fat.

So if you're a person who's been in the habit of having a carbohydrate ladened breakfast, switching to an egg breakfast would be a clear improvement. Likewise, if you're inclined toward having bread in your lunch - such as sandwiches or subs - the conversion to an egg-based lunch would likely afford significant benefit to your health.

At I.M.120, it's our opinion that eggs are a high-quality source of protein and for most, a safe choice for sustenance eating.

We do encourage the purchase of organic eggs. These will be free of artificial hormones that could compromise the quality of the food you eat.

When it comes to the issue of free range versus other forms of breeding chickens and harvesting eggs, that is less of a nutritional issue and more of a personal and philosophical decision.

To summarize; organic eggs in the proper amount are a good food choice for most of you most of the time.

Remember, the extra money you spend on the organic eggs will be offset by the smaller volume you'll be eating. Both of these choices will reinforce your best health.

I hope this gives you some information regarding the use of eggs in your diet. Wishing you 100 years of youthful living,

- Dr. Stephen Petteruti