From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: How to eat egg whites?
Date: 3 Mar 1999 12:48:36 GMT

In <#OtBYKWZ#GA.329@nih2naaa.prod2.compuserve.com> "Wladimir NOSSEL"
<wnossel@csi.com> writes:

>Hi,
>
>I'm currently doing a weight training program which involves eating
>important amounts of protein. I plan to eat 6 raw egg whites every
>morning in order to get approximately 30g of protein. However, someone
>told me that the human organism could not absorb the protein from egg
>whites unless they are cooked.
>
>Any ideas on the matter? Is it nutritionally pointless to eat raw egg
>whites?
>
>Thanks for any help.
>Wladimir


Raw egg whites contain avidin, which will bind up biotin in your diet
and make you biotin deficient ("egg white injury").  You can use the
protein fine.

Cook them--- that will at least kill the salmonella.  And if you must
do them raw, do them once a day only and take a biotin tab (1 to 5 mg)
12 hours after.

From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: Do the Japanese lead the world ...
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 21:54:20 -0600

"Don Wiss" <donwiss@no_spam.com> wrote in message
news:33efdtok4urem435k4bg577jk04pkuuia2@4ax.com...
> On 9 Apr 2001 18:58:37 GMT, alan@nospam.com wrote:
>
> > <harkness@suespammers.org> wrote:
>
> >>I'm doing my best to up that average.  I currently eat about a
> >>thousand eggs a year, give or take a few hundred.
> >
> >I figure I've got you beat by about a factor of 3. :-)
> >I eat, as an absolute minimum, 6 raw eggs (free
> >range, of course) a day, but sometimes it is more
> >like 2 dozen a day.
>
> I'm some where in between. A minimum of three a day. And if they are not
> super jumbo then four. All free range purchased directly from a farmer at
> the farmers' market. When traveling I try to eat four a day. Those of
> course would be who knows what. But in the Caribbean still most likely
> free-range.
>
> Eggs do raise one's cholesterol. They raise the HDL. For people that only
> pay attention to the total (idiots if that's the only number they look at)
> they would see a rise. My HDL is 71-76. I have no doubt my egg consumption
> is a big factor in getting it up there.
>
> Don (donwiss at panix.com).


COMMENT:

First time I've heard that claim. Interesting.

Eggs will raise your LDL if your total intake of fat and cholesterol was
previously very VERY low. This was proven in some studies feeding eggs to
essentially vegetarian populations. However, in the average American, the
intake of sat fat and cholesterol is already way past the place where eggs
would be likely to make any difference in LDL. So I agree with at least
this.

Eggs are not associated strongly with heart disease epidemiologically, one
way or the other. So the HDL effect, if real, is being taken out by other
effects going the other way. In theory, oxidized cholesterol from fried or
hardboiled eggs might be bad for you, but it's hard to show that also
epidemiologically. It would be easy to recommend eating them raw as you do,
just in theory, were it not for Salmonella outbreaks from doing this, which
are real. You personally may be immune, but not everyone is.

So eggs are a toughie. I basically tell me patients not to worry about them,
much like cheese. It's still the cream and the butter and the hydrogenates
that are going to get you.  There is massive lab animal and human
epidemiologic evidence that butter in particular is bad news for your
arteries. It (and not the eggs or cheese) kills the Scots and the Finns like
flies.

--
Steve Harris

From: "Steve Harris" <SBHarris123@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: an egg a day keeps the CHD risk up..
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 22:32:33 -0600

"DRCEEPHD" <drceephd@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20010611160044.21628.00003848@ng-fs1.aol.com...
> The article suggests that raw egg albumen is poorly digested and absorbed.
> Cooked eggs are more digestible, but the question is by what means, our
> enzymes, or those of the bacteria?

Egg protein was the 100% standard for protein quality in nutritional studies
(measured by growth and nitrogen retention) for 50 years. I think that if it
couldn't be digested well by any means, someone would have noticed, don't
you?