How to Be a Conscious Eater

31

EGGS & CHOLESTEROL:

WHAT GIVES?

E

ggs are beloved by many people, in many cultures. So it

was a pretty big downer when the nutrition police told

everyone to stop eating them. High cholesterol and heart

disease were on the line.

But eggs have since been exonerated. In 2015, one of the

biggest headline-makers from the Dietary Guidelines for

Americans was that we don’t need to worry about dietary cho-

lesterol anymore. It was one big medical “never mind!” The

original guidance to avoid eggs had been based on mostly short-

term studies, from which the evidence wasn’t nearly as strong

as that available in recent years. Back then, all three types of

fat were locked up together, and only more recently was unsat-

urated fat proven innocent and released from the slammer,

whereas trans fat got shipped off to maximum security with

a life sentence, and saturated fat’s been kept in the can but at

one of those cushy white-collar prisons. In 2015, egg producers

surely did a happy dance on farms nationwide. The phrase put

an egg on it turned up everywhere, as did actual eggs, on pizza

to salad, fried rice to avocado toast.

What gives? Why all those years of being told to avoid eggs?

Some nomenclature will clarify—a bit.

Cholesterol: Unlike carbs, protein,

and fat (the three macro-

nutrients), cholesterol is

not an energy source but

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