Confused about eggs? This might be the answer

Have you ever wondered why there are many kinds of eggs at grocery stores? Have you ever been confused on which egg brand to choose? Well, I am not surprised.

With so many egg brands nowadays claiming that theirs is superior among the others, it’s not hard to see why so many people are confused now. One brand claims theirs has higher omega-3. Another one claims theirs has higher omega-6. Another claims less cholesterol level. To make things more complicated, there are regular chicken eggs and kampong chicken eggs, which are usually brighter in color and smaller. Basically, you are faced by choices you do not know how to choose. It is not your fault though.

The food industry has gone wild that everyone can make claims on his own without any proof. Even worse, these claims, not only complicate things, but also allow them to increase the price. Just compare normal eggs without any special claim with the one that has lower cholesterol and you will know how big the price difference is.

So let me try to ease you burden in choosing your food, in this case eggs. Here we go. Lower cholesterol egg? Do you need it? NOPE. You don’t really need it UNLESS you have health history related to hypertension, heart attack, and stroke. If you don’t have any of those and you eat healthy, you don’t need to worry so much about cholesterol (see “Cholesterol, FRIEND or VILLAIN?”)

Egg with higher omega-6? HELL NO. It’s a big NO for this. Obviously, people who make this claim for their eggs really want to ruin their business or simply, they really don’t know anything about food, nutrition, and what people nowadays need from their food. If I happened to meet the people making this claim, I would say, “C’mon people. Don’t you know anything at all?? WE DO NOT NEED ANY MORE OMEGA-6 FROM EGGS OK??”. Yes I am being very emotional now talking about this because it is just SO DUMB (probably the DUMBEST THING TO DO) to offer people more omega-6, while actually, our modern diet has already offered MUCH MORE, I mean MUCH MUCH MORE OF THAT (can be as much as 6 TIMES THE AMOUNT WE NEED). So next time you come across with this kind of eggs, you know what to do.

It leaves us with kampong chicken egg and higher omega-3 eggs. These are the type of eggs you want to put in your grocery basket. As I said, we don’t need anymore omega-6, but WE DO NEED A LOT OF OMEGA-3 to balance out our omega-6 intake. Ideally, the ratio between omega-3 and omega-6 in our diet should be 1:1 or 1:3 the most (see “EFA Balance and the Consequences” for more on the omega-3:omega-6 balance). But thanks to processed foods and hydrogenated oils, the ratio has now become as crazy as 1:20 in extreme cases according to Dr. Gabe Mirkin, no exaggerating here. So, you know what to do, increase intake of omega-3 and reduce intake of omega-6 from processed food/oil.

I generally prefer kampong chicken eggs than higher omega-3 eggs. Higher omega-3 eggs are produced by a carefully constructed diet on the chicken. However, kampong chicken eggs are produced by a natural diet on the chicken. In this case, the chicken is let to roam free and eat its own natural diet, including worms and bugs that are seldom in the chicken farm diet. So, the best choice for eggs is kampong chicken eggs and if this is not available, the second best choice is higher omega-3 eggs.

So, there you go. You should have better idea now how to choose your eggs to increase you omega-3 intake and balance your omega-3:omega-6 ratio. More on why this ratio has to be balance on another article.

Till then, don’t get lost in your grocery store because when it comes to eggs, you know what to do.

Tobias Kananggar Ganda
AMFPT Certified Personal Trainer
AMFPT Certified Sport Nutritionist
Creator of RoadToSixPack.blogspot.com