Talk about a hotly debated topic, if you put two Doctors in a room and asked; are scrambled eggs healthy or bad for you, most likely you’d get two completely different answers.
Some will say it’s perfectly safe and cite studies, while others will say it’s everything from harmful to death incarnate and cite studies for their side too.
So, what is the truth?
Well, luckily there can be only one truth about any given thing. We may not know what that truth is.
However, that does not mean that it does not exist.
Proof of this can be found all around you.
It always seems that just last week they discovered a new star or planet that they thought was impossible to exist, but there it is.
The same goes with new species right here on our own planet. We’re constantly finding new ones and even finding ones we had thought to be extinct.
Below we are going to cover several aspects of the egg and in particular scrambled eggs and together we will get to the bottom of it and you will be secure in your knowledge either way.
Are Scrambled Eggs Healthy Or Bad For You?
In order to be able to answer that question with certainty we are going to look at several aspects of the egg and discover together the ways that it might be healthy and the ways it might not.
This should lead us to a conclusion that answers the question so solidly that you’ll be able to tell people when they ask you and know you’re correct.
One of the biggest concerns people have with eggs is….
Are Eggs Really Bad For Cholesterol Levels?
When we researched this question, we had to eliminate the science and websites that are funded by the people who farm, sell, or manage eggs in anyway.
After all, if you have a financial interest in saying that your product is safe, are studies you fund really to be trusted? And for that matter, is your website to be trusted, even if it is part of the Government?
Eggs are big business, very big business.
The average American consumed 284.1 eggs during 2018. That’s more than 95 million dozen eggs consumed in America in one year.
Think of that – 95 million DOZEN.
So, to find the truth you have to look at studies that have no egg industry backing or financing of any kind.
That’s actually a pretty tough task.
You see, not everyone discloses all of their relationships.
We’ve dug deep and we think that our sources are pretty darn clean.
Below, when you see our sources list, please understand that; when you see egg committees or others, some sources are for the unbiased information and some are for other forms of information.
The two real questions that must be answered here are.
A). Do Eggs Raise Blood Cholesterol Levels In Healthy Humans?
B). Does This Cholesterol Contribute To Any Decrease In Human Health?
There were several studies showing that eggs do and several showing that they don’t raise cholesterol levels in humans.
There was only one study that even took into consideration what else the study participants ate throughout the day.
Yes, you’d think that this would be measured in all studies, but alas, it was not.
This study used a double-blind study method where one group was given eggs containing 500mg of cholesterol per day and the other an egg substitute with no cholesterol.
After phase 1, they switched the two groups and the opposite group got eggs or the substitute.
The results were that the two egg eating groups both had their serum cholesterol raise during the study. One group at an average of 9% and the other group at an average of 11%.
This means that; even though egg cholesterol is digested in the gut, either some of it does pass the gut and get into the bloodstream or eggs influence the body to produce more cholesterol.
The study didn’t delve into this subject.
Another study performed by Frank B. Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that yes there was a raise in serum blood cholesterol from the eating of eggs.
However, the body has a sensor feedback loop mechanism that detects the raise in cholesterol and then normalizes the blood levels by having your body produce less, so, in the end balancing it out.
The study also found that this temporary raise in cholesterol posed no significant risk towards the circulatory system including the heart and arteries.
So, What IS Causing The Raise In Cholesterol With People Who Consume Eggs?
Several studies all cited that, it was what people consumed with the eggs that was the problem and not so much the eggs themselves.
If you think about it for a moment that actually makes a lot of sense.
What do people generally consume with eggs?
In the morning they eat toast with butter, pancakes with fake maple syrup made of nothing but sugar and flavorings, sausages, bacon, sugar in their coffee and many more.
Have you ever stopped to wonder if this is the problem and maybe it’s not just the eggs?
There are many studies showing that eating sugar raises blood sugar (yes, that obvious, but we had to say it that way to remain neutral).
There are many other studies that show the S.A.D. (Standard America Diet) causes obesity in both adults and children.
What this really means is, even if you removed eggs from the American diet, you’d still have high cholesterol and obesity.
They may temporarily raise blood serum cholesterol, but, it’s really the other things we eat on a daily basis that are the real problem.
It’s consuming all the breakfast foods we spoke of above along with bowls of sugary breakfast cereal that are major contributors.
We are quite sure if people ate poached eggs with oatmeal made with water only that there would be negligible effects on your overall cholesterol from that meal.
In fact, because of the large bowl of oats your cholesterol might drop just a tad.
The next thing we have to look at is…
Do Scrambled Eggs Cause Inflammation?
There are studies linking virtually every animal protein to increased inflammation in humans.
You may wonder why you’d care about inflammation? I mean, what’s so bad about it?
Well, all the way back on February 23rd 2004 Time Magazine published a full magazine cover depicting a human body silhouette with flames in the background with a cover that read: Inflammation The Secret Killer.
The reason they did that is because inflammation destroys your body at alarming rates and most people are walking around with chronic inflammation every day of their lives and just don’t know it.
As one example: The Corona viruses such as Covid-19 kill you by inflaming the lung tissues so that they hold fluids and you end up drowning.
All Nsaid’s (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) such as Tylenol (registered trademark) and Advil (registered trademark) work on lowering inflammation.
That’s how they are used to bring down swelling which is also inflammation as well as helping to lower temperature in high temperature patients.
So yes, inflammation is a big deal, a very big deal.
Time magazine did aptly name it the secret killer because most people don’t know much about it, if anything at all.
So, do eggs raise inflammation?
Yes, according to independent studies eggs do raise inflammation in the human body slightly.
Is it enough to recommend that you stop eating eggs?
No.
However, if you have preexisting conditions such as arthritis or other inflammatory related or exacerbated ailments then you may wish to consider elimination all animal protein from your diet or at least keeping it to a minimum.
Yes, this would include eggs.
There is no evidence that we can find showing eggs cause more inflammation than other animal proteins.
This means that for the sake of inflammation alone, eliminating eggs while continuing to eat other animal protein sources would make little to no difference in your overall inflammatory biomarkers.
In other words, it wouldn’t make any sense.
So, while eggs do seem to cause modest elevation in bodily inflammation, they do not seem to pose any more risk that any other animal protein.
As such in this instance they appear to have a relative degree of safety.
Now we can move on to the next issue and it’s a hotly contested one, we can tell you that.
What Is The Healthiest Way To Eat Eggs?
Since eggs are so versatile, they can be cooked in a huge variety of ways.
As you may know they are added to thousands of recipes. They’re in everything from cakes and breads to souffles and puddings.
We also poach them, fry them bake them microwave them and of course scramble them too.
With all these different ways to cook them what’s the healthiest and the safest?
When we fry eggs, we invariably have to use some sort of oil or butter to keep them from sticking to the pan.
You may opt to use one of the non-stick cooking sprays, but in truth you had best check your labels and research those ingredients. We’ve seen many that have all sorts of things in there besides just the oil itself.
Yes, it may say ‘made with olive oil’.
However, it’s also made with lots of other things too and we are quite concerned about some of those ingredients.
If you cook with butter, oil or spray, when the pan gets hot enough so that it starts to make popping or sizzling sounds the oil is so hot that it turns it into a Cis fat or the ones you may have heard of that are called trans fats.
What’s happening is that, you’re taking a healthy oil such as extra virgin olive oil and changing it or converting it into a trans fatty acid via a Cis fat pathway.
They can also be caused by the oil going rancid.
This can happen when the oil is too old, has been overly exposed to oxygen for too long or has sat in the sunlight in its bottle for too long.
There are other ways this happens in industrial processing, but not any that you should have to worry about cooking in your kitchen.
These trans fats are very bad for you.
They cause problems all over your body in the central nervous system, the hormonal system and they have even been shown to cause direct cell death.
Just to quote the study cite number 15 listed in sources below, Dr. V. Dhaka and colleagues found that.
“Research has proved the direct connection of trans fatty acids with cardiovascular diseases, breast cancer, shortening of pregnancy period, risks of preeclampsia, disorders of nervous system and vision in infants, colon cancer, diabetes, obesity and allergy.”
With all this evidence we would have to say that frying is out of the question.
Next you have poaching.
Poached eggs, as they are basted do not need any oil to cook and thereby bypass the whole overheated or rancid oil issue.
The same goes of course for hard boiled eggs. Since they are cooked inside their own shell they too are not cooked in oil.
Now on to cooking scrambled eggs.
You can use very fresh oil from a reliable source that you trust and if you don’t raise the heat too high you might be ok.
However, this would mean you really have to pay attention to the source of your oil and your cooking temperatures.
If you hear sizzling or popping, you’re using too high of a temperature.
Then, during any time in the cooking process, if you see smoke, you’ve almost invariably created at least some trans fatty acids.
Do you remember the inflammation we spoke of earlier?
Well, one of the ways trans fats get you is they cause insane amounts of inflammation.
As such, the safest ways too cook eggs for most people is going to be hard boiled or poached.
Are Scrambled Eggs Healthy Or Bad For You?
As you have read above, we’ve shown that there could be moderate risks associated with eating eggs.
However, for the most part unless you have an allergy to eggs, they have proven themselves to be well tolerated by most and have mostly negligible deleterious effects on humans.
Now to the direct question: Are Scrambled Eggs Healthy Or Bad For You?
Although you’d be better off eating hard boiled or poached eggs, if you use high quality oils and don’t overheat them you should be just fine eating scrambled eggs.
In fact, if you’re able to keep the cooking temperatures low enough and you’re using a hearth healthy oil such as a really good quality olive oil, using the oil might actually be good for you.
Sources
1. https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/healthy-eating/food-and-nutrition/protein-foods/eggs
2. https://www.aeb.org/farmers-and-marketers/industry-overview
3. https://www.thekitchn.com/americans-eat-on-average-almost-300-eggs-a-year-267411
5. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/189529
6. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-abstract/34/10/2092/4693041
7. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1742-1241.2009.02136.x
8. http://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO200202612928395.page
9. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S193328741300069X
10. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10620-015-3977-1
11. http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20040223,00.html
12. http://www.fuuastjb.org/index.php/fuuastjb/article/view/106
13. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02672052
14. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000282230902094X 15. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13197-010-0225-8