Are eggs good or bad for your health?

Poached. Fried. Boiled. Deviled.

Eggs are a staple in most households, either as a quick meal or part of a larger, baked dish.

Filled with protein, eggs have also been used by body builders and gym enthusiasts, giving the impression that eggs are a superfood.

Then, for a while, cholesterol nuts argued that eggs were very, very bad for you.

Now, researchers are saying they are good again.

So what is the truth?

The Truth: Not only are eggs a fantastic source of lean protein and heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, but they contain some pretty important nutrients, says Jillian Michaels, a celebrity personal trainer and nutritionist.

She says; Whole eggs are a nearly perfect food, with almost every essential vitamin and mineral our bodies need to function. It is one of the few natural food sources of vitamin D and contains 7 grams of high-quality protein. Whole eggs are also full of omega-3 fatty acids and deliver many of the B vitamins and nutrients — B6, B12, riboflavin, folate, and choline — that, in fact, are believed to help prevent heart disease.

L-arginine, an amino acid found in eggs, is critical to the body’s production of protein and the release of growth hormones. Another amino acid found in eggs, leucine, also helps the body produce growth hormones as well as regulate blood sugar levels. The yolk itself contains most of these vitamins and minerals, plus half of its protein. When you eat only the egg whites, you’re missing out on all of these nutritional benefits and are getting only 3.5 grams, or half, of the protein.

So can you eat eggs every day?

Yes.

A single medium sized egg contains 186 mg of cholesterol. This is 62% of the recommended daily intake.

Eggs are among the most nutritious foods on the planet, but people are under the impression that if you eat cholesterol, that it would raise cholesterol in the blood.

Healthline.com says it isn’t that simple. The more you eat of cholesterol, the less your body produces instead.

Eggs had a bad reputation because yolks are high in cholesterol, but the truth is that cholesterol is a very important part of the body. It is a structural molecule that is an essential part of every single cell membrane.

Peter Schulman, MD, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Connecticut told Health.com, It’s true that eggs have a higher level of dietary cholesterol than many other foods—about 185 mg in one large egg. Not too long ago, eggs were even branded “as bad for you as smoking.”

“Now we know that what really raises your cholesterol is saturated fat in the diet and not so much the cholesterol in foods,” Dr. Schulman explains.

“When we eat cholesterol, it’s broken down in the gut; it’s not absorbed as a whole cholesterol molecule,” he says. Saturated fats, meanwhile, are broken into short chains of fatty acids that can become linked in the body—and that’s what has been shown to increase cholesterol levels significantly.

So, what does raise cholesterol?

Common culprits are:

Canola Oil and Other Processed Vegetable Oils.

Potato Chips and Other Packaged Foods.

Cookies and Other Sugary Treats

Milk and Other Conventional Dairy Products

Refined Grain Products

Grass-Fed Beef

Dark Chocolate

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