I really love eggs, but they’re really high in cholesterol. It’s better to skip them, sadly.
I wouldn’t normally offer unsolicited advice like this, but this is a thread about optimizing for health/safety. If you’re going to avoid teflon, you should probably avoid eggs too.
You don't need to skip eggs! They are high in cholesterol, but the dietary cholesterol from eggs doesn't impact your serum (blood) cholesterol levels the way other fats do. Eggs are one of the best bang-for-your-buck foods you can work into your diet.
The site you linked says that studies have shown a link between eating eggs and heart disease, which was the basis of my suggestion that they be avoided.
> Although some studies have found a link between eating eggs and heart disease, there could be other reasons for these findings.
and:
> Health experts now suggest eating as little dietary cholesterol as you can, aiming to keep intake under 300 milligrams (mg) a day. One large egg has about 186 mg of cholesterol — all of which is found in the yolk.
People really like eggs, me included. That unfortunately doesn’t change the fact that they’re bad for you and we shouldn’t eat them (and I no longer do). Two eggs is more than the recommended daily total amount of cholesterol, and a good omelette is 3. I don’t imagine most people are going to be vegan for 60 hours following to compensate.
Previously, the Dietary Guidelines for
Americans recommended that cholesterol intake be
limited to no more than 300 milligrams per day. The
2015 DGAC will not bring forward this
recommendation because available evidence shows no
appreciable relationship between consumption of
dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol, consistent
with the conclusions of the AHA/ACC report.
Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for
overconsumption.
"A note on trans fats and dietary cholesterol: The
National Academies recommends that trans fat
and dietary cholesterol consumption to be as low
as possible without compromising the nutritional
adequacy of the diet. The USDA Dietary Patterns are
limited in trans fats and low in dietary cholesterol.
Cholesterol and a small amount of trans fat occur
naturally in some animal source foods. As of June
2018, partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the major
source of artificial trans fat in the food supply, are no
longer Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). Therefore,
PHOs are no longer added to foods."
So, I've read the linked report. I think it's important to include the full context. If it wasn't important, it wouldn't be in the report in the first place.
The quote appears on page 44. On the same page, before the quote, there's additional information about saturated fats:
> Healthy U.S.-Style Dietary Pattern include saturated fat. Approximately 5 percent of total calories inherent to the nutrient-dense foods in the Healthy U.S.-Style Dietary Pattern are from saturated fat from sources such as lean meat, poultry, and eggs; nuts and seeds; grains; and saturated fatty acids in oils. As such, there is little room to include additional saturated fat in a healthy dietary pattern while staying within limits for saturated fat and total calories.
Following that, on page 45, there's figure 1-11 called "Top Sources and Average Intakes of Saturated Fat: U.S. Population Ages 1 and Older". It breaks down the average saturated fat consumption by food types. It's summarized on the page 44:
> The main sources of saturated fat in the U.S. diet include sandwiches, including burgers, tacos, and burritos; desserts and sweet snacks; and rice, pasta, and other grain-based mixed dishes.
The Figure 1-11 shows that eggs amount to 3% of the average saturate fat intake; same as starchy vegetables (3%) and slightly less than non-starchy vegetables (4%). The main sources, as mentioned before, are sandwiches (19%) and desserts and snacks (11%).
Right after that there are practical recommendations about limiting saturated fats intake:
> Strategies to lower saturated fat intake include reducing intakes of dessert and sweet snacks by consuming smaller portion sizes and eating these foods less often. Additional strategies include reading food labels to choose packaged foods lower in saturated fats and choosing lower fat forms of foods and beverages (e.g., fat-free or low-fat milk instead of 2 percent or whole milk; lean rather than fatty cuts of meat). When cooking and purchasing meals, select lean meat and lower fat cheese in place of high-fat meats and regular cheese—or replace them with ingredients with oils, such as nuts, seeds, or avocado. Cook and purchase products made with oils higher in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat (e.g., canola, corn, olive, peanut, safflower, soybean, and sunflower) rather than butter, shortening, or coconut or palm oils.
Careful readers will notice eggs don't appear in the above paragraph.
A few points to demonstrate why your comment might be seen as unpopular:
1) Dietary (exogenous) cholesterol has been shown to have a lesser affect to the total cholesterol levels in the blood (70-80% of all the cholesterol in your body is produced by your body endogenously by your liver and other tissues).
2) Eggs are an affordable source of various fats and proteins that are essential to metabolic health.
3) There are a group of people who assert that correcting hypercholesterolemia is best done by understanding the root cause of the overproduction of endogenous cholesterol.
4) We are beginning to understand that not all cholesterol is the same, and that high total cholesterol alone isn't a sufficient biomarker for predicting heart disease. Advanced lipoprotein fractionation tests looking for the ratio of small dense LDL to normal LDL, and HDL cholesterol is a better test; small dense LDL is bad and is a biomarker for inflammation and artery calcification, which can lead to heart disease.
There is no such thing as dietary “bad cholesterol”.
When people use that term, it generally refers to low-density lipoproteins, which are an endogenous transportation mechanism for cholesterol in your body.
All dietary cholesterol is just cholesterol, and it essentially has no impact on serum (blood) cholesterol levels.
I have nothing to back this up with* but my understanding is that simple carbohydrates like sugar are more readily converted to bodily fat. Dietary fat is digested and processed by the body into component parts that are less readily converted into bodily fat. It's not like your body just takes fat and stores it directly in your love handles unmodified.
I wouldn’t normally offer unsolicited advice like this, but this is a thread about optimizing for health/safety. If you’re going to avoid teflon, you should probably avoid eggs too.