THERE’S a lot to love about incorporating egg yolks.
Consuming eggs as part of your regular diet means you may be getting adequate protein, which assists in repairing and potentially developing muscles.
Additionally, eggs may help with overall body health – such as weight loss and lowering inflammation levels.
While eggs as a whole can be great, the egg white and egg yolk can have different effects.
Wall Street Journal best-selling author of ‘The Family Immunity Cookbook’ Toby Amidor looks at some of the benefits of separating the egg yolk from the egg white.
Eye health
“Egg yolks contain the phytochemical lutein, which is also what gives the yolk that gorgeous yellow hue,” Ms Amidor said.
Lutein has been linked with eye health.
Specifically, lutein has been connected to preventing macular degeneration – the cause of vision loss, which may occur with aging.
Muscle-building protein
“The yolk contains almost half the protein in the entire egg,” Ms Amidor said.
Generally speaking, a whole egg is rich with nearly 13 percent protein, so if you’re eating one extra-large egg that consists of 7g of protein, three of those grams would belong to the egg yolk.
“Protein helps with a variety of functions, including building muscles, so don’t toss those golden yolks,” she said.
Heart health
Ms Amidor suggests that the yolk also provides omega-3 fats, which have been shown to help promote heart health and reduce the risk of dying from heart disease.
Certain omega-3 fats have also been linked to potentially killing cancer cells and may help with arthritis.
Bone health
“The egg yolk is one of the only food sources of vitamin D.”
“Vitamin D helps calcium get absorbed and both help keep your bones healthy,” Ms Amidor said.
She further suggests that it is important for both children and adults to get enough of this nutrient to prevent the risk of bone diseases.
This includes rickets in children and osteoporosis in adults.
“In addition, vitamin D is one of the under-consumer nutrients in every population as per the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines for Americans,” she said.