Eggs have three separate sections — the shell, the white and the yolk. Egg yolks used to have a bad reputation because of their high-cholesterol content with doctors and health authorities once recommending that people limit egg yolk consumption. However, research has shown that cholesterol level in the blood is affected by other factors.
While the health benefits of egg whites are widely known, egg yolks have health benefits, too. Like egg whites, egg yolks have a high protein content and contain many essential vitamins, minerals, fats, and healthy calories. Below are health benefits of egg yolks that you should know before you toss the egg yolk away.
Eye Health
According to research, egg yolk contains carotenoids which help to lower the risk of age-related macular degeneration and cataracts. Carotenoids act as antioxidants in the eye, protecting it from free radicals that can damage different parts of the retina, impacting its ability to correctly focus light.
Benefits of Choline
A study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found women with the highest level of choline intake were 24 percent less likely than women who got the least choline in their diets to develop breast cancer. Egg yolks also help promote heart and to regulate cardiovascular function.
More Vitamins
If you are going to toss any part of your egg away, you should toss the egg white and not your egg yolk because egg yolks contain more vitamins (and larger quantities of those vitamins) than egg whites. Each egg yolk contains seven vitamins: B6, folate, a B vitamin, B-12, A, D, E and K. interestingly, egg yolks are one of only a handful of foods in which vitamin D is naturally found.
More Minerals
Egg yolks and egg whites each have 13 varieties of minerals. Although both the egg white and egg yolk contain these minerals, the yolk has larger amounts of most. The egg yolk boasts of 90 percent of an egg’s calcium, 93 percent of its iron content with just 7 percent in the white.
Source: Guardian Newspaper
