3. Nutrition Facts - Making Peace with Cholesterol

Cholesterol has a terrible reputation. We’ve all heard just how bad cholesterol is for you. However, cholesterol itself is not the real problem. The problem is how our body handles it. Our bodies have evolved to survive starvation and be prepared to face times of famine. This is why our bodies are so efficient at absorbing most nutrients. Now, going back to cholesterol. Cholesterol is a type of fat that can be found in the membranes of animal cells. This means that all foods of animal origin have cholesterol and all the foods coming from plants do not.


Back when we were cave man, we couldn’t just go to the grocery store and get ground turkey, right? We had to go out and chase a turkey around. And, maybe we wouldn’t see a turkey for months so we wouldn’t get any meat for months. Thus, our body developed this recycling system that would help keep necessary nutrients inside our bodies since these nutrients might not always be readily available. Cholesterol is one of those nutrients that takes advantage of this recycling system because food of animal origin was not always available. Here’s how this recycling works:

1. You eat a cheeseburger that has lots of cholesterol
2. The cheeseburger makes it all the way to the intestine
3. In the intestine, the cholesterol gets absorbed
4. The absorbed cholesterol is transported to the liver
5. The liver takes the cholesterol to make several things your body needs like bile juices which are juices that help your body digest all the food we eat
6. Bile juices containing cholesterol are released into the intestine to digest food
7. Bile juices (still containing cholesterol) as well as fresh, new cholesterol is absorbed and the cycle starts all over again.

As you can see, cholesterol can rapidly accumulate in our bodies since we don’t excrete any (or almost any) of it. Back in the day, this recycling of cholesterol was not a problem since cholesterol was not as abundant in our diets, but now we consume cholesterol on a daily basis. To make things even more interesting, our body cannot break down cholesterol. Thus, all the extra cholesterol stays in the form of cholesterol usually floating around in our blood. This is when the extra cholesterol becomes dangerous since it can start the plaque-building process in our arteries.

But, what makes cholesterol so important? Why would we want to keep it in our bodies since it is, apparently, really bad for our health? Well, cholesterol is bad only if it starts to accumulate. Inside our bodies, cholesterol is responsible for many important functions like producing several hormones like testosterone. In fact, cholesterol is so important that if your body needs it, it can make it. Similarly, if you get the required cholesterol through your diet, your body will not make any.

Finally, the recommendation is that we should not be having more that 300mg of cholesterol a day - especially when your only having only 1200 calories a day like me. You don't want to be wasting calories on something your body can make.

Eggs...Good or Bad?

I’ve read articles that say that eggs are very healthy and good for you but I have also read articles that say the exact opposite. What's the truth here about eggs? The truth is that both answers are partially correct. This is because they are excellent sources of many nutrients including those that may not be so healthy. Remember that all food have their pros and cons. Eggs are no exception.

Eggs are said to be very healthy because they are great sources of high quality protein. But, what do I mean by high quality? Isn’t all protein good? Protein is definitely good but there are sources of protein that are better than others. Protein is made up of this tiny building blocks called amino acids. To make things simple, imagine these amino acids as being the pieces of a puzzle. Now, amino acids are divided into essential and non-essential. Essential means that your body cannot make them or can make them but not at a significant rate. Therefore, you must get these essential amino acids through the diet. On the other hand, you have the non-essential amino acids which are the ones our body can produce at a significant rate. In total, there are 20 amino acids and our body needs all 20 of them at all times. From these 20, 9 are essential and 11 are non-essential. Now, going back to the subject of eggs. Eggs are a source of high quality protein because they contain all the essential amino acids in the ideal proportions. When we are trying to determine the quality of the protein in a particular food, the protein in eggs is the golden standard. Let’s go back to the puzzle analogy for a second. Assume that the puzzle consists of 20 pieces, 11 pieces are already provided for you (non-essential) and you only need the 9 missing pieces (essential) to complete the puzzle. Your body needs the puzzle to be complete at all times. In order to get the 9 missing pieces and complete the puzzle, you can either get them from just one source like eggs or you can get one by one from multiple sources. Which one would you prefer?

Unfortunately, being a good source of protein comes with a price. Eggs are great sources of cholesterol too. Cholesterol is one of those fats you do not want to eat too much of because it is very hard for your body to eliminate it. Thus, eggs are sometimes said to be unhealthy or bad for you due to their high cholesterol content. Here’s the nutritional analysis of an average whole egg. Take a look at the protein and cholesterol content:

As you can see, for only 75 calories you get 6.25 grams of very high quality protein (all your 9 essential amino acids) but also 213 mg of cholesterol. Just to give you an idea, the recommendation for cholesterol is to have no more than 300 mg a day. So, 213 mg would translate into about 71% of you the recommended intake.

The calories in eggs lead me to the next benefit. One whole egg has only 75 calories! Considering that you can get all your essential amino acids from just one egg instead of from multiple food sources which would increase you caloric intake, 75 calories is not a bad deal.

People who are trying to eat healthy, often have just the egg white. If you’re considering this option let me provide you with this information: one egg white has 17 calories, 3.52 grams of protein and no cholesterol. Eating only egg whites is a good alternative but keep in mind that you are cutting the protein content almost by half when you only have the egg white. Also, there is no vitamin A in egg whites. I am not saying that eating only the egg white is bad but as everything; it has its advantages and disadvantages.

A final thought: don’t let the cholesterol content in eggs scare you. Eating the whole egg will provide you with more vitamins and nutrients as well as much more flavourful meal. Just have foods that are low in cholesterol for the rest of the day whenever you eat eggs. This way, you won't go over the recommended cholesterol intake.