One of the "safest" things to order for breakfast in a restaurant from a "low carb" or even blood sugar management point of view is eggs. And one of the most popular ways to eat them is scrambled.
Now the last thing I want to do is add to your anxiety about food choices (we're already too close to becoming totally paranoid about what to eat and what not to eat) but here's something worth thinking about when you consider how you take your eggs.
You're probably aware of the (in my opinion, highly misguided) level of paranoia about cholesterol that exists in this country. In fact, the cholesterol in eggs is one of the reasons why people order egg white omelets (also highly misguided as you've heard me say many times).
But what you might not know is that the beginnings of this whole cholesterol madness started back in 1913 when a Russian researcher named Nikolai Anitschkov fed cholesterol to rabbits who later developed a kind of atherosclerosis (cholesterolosis) .
Of course rabbits are vegetarian and never eat cholesterol in the wild, but that's another story. Nearly 50 years later, another researcher tried to duplicate Anitschkov's research, but he was very careful about not letting the cholesterol lie around the rabbit cages where it was exposed to air, which of course, causes it to oxidize pretty quickly.
And guess what? The rabbits didn't develop atherosclerosis.
Now all the nutritionists and MDs I respect have said for years that cholesterol isn't a problem in the body until it's oxidized, though that message tends to fall on deaf ears as a 20 billion dollar a year industry continues to demonize cholesterol of any kind in any amount (but that's another story). The point is that
oxidized cholesterolactually is a problem. And unfortunately, when you scramble eggs you break up the yolk (where the cholesterol is found) and expose the cholesterol in it to a lot more air (and potential oxidative damage) than you would if the yolk were whole (as for example in poached or hard boiled eggs).
Again, I'm not- repeat
not- telling you this so that you will be afraid to eat scrambled eggs. And if you eat them fairly soon after scrambling and cooking, and if you're healthy in every way and taking your antioxidants (or eating plenty of antioxidant rich foods), you should be fine.
But I do think you might want to think twice about serving yourself the scrambled eggs in a breakfast buffet, particularly when it's a good bet they've been sitting out there in the light and air for hours.
Now the last thing I want to do is add to your anxiety about food choices (we're already too close to becoming totally paranoid about what to eat and what not to eat) but here's something worth thinking about when you consider how you take your eggs.
You're probably aware of the (in my opinion, highly misguided) level of paranoia about cholesterol that exists in this country. In fact, the cholesterol in eggs is one of the reasons why people order egg white omelets (also highly misguided as you've heard me say many times).
But what you might not know is that the beginnings of this whole cholesterol madness started back in 1913 when a Russian researcher named Nikolai Anitschkov fed cholesterol to rabbits who later developed a kind of atherosclerosis (cholesterolosis) .
Of course rabbits are vegetarian and never eat cholesterol in the wild, but that's another story. Nearly 50 years later, another researcher tried to duplicate Anitschkov's research, but he was very careful about not letting the cholesterol lie around the rabbit cages where it was exposed to air, which of course, causes it to oxidize pretty quickly.
And guess what? The rabbits didn't develop atherosclerosis.
Now all the nutritionists and MDs I respect have said for years that cholesterol isn't a problem in the body until it's oxidized, though that message tends to fall on deaf ears as a 20 billion dollar a year industry continues to demonize cholesterol of any kind in any amount (but that's another story). The point is thatoxidized cholesterolactually is a problem. And unfortunately, when you scramble eggs you break up the yolk (where the cholesterol is found) and expose the cholesterol in it to a lot more air (and potential oxidative damage) than you would if the yolk were whole (as for example in poached or hard boiled eggs).
Again, I'm not- repeatnot- telling you this so that you will be afraid to eat scrambled eggs. And if you eat them fairly soon after scrambling and cooking, and if you're healthy in every way and taking your antioxidants (or eating plenty of antioxidant rich foods), you should be fine.
But I do think you might want to think twice about serving yourself the scrambled eggs in a breakfast buffet, particularly when it's a good bet they've been sitting out there in the light and air for hours.