Egg Whites Missing the Gold

I was looking over a Panera Bread Café menu for a client. What’s with all the egg white breakfasts? Are these guys living in the 1960’s? Have they not turned on the news or picked up a newspaper? Egg yolks are where the gold is – the most nutritious part of the egg.  Egg yolks help bones, arteries, eyes, and the heart. Egg yolks boost energy and help you lose weight.

Vitamin K2, which we get from only a few foods, egg yolks being one, keeps calcium in bones, and teeth, where it belongs, and out of our arteries, and organs, where it hardens and leads to disease.

Calcification of the arteries leads to heart attacks. A large study from the Netherlands found those in the highest third of vitamin K2 intake were 52 percent less likely to have calcified arteries and 57 percent less likely to die from a heart attack than those who consumed the lowest amount of vitamin K2. Think egg yolks. Vitamin K2 is also found in a few cheeses, certain fermented food, including natto and organ meats.

Vitamin K2 turns out to be key to getting calcium into bone. Without vitamin K2, all that calcium you take to build your bones? Well it heads for your arteries (think heart attacks), joints (think joint pain) and organs (think stones). Taking vitamin D? You could be headed for trouble even faster if you don’t have vitamin K2 on board. These fat-soluble vitamins are a team. They work together to make your bones strong and keep your arteries healthy and supple.

Your eyes miss out with an egg white breakfast too. Lutein and zeaxanthin, gold pigmented eye-protecting antioxidants, are found in egg yolks, and not much else. On top of that, the beneficial fat in egg yolks enables all these nutrients to get into your blood. NO fat means no nutrition.

Panera Bread Café also features a low-fat vegetable soup. The vegetables offer up lots of nutrients but not much is going to get into your tissues without fat for assimilation. It’s kind of like having a car with no key. Fat = Key.

Studies show an egg breakfast (with yolks) leaves people more energized and weighing less than those who eat a low fat bagel breakfast.  Yes, whole eggs rich with the yolks surpass a low-fat bagel for weight loss.

And don’t get me started on flavor. Nature packages flavor and rich color with nutrition for a reason. When food looks and tastes like plain egg whites, it probably isn’t offering up much nutrition either.