Many MS diets recommend not eating the yolk (the yellow part of the egg) due to the high saturated fat and cholesterol.
As a person with almost 30 years of lived experience, I take a food as medicine approach. I respectfully disagree with the wisdom of discarding the yolk. Here’s why.
For a long time, it made sense. Swank studied people with MS for more than 50 years and found a very low saturated fat diet (fewer than 15 grams a day) was the trick to living well with MS.
Nearly every MS diet that came after (ie. all of them) takes a leaf from his playbook.
But is that the whole story? Aren’t they a perfect food? Let’s have a look.
What’s inside an egg?
According to HealthLine, a large egg (50 grams) contains:
Calories: 72
Protein: 6 grams
Fat: 5 grams
Carbs: less than 1 gram
Choline: 31% of the Daily Value (DV)
Selenium: 28% of the DV
Vitamin B12: 21% of the DV
Vitamin B2 (riboflavin): 16% of the DV
Vitamin D: 6% of the DV
Iron: 5% of the DV
Remember, this is just the egg itself. If you cook the egg in butter, that will add to the fat and calorie count. Eating eggs with toasted bread will also load up the numbers. Yes, there are 5 g of fat. Is that too much for you? Only you can answer that.
What about the cholesterol in eggs?
Cholesterol has been misunderstood for years.
Dietary cholesterol is a waxy substance found in foods that come from animals, like meat, eggs, and dairy. Cholesterol itself is vital for human health. We need it. And we make it.
Yes, eggs contain a fair amount of dietary cholesterol (186 mg).
But dietary cholesterol isn’t the villain it was once thought to be.
When you eat an egg yolk, your body then absorbs this dietary cholesterol and turns it into tiny parcels that go to your liver. Your liver acts as a control centre. It uses this cholesterol to build different parcels called lipoproteins.
LDL (Low-density lipoprotein) carries the lousy cholesterol to your cells, and HDL (high-density lipoprotein) the happy hotrod, swiftly carries excess cholesterol away from them. Did you detect my memory trick?
In other words, HDL is the Happy cholesterol. LDL is the lousy, lumpy, cholesterol.
For most people, eggs cause a mild rise in both HDL and LDL. But overall, eating the egg yolk has a neutral effect on heart health. Get that?
Why egg yolks are good for people with MS
After years of abstaining, I’m finally eating the odd egg, usually just a single egg, well-scrambled with a few drops of water, and fresh lemon zest added. I like a slice of toasted sourdough as the vehicle of choice. No butter, thank you. I don’t eat dairy. A sprinkle of parsley makes it a pretty little breakfast as well.
Vitamin D. Egg yolks are one of the few food sources of Vitamin D2 and D3 (cholecalciferol), which we need for our immune systems. Two eggs are about 82% of your daily recommended Vitamin D intake. It’s winter in Australia, so levels of vitamin D really start to plunge.
They contain B vitamins, including B12, which is another vitamin that’s hard to get from food, as well as B1 (thiamine) and B2 (riboflavin), B5 (pantothenic acid), and B9 (folate), essential for cell development and pregnancy.
Eggs contain a range of omega-3 fatty acids are good for brain health and heart health, as well as being anti-inflammatory.
Vitamin A: Important for vision, immune function, and skin health.
Vitamin E: A powerful antioxidant that helps protect cells from damage.
Vitamin K: For blood clotting and bone health
Lutein and Zeaxanthin – these are powerful antioxidants, protecting the eyes from damage caused by harmful light and reducing the risk of age-related macular degeneration and cataracts.
Selenium, iron, phosphorous, zinc, and iodine are also inside an egg yolk. Together, they make it a nutritional powerhouse. I haven’t even mentioned protein.
Why egg yolks might be bad for people with MS
Yes, it’s possible that egg yolks could be bad for your MS.
- You feel bad after eating one.
- The high saturated fat content may contribute to inflammation. We’re all different so if eggs trigger inflammation, that will make your old flareups worse. Listen to your body.
- If you eat them raw you can get food poisoning, such as salmonella. Make sure you cook the yolks (I know, cake mix is hard to resist but it’s raw egg if you use eggs so no licking the batters)
- If you’re allergic to them.
The Rules For Eating Eggs: It has to be Organic
I’ve seen footage of chickens in hen houses where the chickens can’t move. Maybe you have too. Then there was the ‘free range’ and ‘barn-laid’ word salad used to deliberately mislead ethical consumers.
It turned me off for years.
These days, our friend, Lucy, has a small farm nearby and we save our food scraps for her chickens. They live in a flower-filled paradise where they get sunshine, fresh vegetable scraps (from us), room to walk, and grit for eggshell strength.
In return, we get a dozen eggs every Saturday. It’s a closed loop circle where there’s no waste.
The yolks are bright yellow-orange and extremely delicious.
Turns out, I like eggs.
As long as they’re cooked, and from free range, organic, and happy chickens having their best life.
