Fried eggs can benefit cholesterol!

You can’t entirely blame Edwina Currie, though anyone who writes as badly as she does ought to be blamed for something, but we have steadily been eating fewer and fewer eggs. The dreaded phrase ‘high in cholesterol’ have sealed their fate, but ironically it now seems that new research shows they could actually reduce a risk factor for heart disease.

We have been warned over and over again about the dangers of eggs producing cholesterol that will clog up your arteries – though as cholesterol is essential to our health and wellbeing it has always been a mixed message.

The main target has been those people who have high blood pressure, and instead of a natural regime of exercise and diet many doctors have been prescribing an Angiotensin- Converting Enzyme (ACE) inhibitor drug. How about a couple of fried eggs instead? Two splendid Canadian researchers at the University of Alberta recently ran lab tests to see whether eating fried eggs or boiled eggs would produce greater amounts of ACE inhibitory peptides and the fried eggs were the winners!

They found that cooked eggs could generate a number of potent ACE inhibitory peptides and although I am not advocating you have them every day, do not remove them from your diet because of the cholesterol scare but eat in moderation – as you should do with all things in your diet.

Incidentally, the research that led to the egg/cholesterol scare was done on powdered eggs and the problem has always been cholesterol that has been heated and exposed to air for an extended period. This does not occur with ‘real’ eggs as the yolk sac insulates the cholesterol from oxidation. Many doctors believe that there is no link between eggs and having high cholesterol levels and in fact if you don’t have enough cholesterol from food sources then your body is forced to manufacture it as it is essential for your health. This form of cholesterol that the body produces is more likely to be deposited in blood vessel walls than any form of cholesterol found in eggs.

Egg and chips anyone?