Nutritional Profile Energy value (calories per serving): Moderate Protein: High Fat: High Saturated fat: Moderate Cholesterol: High Carbohydrates: Low Fiber: None Sodium: Moderate to high Major vitamin contribution: Vitamin A, riboflavin, vitamin D Major mineral contribution: Iron, calcium
About the Nutrients in This Food An egg is really three separate foods, the whole egg, the white, and the yolk, each with its own distinct nutritional profile. A whole egg is a high-fat, high-cholesterol, high-quality protein food packaged in a high-calcium shell that can be ground and added to any recipe. The proteins in eggs, with sufficient amounts of all the essential amino acids, are 99 percent digestible, the standard by which all other proteins are judged. The egg white is a high-protein, low-fat food with virtually no cholesterol. Its only important vitamin is riboflavin (vitamin B2), a vis- ible vitamin that gives egg white a slightly greenish cast. Raw egg whites contain avidin, an antinutrient that binds biotin a B complex vitamin for- merly known as vitamin H, into an insoluble compound. Cooking the egg inactivates avidin. An egg yolk is a high-fat, high-cholesterol, high-protein food, a good source of vitamin A derived from carotenes eaten by the laying hen, plus vitamin D, B vitamins, and heme iron, the form of iron most easily absorbed by your body. One large whole egg (50 g/1.8 ounce) has five grams fat (1.5 g satu- rated fat, 1.9 g monounsaturated fat, 0.7 g polyunsaturated fat), 212 mg cholesterol, 244 IU vitamin A (11 percent of the R DA for a woman, 9 percent * Values are for a whole egg. of the R DA for a man), 0.9 mg iron (5 percent of the R DA for a woman, 11 percent of the R DA for a man) and seven grams protein. The fat in the egg is all in the yolk. The protein is divided: four grams in the white, three grams in the yolk.
The Most Nutritious Way to Serve This Food With extra whites and fewer yolks to lower the fat and cholesterol per serving.
Diets That May Restrict or Exclude This Food Controlled-fat, low-cholesterol diet Low-protein diet
Buying This Food Look for: Eggs stored in the refrigerated dair y case. Check the date for freshness. NOTE : In 1998, the FDA and USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) proposed new rules that would require distributors to keep eggs refrigerated on the way to the store and require stores to keep eggs in a refrigerated case. The egg package must have a “refrigera- tion required” label plus safe-handling instructions on eggs that have not been treated to kill Salmonella. Look for: Eggs that fit your needs. Eggs are graded by the size of the yolk and the thick- ness of the white, qualities that affect appearance but not nutritional values. The higher the grade, the thicker the yolk and the thicker the white will be when you cook the egg. A Grade A A egg fried sunny side up will look much more attractive than a Grade B egg prepared the same way, but both will be equally nutritions. Egg sizes ( Jumbo, Extra large, Large, Medium, Small) are determined by how much the eggs weigh per dozen. The color of the egg’s shell depends on the breed of the hen that laid the egg and has nothing to do with the egg’s food value.
Storing This Food Store fresh eggs with the small end down so that the yolk is completely submerged in the egg white (which contains antibacterial properties, nature’s protection for the yolk—or a developing chick embryo in a fertilized egg). Never wash eggs before storing them: The water will make the egg shell more porous, allowing harmful microorganisms to enter. Store separated leftover yolks and whites in small, tightly covered containers in the refrigerator, where they may stay fresh for up to a week. Raw eggs are very susceptible to Salmonella and other bacterial contamination; discard any egg that looks or smells the least bit unusual. Refrigerate hard-cooked eggs, including decorated Easter eggs. They, too, are suscep- tible to Salmonella contamination and should never be left at room temperature.
Preparing This Food First, find out how fresh the eggs really are. The freshest ones are the eggs that sink and lie flat on their sides when submerged in cool water. These eggs can be used for any dish. By the time the egg is a week old, the air pocket inside, near the broad end, has expanded so that the broad end tilts up as the egg is submerged in cool water. The yolk and the white inside have begun to separate; these eggs are easier to peel when hard-cooked. A week or two later, the egg’s air pocket has expanded enough to cause the broad end of the egg to point straight up when you put the egg in water. By now the egg is runny and should be used in sauces where it doesn’t matter if it isn’t picture-perfect. After four weeks, the egg will float. Throw it away. Eggs are easily contaminated with Salmonella microorganisms that can slip through an intact shell. never eat or serve a dish or bever age containing r aw fr esh eggs. sa lmonella is destroyed by cooking eggs to an inter nal temper atur e of 145°f ; egg-milk dishes such as custar ds must be cooked to an inter nal temper atur e of 160°f. If you separate fresh eggs by hand, wash your hands thoroughly before touching other food, dishes, or cooking tools. When you have finished preparing raw eggs, wash your hands and all utensils thoroughly with soap and hot water. never stir cooked eggs with a utensil used on r aw eggs. When you whip an egg white, you change the structure of its protein molecules which unfold, breaking bonds between atoms on the same molecule and forming new bonds to atoms on adjacent molecules. The result is a network of protein molecules that hardens around air trapped in bubbles in the net. If you beat the whites too long, the foam will turn stiff enough to hold its shape even if you don’t cook it, but it will be too stiff to expand natu- rally if you heat it, as in a soufflé. When you do cook properly whipped egg white foam, the hot air inside the bubbles will expand. Ovalbumin, an elastic protein in the white, allows the bubble walls to bulge outward until they are cooked firm and the network is stabilized as a puff y soufflé. The bowl in which you whip the whites should be absolutely free of fat or grease, since the fat molecules will surround the protein molecules in the egg white and keep them from linking up together to form a puff y white foam. Eggs whites will react with metal ions from the surface of an aluminum bowl to form dark particles that discolor the egg-white foam. You can whip eggs successfully in an enamel or glass bowl, but they will do best in a copper bowl because copper ions bind to the egg and stabilize the foam.
What Happens When You Cook This Food When you heat a whole egg, its protein molecules behave exactly as they do when you whip an egg white. They unfold, form new bonds, and create a protein network, this time with molecules of water caught in the net. As the egg cooks, the protein network tightens, squeez- ing out moisture, and the egg becomes opaque. The longer you cook the egg, the tighter the network will be. If you cook the egg too long, the protein network will contract strongly enough to force out all the moisture. That is why overcooked egg custards run and why overcooked eggs are rubbery. If you mix eggs with milk or water before you cook them, the molecules of liquid will surround and separate the egg’s protein molecules so that it takes more energy (higher heat) to make the protein molecules coagulate. Scrambled eggs made with milk are softer than plain scrambled eggs cooked at the same temperature. When you boil an egg in its shell, the air inside expands and begins to escape through the shell as tiny bubbles. Sometimes, however, the force of the air is enough to crack the shell. Since there’s no way for you to tell in advance whether any particular egg is strong enough to resist the pressure of the bubbling air, the best solution is to create a safety vent by sticking a pin through the broad end of the egg before you start to boil it. Or you can slow the rate at which the air inside the shell expands by starting the egg in cold water and letting it warm up naturally as the water warms rather than plunging it cold into boiling water—which makes the air expand so quickly that the shell is virtually certain to crack. As the egg heats, a little bit of the protein in its white will decompose, releasing sulfur that links up with hydrogen in the egg, forming hydrogen sulfide, the gas that gives rot- ten eggs their distinctive smell. The hydrogen sulfide collects near the coolest part of the egg—the yolk. The yolk contains iron, which now displaces the hydrogen in the hydrogen sulfide to form a green iron-sulfide ring around the hard-cooked yolk.
How Other Kinds of Processing Affect This Food Egg substitutes. Fat-free, cholesterol-free egg substitutes are made of pasteurized egg whites, plus artificial or natural colors, flavors, and texturizers (food gums) to make the product look and taste like eggs, plus vitamins and minerals to produce the nutritional equivalent of a full egg. Pasteurized egg substitutes may be used without additional cooking, that is, in salad dressings and eggnog. Drying. Dried eggs have virtually the same nutritive value as fresh eggs. Always refrigerate dried eggs in an air- and moistureproof container. At room temperature, they will lose about a third of their vitamin A in six months.
Medical Uses and/or Benefits Protein source. The protein in eggs, like protein from all animal foods, is complete. That is, protein from animal foods provides all the essential amino acids required by human beings. In fact, the protein from eggs is so well absorbed and utilized by the human body that it is considered the standard by which all other dietary protein is measured. On a scale known as biological value, eggs rank 100 ; milk, 93; beef and fish, 75; and poultry, 72. Vision protection. The egg yolk is a rich source of the yellow-orange carotenoid pigments lutein and zeaxanthin. Both appear to play a role in protecting the eyes from damaging ultraviolet light, thus reducing the risk of cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of vision of loss in one-third of all Americans older than 75. Just 1.3 egg yolks a day appear to increase blood levels of lutein and zeaxanthin by up to 128 percent. Perhaps as a result, data released by the National Eye Institute’s 6,000-person Beaver Dam ( Wisconsin) Eye Study in 2003 indicated that egg consumption was inversely associated with cataract risk in study participants who were younger than 65 years of age when the study started. The relative risk of cataracts was 0.4 for people in the highest category of egg consumption, compared to a risk of 1.0 for those in the lowest category. External cosmetic effects. Beaten egg whites can be used as a facial mask to make your skin look smoother temporarily. The mask works because the egg proteins constrict as they dry on your face, pulling at the dried layer of cells on top of your skin. When you wash off the egg white, you also wash off some of these loose cells. Used in a rinse or shampoo, the pro- tein in a beaten raw egg can make your hair look smoother and shinier temporarily by filling in chinks and notches on the hair shaft.
Adverse Effects Associated with This Food Increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Although egg yolks are high in cholesterol, data from several recent studies suggest that eating eggs may not increase the risk of heart disease. In 2003, a report from a 14-year, 177,000-plus person study at the Harvard School of Public Health showed that people who eat one egg a day have exactly the same risk of heart disease as those who eat one egg or fewer per week. A similar report from the Multiple R isk Factor Intervention Trial showed an inverse relationship between egg consumption and cholesterol levels—that is, people who ate more eggs had lower cholesterol levels. Nonetheless, in 2006 the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute still recommends no more than four egg yolks a week (including the yolk in baked goods) for a heart-healthy diet. The American Heart Association says consumers can have one whole egg a day if they limit cholesterol from other sources to the amount suggested by the National Cholesterol Education Project following the Step I and Step II diets. (Both groups permit an unlimited number of egg whites.) The Step I diet provides no more than 30 percent of total daily calories from fat, no more than 10 percent of total daily calories from saturated fat, and no more than 300 mg of cholesterol per day. It is designed for healthy people whose cholesterol is in the range of 200 –239 mg/dL. The Step II diet provides 25– 35 percent of total calories from fat, less than 7 percent of total calories from saturated fat, up to 10 percent of total calories from polyunsaturated fat, up to 20 percent of total calories from monounsaturated fat, and less than 300 mg cho- lesterol per day. This stricter regimen is designed for people who have one or more of the following conditions: • Existing cardiovascular disease • High levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDLs, or “bad” cholesterol) or low levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDLs, or “good” cholesterol) • Obesity • Type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent diabetes, or diabetes mellitus) • Metabolic syndrome, a.k.a. insulin resistance syndrome, a cluster of risk fac- tors that includes type 2 diabetes (non-insulin-dependent diabetes) Food poisoning. Raw eggs (see above) and egg-rich foods such as custards and cream pies are excellent media for microorganisms, including the ones that cause food poisoning. To protect yourself against egg-related poisoning, always cook eggs thoroughly: poach them five minutes over boiling water or boil at least seven minutes or fry two to three minutes on each side (no runny center) or scramble until firm. Bread with egg coating, such as French toast, should be cooked crisp. Custards should be firm and, once cooked, served very hot or refrigerated and served very cold. Allergic reaction. According to the Merck Manual, eggs are one of the 12 foods most likely to trigger the classic food allergy symptoms: hives, swelling of the lips and eyes, and upset stomach. The others are berries (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries), choco- late, corn, fish, legumes (green peas, lima beans, peanuts, soybeans), milk, nuts, peaches, pork, shellfish, and wheat (see wheat cer ea ls).
Food/Drug Interactions Sensitivity to vaccines. Live-virus measles vaccine, live-virus mumps vaccine, and the vac- cines for influenza are grown in either chick embryo or egg culture. They may all contain minute residual amounts of egg proteins that may provoke a hypersensitivity reaction in people with a history of anaphylactic reactions to eggs (hives, swelling of the mouth and throat, difficulty breathing, a drop in blood pressure, or shock).
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