February is Heart Health Month and many stories have popped up about how to ‘eat healthy’ to avoid cardivascular disease.  Unfortunately most of the articles have been written by people who have not been keeping up with the latest research about what  really causes heart disease.  They are still pushing the old tired, outworn, and proven false myths about cholesterol and saturated fat.

Here’s a typical Heart Health Month recommendation from the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation: a ‘heart-healthy’ breakfast of an egg-white soufflé, made with egg whites only, fake butter (margarine), and pseudo milk (skim), plus a little white flour and seasonings.  This breakfast is not only not ‘heart-healthy’ there’s almost no nutrition in it.  In case you’ve forgotten, Chris Masterjohn has provided us with an analysis of the nutrients in an egg: 100% of the carotenoids, essential fatty acids, and vitamins A, E, D, and K are in the egg yolk–that’s right, not any of these nutrients are in the white.  On top of that, the yolk also has over 90% of the calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin, B6, folate, and B12.  By weight (the yolk is only about 75% of the size of the white) the yolk even has more protein than the white.  In fact, Chris lists only three nutrients that, proportionately, an egg white has more of–magnesium, sodium, and niacin–and two of these, magnesium and sodium, only by a small amount.  The white by itself doesn’t even taste very good.  When you eat Real Foods, taste does count.  I guess that’s why this recipe added so many seasonings.  So tell me, why in the world would anyone bother to eat just the white?  If you didn’t want the yolk for some reason, wouldn’t you just eat something else besides an egg white? 

Many studies have confirmed that eating eggs, in fact any dietary cholesterol, has little effect on blood levels of cholesterol and no correlation with heart disease.  Pastured eggs are even more healthy than factory-farm eggs: they have 2/3 more vitamin A, 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids, 3 times more vitamin E, and 7 times more beta carotene.  So eggs are good and pastured eggs are, as Dr. Mercola says it, superfoods.

Sources:

Heart-healthy recipes: Egg whites for breakfast, lunch salad, fish for dinner
The Incredible, Edible Egg Yolk by Chris Masterjohn
High Cholesterol And Heart Disease — Myth or Truth? by Chris Masterjohn
Enjoy Saturated Fats, They’re Good For You! by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
Another Reason to Ignore Warnings About This Superfood by Dr. Mercola

Other related posts you might want to read:

Analysis Shows No Association of Saturated Fat With Cardiovascular Disease
How to Ruin Deviled Eggs
Why Eat Local Eggs From Pastured Hens?