A protein-packed start to the day – but are we overlooking eggs?

Whether scrambled, fried, poached or boiled, eggs have long been a popular choice either as a standalone meal or an addition to a meal – but recent nutritional analysis shows there’s a reason we should make more of an effort to include eggs in our very first meal of the day.

“There’s a reason we’ve been told for so long that breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” says Sarah Hanrahan, former CEO of the New Zealand Nutrition Foundation and a leading dietitian with more than 30 years’ experience in the field.

“Breakfast is all about protein. Protein keeps you fuller for longer and gives you sustained energy, which is why it’s important to spread out your protein intake throughout the day,” she says. “Breakfast is often overlooked as an opportunity to get some protein into the diet. For most of us, it’s really the best time to get our first protein for the day.”

While protein is plentiful in meat, fish and chicken, not everyone wants to start their day with these ingredients – which is why eggs make such a good breakfast choice. “They’re nutritious, they’re packed with protein and they’re an ingredient that plays nicely with almost every other food group,” adds Hanrahan.

Recent analysis by the New Zealand Nutrition Foundation shows that eating eggs on toast for breakfast provides more protein than other popular morning staples.

While half a cup of toasted muesli with trim milk provides 10.8g of protein, two poached eggs on two slices of multigrain toast bread provides a whopping 21.2g protein to kickstart the day. The protein-packed breakfast choice also beats other favoured brekky options for protein content – including puffed rice cereal with milk (7g protein), multigrain toast with yeast spread (8.7g protein) and porridge with milk (13.9g protein).

“Other popular breakfast choices often tend to be grain foods that may or may not be served with milk. These options have plenty of fibre, but they’re not necessarily protein-rich. Adding eggs to our breakfast really boosts protein levels and balances out the goodness of the fibre and grains,” says Hanrahan.

A versatile breakfast choice, eggs can be prepared in all manner of ways and it doesn’t matter how you prefer your eggs, says Hanrahan, so long as you’re mindful of what else you’re adding to the meal.

“Of course, if you make scrambled eggs with lots of cream or butter, you’re changing the nutritional value of the meal. How you cook the eggs isn’t a dealbreaker at all, but it pays to be mindful of what else you’re adding to them in the cooking process,” she says.

In addition to protein, eggs are a rich natural source of other essential nutrients including carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin (for supporting eye health), vitamin D (supporting calcium absorption and healthy bones and teeth), vitamin B12 (helping with the formation of red blood cells and a functioning immune system), selenium (for supporting a healthy immune system and thyroid) and choline (for helping brain development, memory, and the correct functioning of nerves and muscles).

“Choline is an essential nutrient that isn’t widely spread throughout other foods, and it’s one thing that really sets eggs apart” says Hanrahan.

With many of these nutrients found in the egg yolk specifically, she says it’s important Kiwis know the facts when it comes to common perceptions about cholesterol, heart health and eggs.

The New Zealand Heart Foundation’s Eggs and the Heart paper, published in 2016, concluded that Kiwis with increased risk of heart disease can eat up to six to seven eggs per week as part of a heart-healthy diet. For the general, healthy population, eggs in any reasonable quantity are unlikely to have a substantive influence on risk of heart disease.

The report reads: “The weight of evidence suggests that eggs have only a very small effect on blood cholesterol levels, especially at normal levels of intake. For most people, any such increased risk is not likely to be clinically meaningful.”

Hanrahan agrees: “The stigma around cholesterol and eggs has been around since the 70s, but that old research has long since been reviewed, and eggs are not something we particularly need to worry about,” she says.

“If you can start the day with a protein-rich breakfast, that’s a really good thing. If you can start the day with eggs – even better.”

For more information: eggs.org.nz/super-naturally-good/