Egg Nutrition 101

Egg nutrition 101- everything you need to know about calories, macros, protein, carbs, fat, weight watchers points, nutrition and more.

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I’ve become a big fan of eggs and egg whites as they were pivotal in my weight loss journey for my body building show. I have eaten eggs each morning for almost two years now, and I never get tired of them!

Egg popularity has gone through some ups and downs in diet culture with a dip due to low cholesterol diets. Today we know that eggs have a lot of good to offer our diet. Let’s find out why.

Egg micronutrients

The vitamins and minerals in eggs are mostly in the yolk, but the whites have some too, like selenium, potassium and some B vitamins. The yolk is the powerhouse when it comes to vitamins and minerals as it contains every vitamin except vitamin C.² 

Egg yolks contain the fat soluble vitamins

• vitamin A
• vitamin D
• vitamin E
• vitamin K

The fat in the egg yolk helps our bodies to absorb these vitamins. Vitamin D plays an important role in bone and heart health and supporting a healthy immune system. Not many foods naturally contain vitamin D, a few are certain types of fish and beef liver. There are some vitamin D fortified foods such as cereals, milk and orange juice. Eggs are one of the few foods that naturally have vitamin D, two eggs provide 14% of the recommended amount of vitamin D.¹

Eggs are also rich in B vitamins and minerals like phosphorus, calcium, potassium and choline. Choline helps support the nervous system and brain health. One egg provides about 30% of the recommended amount of choline.

Egg Research

Some research has shown that including whole eggs after exercise can help the body make proteins better than just egg whites.⁴ Because this study did not look at whole eggs with extra egg whites it is unclear what ratio of egg yolk to egg whites is best.

It does show that there are some benefits, other than the extra vitamins and minerals, to eating egg yolk and egg white together instead of egg whites alone. 

So how should you include eggs in your diet?

I like to use whole eggs when I cook eggs for scrambled eggs or baked goods. Sometimes I’ll add extra egg whites with the whole egg, to add extra protein. Liquid egg whites from a carton make it easy to add to egg dishes without having to separate the whites and yolks and are normally pasteurized making them safe to add to foods that aren’t cooked like smoothies and desserts.

¼ cup is about 2 egg whites. If you want to add extra egg white to baked goods I suggest following a recipe as the extra egg whites can change the taste and texture of baked items. You can also use powdered egg white as a protein powder in smoothies and other recipes. 

Regardless of how exactly you incorporate them into your diet, I highly encourage taking advantage of egg nutrition. Eggs have tons of benefits!

Recipes for egg dishes

• Egg and egg white omelets
• Egg and banana pancakes
• Replace powdered egg whites for protein in protein balls
• egg sandwich
• egg whites in smoothies
• avocado deviled eggs

1. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/748967/nutrients
2. Réhault-Godbert S, Guyot N, Nys Y. The Golden Egg: Nutritional Value, Bioactivities, and Emerging Benefits for Human Health. Nutrients. 2019;11(3):684. Published 2019 Mar 22. 
3. Shakoor H, Khan MI, Sahar A, Khan MKI, Faiz F, Basheer Ahmad H. Development of omega-3 rich eggs through dietary flaxseed and bio-evaluation in metabolic syndrome. Food Sci Nutr. 2020;8(6):2619-2626. Published 2020 Apr 30.
4. van Vliet S, Shy EL, Abou Sawan S, et al. Consumption of whole eggs promotes greater stimulation of postexercise muscle protein synthesis than consumption of isonitrogenous amounts of egg whites in young men. Am J Clin Nutr. 2017;106(6):1401-1412.