What If You Ate 4 EGGS A Day With The YOLKS For 30 Days?

The biggest reason that people avoid eggs, which  we've been warned about for the last 50 years, is that people are afraid of the cholesterol and  saturated fat, as if that was going to cause heart disease. It's the exact opposite of what we're  being told. Hello, Health Champions.

Today, we're going to talk about what would happen if you ate  four eggs a day with the yolk for 30 days. Well, some people find it shocking that you can eat eggs  with the yolk, and then there's another type of person who finds it shocking that you wouldn't  eat the egg with the yolk. I find it amazing that only modern humans could possibly get that  confused about food.

This confusion centers around cholesterol and goes way back to the 1960s and 70s  when a guy called Ancel Keys conducted something called the Seven Countries Study. In this study,  he supposedly found an association between heart disease, cholesterol, and saturated fat. Now, the  only problem here is that this was pretty much the only study that this cholesterol and heart  hypothesis was based on, and it was a really bad study because the Seven Countries Study actually  initially had data from 22 countries, but there were only seven countries that fit what Ancel Keys  wanted to show.

He had this idea that he wanted to prove, but only seven countries fit the idea that  you would have higher cholesterol and higher heart disease. There were 15 countries that didn't, and  since those 15 countries would have disproved his idea, then he just threw those 15 countries  out, and it became the Seven Country Study. These so-called findings became the foundation  for the first dietary guidelines—the first time a government tried to tell people how to eat  better—and they started telling people that saturated fat and cholesterol were dangerous.

You  should limit total fat and especially saturated fat and, instead of eating fat, you should  increase your carbohydrates. You should eat 45 to 65% of all your calories from carbohydrates. Those  guidelines were basically the spark that ignited the worst disease epidemic we have ever seen in  the world.

And we also have to understand that this study didn't show any causative effect; there  was a very weak association. So, on the one hand, they had saturated fat and cholesterol which they  linked very loosely to cardiovascular disease. But ever since then, these guidelines remain in place  despite the fact that, for the last 20 years, there have been study after study that show a  completely different picture, namely that there is something called insulin resistance, and that  is showing a massive connection and a causative effect.

So on the one hand, we have a flimsy  association that is still the foundation for the guidelines in place, and there are hints of  wanting to change these guidelines, but 50 years later, they're still in effect. Well, we have  proof. We have solid evidence that it all comes down to insulin resistance—or not all, but 90%  of it comes down to insulin resistance—which is associated with high sugar and high carbohydrate  consumption.

And I wanted to cover that in some detail because the fear of fat and the fear of  cholesterol is the number one reason that keeps people from enjoying one of the best foods in the  world. So let's talk about some of the nutrients in eggs. For example, vitamin B1: the egg yolk has  10% of the daily allowance in four egg yolks.

I'm going to look at egg yolk and egg white separately  because so many people throw away the yolk that we want to understand what the difference is and what  we're getting if we eat the whole egg. Vitamin B2, we get 28%; vitamin B5, we get 41%; vitamin  B6, 14%; and folate, which is hugely important for all sorts of degenerative disease, we get  25% in the egg yolk. Vitamin B12, we get 55%; vitamin D, 18%; and something called choline,  which is a critical nutrient to start burning fat and reversing a fatty liver, for example,  we have 101% of the choline we need per day in four egg yolks.

The egg white has its place, but  in terms of the nutrients we're talking about, it doesn't have a whole lot to offer. So  we get 0% B1, 45% B2—that's excellent—5% B5, 0% of the B6, 1% of the folate, 5% from the  B12, we get zero vitamin D, and zero choline. But now we want to compare because the whole idea  is to eat the egg as a unit; that's how nature packaged it.

So now if we add this up, we see from  the whole egg: vitamin B1, we get 10%; vitamin B2, we get 73%, which is superb; B5, we get 46%; B6,  we have 14%; folate, we get 26%; vitamin B12, 60%; vitamin D, 18%; and choline, of course, over  100% of the daily value. But eggs also have other nutrients such as minerals, and zinc is one of the  prominent ones where the egg yolk will have 14%; the white will have nothing. So we eat the whole  egg, we eat four eggs, we get 14% of the zinc, but it also contributes significantly to calcium,  iron, copper, iodine, magnesium, and phosphorus.

The most important fatty acid, the fish oil  omega-3 fatty acid for the brain, is called DHA, and four egg yolks will contain 78 milligrams,  which could be as much as 65% of the daily allowance. The white contributes none of that, and  I put a little asterisk at the 65 there because there are no official recommendations for DHA.  There are some very loose general recommendations that you need about 200 to 500 milligrams of EPA  and DHA combined, but as far as the brain goes and as far as how deficient people are in DHA, I  believe we need much more than that.

Nevertheless, the egg yolk contributes significantly to that.  And then we have a group of nutrients classified as antioxidants. So vitamin A is one of those;  the yolk has 29%; the egg white has nothing.

And vitamin E: the egg yolk will have 12% of the daily  allowance. Now, that is only one of the types of vitamin E. It's called alpha-tocopherol, and there  are eight different types of vitamin E total, and the egg contains all of them in varying  amounts, so the actual usable amount is a lot more than just the 12%.

And the egg white again  contributes nothing in that regard because these are fat-soluble, and the egg white doesn't have  any fat. Another important antioxidant is called selenium, and here the egg yolk contributes  69%, and the egg white now has a substantial amount at 48%. So we get a whole 117% of the  daily allowance.

We get all of our selenium requirement in just four eggs. And then there are  some additional very important antioxidants called lutein, which is recognized for its contribution  to eye health and to prevent degeneration of the eye, and also something called zeaxanthin,  which is another important antioxidant, plus, of course, beta-carotene, which can become more  vitamin A, and this is another antioxidant that also contributes to the yellow color. So you can  get an indication of how much beta-carotene is in there from the rich color of the egg yolk.

So  very healthy pastured eggs will typically have a richer color. Now unfortunately, the cheating  manufacturers catch on to this in a hurry, so now, sometimes on the really cheap eggs, they  start adding color to the feed. So that's not a guarantee that you're going to get beta-carotene  just because it's a deep orange color.

And we're going to go over even more nutrients that are  in eggs, but I want to point out here that the biggest reason that people avoid eggs, that we've  been warned about eggs for the last 50 years, is that people are afraid of the cholesterol and  the saturated fat as if that was going to cause heart disease when, in fact, all the nutrients  we have covered so far are actually beneficial in that they help reverse non-alcoholic fatty  liver disease, which is associated with insulin resistance and part of the cause for heart  disease. These nutrients help reduce metabolic disease; they help reduce inflammation; they help  reduce oxidative stress that causes heart disease. So, all in all, all these nutrients that we're  talking about play a pivotal role in actually reducing heart disease.

So again, it's the exact  opposite of what we're being told. Eggs are also known for being rich in protein and for containing  a lot of essential amino acids, and the essential amino acids are the ones that we have to obtain  from food. We cannot make them from anything else; "essential" means necessary for life.

And eggs are  very rich in the nine different essential amino acids. So when it comes to protein as a whole,  four egg yolks would contain about 22% of the protein that we need, and egg whites would contain  about 29%, so in four eggs, if you eat the whole thing, you would get 51% of the protein you need.  And again, put a little asterisk here because I think that's really on the low end.

I think you  probably need at least 50% more protein than that, and maybe even double. That's just to sort  of avoid deficiency, but nevertheless, eggs are very rich in protein for the little amount of  food that you eat. And the first essential amino acid is called histidine; the egg contains 25%;  the white contains 34% for a total of 59%.

Then we have isoleucine: 38% plus 56% is a whole 94%  of our daily requirement. Leucine: 28% plus 39% is a total of 67%. Methionine is super important  because it is one of the amino acids that become glutathione, which is the body's main antioxidant;  it's like a cleanup crew for the body.

The egg white contains 34%, so the total would be  51%. Then we have something called phenylalanine: 34% in the yolk and 56% in the egg white for a  total of 90%. We have lysine: 27% plus 34% is 61% of our daily total.

Threonine: 29% plus 36% for  a total of 65%. And then there's also tryptophan: 29% plus 40% for a total of 69%. And we have  valine: 33% plus 55% for 88%.

So you can see that the amount of protein and essential  amino acids in eggs is very substantial, and this is why they call it a complete food, a  complete protein, unlike many other plant foods. And it's not that we should eat one or the other;  we need to eat both. But here's how it works with protein: if you look at the eggs, and we see this  is how much the total amount of protein is—just a little more than 50%, if we go by the very low  standards—then we look at all the other amino acids.

We see that there are different amounts,  different combinations of all the different amino acids, and some have a lot more from the white and  some have a little less. But when we eat protein, we ingest it, we break it down into amino acids,  and then we absorb it in the bloodstream, and then we reassemble these amino acids into body parts.  So the protein that we eat can do one of two things: protein, and one is to become tissue, and  sometimes there's some hormones that are based on amino acids, but basically the purpose of protein  is to make muscles, to make skin, to make bones, etc.

, and the other part, whatever we can't  combine, becomes energy. So the better the protein value, the closer these amino acids are  in balance in combination to our own body tissue, the more of that we can use to become tissue;  a greater percentage we can use. So for plants, for example, typically we can make about 17%  tissue from plant proteins, and the rest, which is about 83%, becomes energy because  the combination, the mix of amino acids, doesn't fit very closely to what our bodies are  made of.

And very interestingly, if you eat the egg white alone, even though the egg white  has more protein total than the egg yolk, you still only utilize about 17% of the protein  in that egg white to become body tissue because it doesn't match our bodies very well. When  you eat meat, you get about 30% of the protein becomes body tissue, 70% becomes energy, and the  way they figure this out is they feed people 100 grams or something of a certain type of protein,  and then they measure how much comes out as blood urea and nitrogen because if you make tissue from  it, then it's not going to turn into energy. If it turns into energy, now we make glucose, and the  leftover when we make glucose is called nitrogen, and that ends up in the blood as blood urea  nitrogen.

So now they can measure and see how much became body tissue and how much became energy.  So for egg white, it's only 17%, but when you eat the egg white and the egg yolk together, now you  get 49%, which is the highest that we know of of any food other than mother's milk. So basically,  it's 50/50, and that's the best food that we have access to.

But then just as important, we also  have to talk about the quality of these eggs. We have to compare what do you get for eggs when you  buy $2 a dozen versus $8 a dozen because it does make a difference. If you eat four eggs a day,  then that would put you at 67 cents for a serving if you buy the cheap eggs, and it would put you  at $2.

67 if you buy the expensive ones. So yes, there's absolutely a difference, but we got to put  this in perspective that for $2 and some change, you're getting some really good quality food. If  you compare that with some of these luxury coffee drinks, cappuccino, and Frappuccino, they're  up to $5, $6, $7, and you're getting basically nothing but some caffeine and sugar, and a tasty  treat.

If you go to a fast food restaurant today, they've gotten so expensive it's hard  to find a fast food meal under $10, not that I would do that. I went and looked it  up, so even if you buy the most expensive eggs, I feel you're still getting a deal for a lot  of high-quality nutrients. And if you buy the pasture—if we compare the more expensive ones—now  they've done some studies on this, and when it comes to the omega-3s, this DHA we talked about,  they can have typically twice as much DHA in the pasture-raised, which means that the hens,  the chickens, basically go outside most of their life.

They come in at night, but they have  access to the outside. They eat a natural diet, they run around in the sunshine, they eat bugs  and worms and grass, and they get a little bit of supplemental feed. Now when it comes to vitamin  E, they can have three to four times as much; when it comes to vitamin D, typically four times  as much if they run around in the sun and make some vitamin D.

Vitamin A could be twice as much,  and then these other antioxidants that we talked about—the lutein, the zeaxanthin—are going to  be much higher. The beta-carotene is going to be much higher. And then we also have to talk about  what is the color, the texture, the creaminess, and the flavor, and in my opinion, there's just no  comparison whatsoever.

If I cook scrambled eggs at home, it is a creamy, rich yellow; it's one of the  most wonderful things you can eat. And if I'm at a hotel buffet and they serve me that light, pale,  rubbery stuff that bounces off your plate, I don't even eat it. There's just no point.

So the quality  of the experience is just so much better if you get the real eggs. So what happens if you eat four  eggs with the yolk every day for 30 days is that you get amazing food value for $2 and change. And  if you eat four eggs of the cheap and cage-fed and mass-produced eggs, in my opinion, I believe  that you're losing at least 40 to 60% of the food value, of the nutrient value.

It would still be  better than toast; it would still be better than a lot of processed foods, but you're not getting  nearly the benefits of a real, pastured egg. And then if you're going to cut out the egg yolk and  just eat the egg whites, I would pretty much say, why bother? You're not really getting anything  that you're looking for except a little substance to be filling temporarily.

And if you do it in a  restaurant, they're probably going to cook this in seed oil that is high in omega-6s and actually  cause inflammation and contribute to insulin resistance and heart disease. So we've gone  full circle here. We have people avoiding eggs because they have cholesterol, and they believe  that it's going to cause heart disease when, in fact, the opposite is true.

The yolk contains  the nutrients to keep you healthy, and instead, they eat the part of the egg that is almost  useless, and they cook it in something that will contribute to heart disease. If you enjoyed this  video, you're going to love that one. And if you truly want to master health by understanding how  the body really works, make sure you subscribe, hit that bell, and turn on all the notifications  so you never miss a life-saving video.