Why is yolk bad for you

Our colleagues at BBC Good Food are focusing on practical solutions for ingredient swaps, nutritious storecupboard recipes and all aspects of cooking and eating during lockdown. If there was such a thing as a perfect food, eggs would be a contender.

Eating eggs alongside other food can help our bodies absorb more vitamins, too. For example, one study found that adding an egg to salad can increase how much vitamin E we get from the salad. But for decades, eating eggs has also been controversial due to their high cholesterol content — which some studies have linked to an increased risk of heart disease. One egg yolk contains around milligrams of cholesterol, which is more than half of the mg daily amount of cholesterol that the US dietary guidelines recommended until recently.

Additionally, there have been scientifically unsupported claims the eggs can guard against coronavirus, or that they have even been responsible for its outbreak. There has even been one outlandish theory that spitting in an egg before cooking it creates antibodies which can guard against the disease. There's no evidence to support this.

But cholesterol is a crucial building block in our cell membranes. It also is needed for the body to make vitamin D, and the hormones testosterone and oestrogen. Cholesterol is found in animal products like beef as well as eggs Credit: Getty Images.

Cholesterol is transported around our body by lipoprotein molecules in the blood. Every person has a different combination of various types of lipoproteins, and our individual make-up plays a role in determining our risk of developing heart disease. Researchers say that this can result in a build-up of cholesterol in the blood vessels and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

As a result, US dietary guidelines no longer have a cholesterol restriction; nor does the UK. Instead, emphasis is placed on limiting how much saturated fat we consume, which can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Foods containing trans fats , in particular, increase our LDL levels. Although some trans fats occur naturally in animal products, most are made artificially and are found in highest levels in margarines, snacks, and some deep-fried and baked foods, such as pastry, doughnuts and cake.

Read more about whether diets encouraging people to eat more saturated fat are good for you. Some deep-fried foods, which contain trans fats, can increase our LDL or "bad" cholesterol levels Credit: Getty Images. Many diet freaks avoid them like the plague. But I say eat the yolk. It all depends on how many you are eating.

It is not necessary to have cholesterol free diets. We do need some cholesterol. It is produced naturally in the body and forms a basic part of our cells. Cholesterol helps to regulate our hormones, helps us utilize Vitamin D and helps us digest food. Healthy adults with normal cholesterol levels, who exercise regularly and who follow a low fat, least junk and a healthy high fiber diet can safely eat eggs. Eggs are rich in choline which is a memory vitamin and also in lutein and zeaxanthin which are antioxidants.

Hence it is quite safe to eat an egg daily. But if you do have a genetic predisposition for high cholesterol levels or are already overweight with high cholesterol levels, then the intake of egg yolks should be reduced to not more than 3 eggs per week.

It is not always cholesterol alone that causes problems. It is the oxygenation of cholesterol that causes the damage. Oxygenation, or free radical development, is the process that changes the composition of this essential nutrient, turning it into a destructive compound. Oxidation of cholesterol is formed when it is exposed to air.

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