SE5

Egg-cellent Breakfast?

I have heard many of my friends say that breakfast is their most important meal of their day, while others have told me that it is a meal they tend to skip out on. For me, breakfast is an essential part of my morning and the ingredient that I always make sure to include is an egg. My morning meals have always contained eggs in one form or another, and eating them has become such a habitual thing that I don’t always realize that I consume approximately a dozen a week. Since eating eggs for breakfast has become such a habitual thing, I have never really thought about the health effect and consequences of eating eggs.

Since I was a child, I have always eaten eggs in the morning whether they are hardboiled, scrabbled, sunny side up, or even poached. Having a breakfast without eggs are like having a burger without meat or a sandwich without bread, possible to eat but not enjoyably in the least. Through out the years, I have also noticed just how prevalent eggs are in breakfast meals. Through advertisements on television and in magazines, eggs or always portrayed as an essential part of a complete breakfast. Images have always centered around eggs next to sizzling bacon, potatoes, and a glass of orange juice to depict what an ideal breakfast looks like. I feel like most people, myself included, tend to look at this and completely agree. I see my breakfast meals including eggs as an ingredient, yet I never as myself if eating eggs all the time is good for my health.

A lot of talk has been brought up about the benefits and disadvantages of eggs in a people’s diets and how that affects one’s health.  Eggs contain a lot of essential nutrients such as minerals, folate, B vitamins, proteins, and monounsaturated fatty acids that are necessary in a normal diet. However, eggs also contain approximately 200 mg of dietary cholesterol. Cholesterol is also a necessary nutrient for the function of the human body, but in high enough concentrations can lead to complications such as cardiovascular disease (Djoussé and Gaziano 964).

            The problem that eggs face is that they provide a variety of essential nutrients, but over consumption may lead to health complications. In an article by researchers Djoussé and Gaziano (2008), it was found that “the consumption of ≤ 6 eggs/wk has no major effect on the risk of CVD and mortality and that the consumption of  ≥ 7 eggs/wk is associated with a modestly greater risk of total mortality.” Thus, one can eat about an egg a day without risking potential health problems, but anything over said amount can lead to complications further in life, specifically cardiovascular disease.

            I never really knew much about the health information of eggs until I did more research on the subject. I found the articles I read about eggs and health very informative and I think that I may change the amount of eggs I eat on a weekly basis. However, I think that making a change ma prove difficult because of how habitual eating a dozen eggs a week has become.

Cited Sources

Djousse, Luc, and J. M. Gaziano. "Egg Consumption in Relation to Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality: The Physicians' Health Study." The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 87.4 (2008): 964-69. PubMed. Web. 13 May 2013. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18400720>.