Shocking Breakdown Of A Fast Food Meal
September 13, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Truth About Abs, Weight Loss
I wanted to show you a surprising breakdown of a typical fast food meal that MOST people don’t realize…
Here goes… Did you realize that when you eat a typical meal at a Fast Food joint, that you are basically eating almost entirely CORN(genetically modified corn too)? And no, there is really NOTHING healthy about eating almost all of your calories from corn!
Let me explain…
Let’s think about the typical fast food meal that somebody gets at a corner fast food joint… that common meal would be:
- a cheeseburger
- a side of fries
- a soft drink (usually soda)
Surprisingly most people don’t realize they are taking in about 90-95% of their calories essentially from CORN when they eat this kind of fast food meal (if we can really call it a “meal”).
The other calories come from wheat and soy derivatives mostly… certainly nothing healthy there either! Let’s break it down…
The soda or other soft drink obtains 100% of it’s calories from a corn derivative — high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
The cheeseburger contains beef from a factory farm feedlot where the cattle ate almost entirely corn… also the cheese comes from milk from unhealthy corn-fed cows from factory farm feedlots… between the beef and the cheese, almost all of your calories are originally derived from corn, but just transformed in a way.
The bun on the burger contains corn derivatives including HFCS. The rest of the calories in the bun come from refined wheat flour and possibly a small amount of soybean oil. Basically, almost 100% of the calories from the burger come from corn, soy, and wheat.
Now comes the fries…
Most of the calories in the fries come from the oil that’s soaked into them from deep frying in either corn oil or soybean oil (hydrogenated usually). NOT good!
So basically, the ONLY calories in this typical fast food meal that don’t come from corn, soy, or wheat is the potato portion of the fries… and of course when potatoes are deep fried in oil, they create cancer-causing acrylamides.
You wonder how anybody can eat even one bite of fast food knowing these facts… or maybe they DON’T know these facts…and that’s the problem.
Now you can see how 90-95% of the calories in a typical fast food meal actually come mostly from corn, soy, and wheat derivatives… and certainly NOT healthy versions either!
A few weeks ago, I saw a really entertaining documentary about how CORN has pretty much become the majority of our food supply due to the economics of it.
The documentary was called King Corn, and I’d highly recommend picking the DVD up from Amazon and watching it… highly entertaining, but also pretty scary how we let economics ruin something as important as our food supply.
Another documentary that I think EVERYONE needs to watch is Food Inc. This is a must see, and after seeing both of these documentaries, your views on what you eat and our horrendous food supply will change.
This is why I make an effort to try to get almost 100% of my food from local farmers markets, health food stores, and a local farmer where I purchase all of my grass-fed meats, farm fresh eggs from free roaming hens, raw grass-fed milk, and tons of produce.
Til next time,
Don’t be lazy… be lean.
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Author – The Truth About Six Pack Abs
How to Lose Belly Fat
How To Avoid Food Marketing Deception
June 3, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Truth About Abs
I was at the grocery store yesterday and had to shake my head at all of the deceptive labels with everything claiming all sorts of things that are supposedly “healthy”, but aren’t really.
One of the things that really disturbed me was that I saw several examples of healthy foods in their natural state, but I saw counterfeit versions of these foods claiming that they were healthier than the original…
Yet in reality, all of these counterfeit versions were actually MUCH worse for you than the original… and they still have the balls to claim that their overly processed “junkified” versions are better.
This is food marketing deception at it’s worst!
Example #1: Product claiming “Better than peanut butter”
This product is ludicrous! I can’t believe anyone would ever believe that this junk is better for them than natural peanut butter.
First of all, if you buy a good simple peanut butter (organic is best), it is usually nothing but 2 ingredients… peanuts and salt. And they don’t add much salt so it’s not high in sodium.
However, this counterfeit peanut butter which claimed it was “better than peanut butter” (trying to seem healthier than peanut butter based on it’s label claims) had a list of junk in it you wouldn’t believe. First of all, they strip all of the healthy fats out of the peanuts so that it is a “low fat” product. Ok, now you’ve just taken away one of the healthiest parts of the product…the appetite satisfying healthy fats that you need to control cravings and manage more stable blood sugar levels.
To make things worse, the healthy fats were replaced with 2 different types of sugary syrups as well as additional dehydrated cane juice (aka SUGAR), in addition to added refined starches.
This product has taken something as simple and natural as peanut butter, and turned it into what should really be called some sort of processed candy. Yet, they claim that it’s healthier than peanut butter. And somehow they get away with deceiving people like this. Don’t be their fool!
Example #2: Product claiming to be “better than eggs”.
I won’t get as detailed on this one because I recently talked about this entire topic in another newsletter.
But basically, this product was just egg whites with a bunch of added chemical colorings, flavorings, and other nonsense, including fake added vitamins.
Again, this product has essentially ruined a good thing by removing the healthiest part… the YOLKS! And yes, the yolks ARE the healthiest part of the egg. Anybody that tells you different doesn’t understand much about true nutrition. The important thing to look for in quality whole eggs are cage-free and organic.
If you missed the previous article about whole eggs vs egg whites, you can view it here…
Are Whole Eggs or Egg Whites Healthier?
Example #3: A product claiming to be “better than butter”.
This was essentially crappy margarine loaded with highly processed and deadly trans fats, yet it had the nerve to claim it was “better than butter”.
Heck NO!
Even low quality butter is healthier than ANY margarine. One problem with butter is pesticides and hormones from improperly raised cows.
For this reason, you always want to choose organic butter, and if you can find “grass-fed” butter, then I would even say it can be healthy for you. In fact, adding a little butter to your steamed vegetables helps your body to absorb more of the vitamins and minerals in the veggies.
Also, due to the content of stable saturated fats in butter, this makes butter one of the best oils to cook with. Oils high in polyunsaturated oils are the worst to cook with due to their highly unstable nature. For more info about this topic, here’s a newsletter I did about healthy vs unhealthy cooking oils
And no, the saturated fat in butter is NOT bad for you. I hope we’ve already beaten a dead horse with that topic. If not, you can go back to this page to see why… Evidence that saturated fat is NOT evil
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder – Truth About Abs
Truth About Your Cooking Oils – Healthy vs Unhealthy
June 3, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Truth About Abs
Some of these oils are healthy and some are VERY unhealthy — soybean oil, olive oil, coconut oil, corn oil, etc… Let’s take a closer look.
Today, I wanted to give you my take on a confusing subject to most people:
…why some oils and fats you may use in cooking, baking, or other food use are actually harmful to your body, and why some are healthful.
Here’s the deal…
A lot of people seem to think that anything labeled as “vegetable oil” is good for you. NOT A SHOT!
Most of what is labeled as “vegetable oil” is simply heavily refined soybean oil (processed under high heat, pressure, and industrial solvents)… sometimes perhaps it may also be heavily refined cottonseed, safflower, corn, grapeseed, or other oils too.
In most instances, almost all of these processed oils are NOT HEALTHY for you.
If you buy processed food or deep fried food, you can usually be certain that these unhealthy oils are used to prepare your foods (or worse, it may use hydrogenated versions of these oils… aka – trans fats!).
You may have even bought some of these oils for your own cooking or baking at home.
The problem with soybean oil, cottonseed oil, corn oil, grapeseed oil, safflower oil, and other similar oils is that they are mostly composed of polyunsaturated fats which leaves them prone to oxidation and free radical production when exposed to heat and light.
Processed polyunsaturated oils are the most inflammatory inside our bodies because of their high reactivity to heat and light. This inflammation is what causes many of our internal problems such as heart disease, diabetes, and other degenerative diseases.
Note: It’s ok if a polyunsaturated fat isn’t processed such as in whole foods like various nuts and seeds… In that case it’s not inflammatory, and is a great source of healthy polyunsaturated fats for you. By the way, omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are both polyunsaturates. Your best bet is to choose raw nuts and seeds whenever possible to avoid the oxidation of polyunsaturated fats that can occur during roasting of nuts and seeds
However, all of the vegetable oils listed above are generally heavily refined during processing, so that makes them already inflammatory before you even cook with them (which does even more damage).
Here’s the actual order of stability of a type of fat under heat and light (from least stable to most stable):
1. polyunsaturated
2. monounsaturated
3. saturated
Here’s something that mainstream health professionals will never tell you…
Saturated fats are actually the healthiest oils to cook with!
Why? Because they are much more stable and less inflammatory than polyunsaturated oils.
This is why tropical oils such as palm and coconut oils are best for cooking… they have very little polyunsaturates and are mostly composed of natural saturated fats which are the least reactive to heat/light and therefore the least inflammatory in your body from cooking use.
That’s also why natural butter (NOT margarine) is one of the best fats for cooking. This all goes directly against what you hear in mainstream health talk… because most health professionals don’t truly understand the biochemistry of fats, and falsely believe that saturated fats are bad for you… when in fact, they are actually neutral in most instances… and saturated fats from tropical oils are actually good for you as they contain mostlymedium chain triglycerides (MCTs) which are lacking in most people’s diets.
In fact, lauric acid is one of the abundant MCTs in tropical oils and is known to strengthen the immune system. Lauric acid is even being studied currently in medical studies for controlling contagious diseases.
To summarize… your best cooking or baking fats are generally butter or tropical oils such as palm or coconut oil. Olive oil (extra virgin preferably) is ok for lower cooking temps as it’s mostly monounsaturated, so moderately stable. The mostly polyunsaturated oils such as soybean, grapeseed, cottonseed, safflower, etc, are the least healthy for cooking or baking.
My choices for top healthy cooking oils that I use:
- Virgin Coconut Oil
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Real Butter
Of course, with all of that said… we should keep in mind that trying minimize our cooking with oils can help to reduce overall calories. Cooking with oils in moderation is ok and can actually help satisfy your appetite more, but be careful not to overdo it as the calories can add up fast.
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder – Truth About Abs
Do Artificial Sweeteners (Splenda, Aspartame) Make You Fat?
June 3, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Truth About Abs
I wanted to talk about artificial sweeteners today because I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of confusion and misconceptions revolving around these non-caloric sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners and the huge list of products sweetened with them are marketed to you relentlessly as “healthy foods” or “healthier” than sugar or corn syrup sweetened products. But are they really?
Just to clarify, some of the most popular artificial sweeteners on the market today are:
- Splenda (sucralose)
- Aspartame
- Saccharine
- Acesulfame Potassium (aka – acesulfame K)
These artificial sweeteners are used in abundance in almost every “diet” drink, “lite” yogurts, puddings, and ice creams, most “low-carb” products, and almost all “reduced-sugar” products. Heck, even most protein powders are loaded with artificial sweeteners too (just look on the ingredients and you’ll usually see one of them).
Splenda is probably one of the worst offenders of claiming to be “healthy” as they say that it’s made from real sugar. Don’t be fooled! It’s still an artificial substance. What they don’t tell you is that Splenda is actually a chemically modified substance where chlorine is added to the chemical structure, making it more similar to a chlorinated pesticide than something we should be eating or drinking.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions that I see all of the time and it saddens me to see so many people poisoning their family with dangerous artificial sweeteners like splenda, while falsely thinking they’re doing something healthy.
The truth is that artificial sweeteners are not even close to being healthy, and as you’ll discover in a minute, can easily be just as bad for you, if not worse, than sugar or corn syrup. Most people think that they are doing something good for themselves by choosing the “diet” drinks or “lite” yogurts compared to the sugar-laden versions, but the problem is that you’re exposing yourself to a whole new set of problems with the artificially sweetened drinks and foods.
I know you’re probably frustrated by all of the contradicting messages you hear each day about which foods are good for you and which are bad. I’m sure just today you probably saw some clever ad or commercial somewhere screaming health benefits for a food product that is loaded with artificial sweeteners. Don’t worry. Just stick with me and I’ll get past the marketing hype for you and decipher the truth. I’ll also give you some ideas for great alternatives to artificial sweeteners as well as alternatives to sugar or corn syrup sweeteners.
The fact is, artificial sweeteners vs. sugar or corn syrup is really just a battle between two evils. Which evil is worse?
I’m sure you already know the problems with sugar or high fructose corn syrup sweetened products. The excess empty calories, blood sugar spike, and resulting insulin surge this creates in your body not only promotes fat gain, but also stimulates your appetite further, making things even worse.
On the other hand, artificial sweeteners save you calories, but there’s growing evidence that they can increase your appetite for sweets and other carbohydrates causing you to eat more later in the day anyway. Therefore, you don’t really save any calories at all. Also, studies have shown that artificial sweeteners can stimulate high insulin levels in your body too, which again can promote fat storage.
All of the 4 artificial sweeteners listed above are nasty chemicals that the human body is simply not meant to ingest. However, most of us are ingesting a whole lot of these chemicals on a daily basis. Aside from the problems I touched on so far, other health issues that have been related to artificial sweeteners in scientific studies as well as observations are:
- some have been linked to potential cancer risks
- negative effects on the liver, kidneys, and other organs
- stimulating cravings
- gastrointestinal problems
- developmental problems in children and fetuses
- headaches
- and too many more issues to list
Now some of the above potential health problems are definitely not proven as fact in studies. However, some of them have been shown in animal studies given high doses. Also, if you do some research, you’ll find hoardes of people that attribute the use of artificial sweeteners over the years with all sorts of illnesses in themselves or in family members.
Regardless of the fact that any real health problems for actual human use are not proven yet, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather protect myself and my family and steer clear of these possibly dangerous artificial chemicals.
Of course, despite all of the health issues potentially associated with artificial sweeteners, the companies that sell the products will continue to claim that they are fully safe. Don’t believe them! The bottom line is that the body was not designed to deal with foreign substances like artificial sweeteners. Take my word on that one.
So what are your options for alternatives? Well, your best alternatives for sugar or corn syrup are either raw honey, organic maple syrup, or even a little-known high antioxidant syrup called sorghum syrup (common in the southern US). Even though these alternatives still have the same amount of calories as sugar or corn syrup… honey, organic maple syrup, and sorghum syrup actually provide some nutrients and antioxidants, so it’s not just empty calories. Empty calories such as white refined sugar stimulate your appetite more because your body is lacking nutrients.
Now you’re probably thinking that you’d like to still save on calories but avoid the nasty artificial sweeteners. Good news… You can!
You’ve probably seen me reference this natural sweetener in a lot of my recipes. It’s called Stevia. I’ve been using it for years as an alternative sweetener when you still want to save a little on calories and sugar but don’t want to harm your health with artificial sweeteners.
Stevia is not artificial like the other chemical sweeteners I mentioned above. Stevia is a natural non-caloric herb that’s been used for thousands of years in some parts of the world. It is a South American herb and when dried into a powder, has a sweetness about 200-300 times stronger than sugar.
One problem I’ve noticed with using Stevia is that the pure powder is a very powerful sweetener, so you can easily use too much. However, I’ve found some good Stevia products that use a bulking agent added so that you can measure out the stevia powder in direct comparison to measuring sugar.
I’ve yet to see any negative reports or health concerns regarding stevia and only positive potential health benefits. I definitely give Stevia my seal of approval. Do yourself a favor (and your 
family), and if you are currently an artificial sweetener junkie, please consider switching to stevia.
One of the best products I’ve found over the years is made by a company called Steviva. They have an excellent stevia product blended with another natural sweetener called erythritol. I suggest giving it a try! Just look for the “Steviva Blend”. You can use it in your coffee or tea, to sweeten up plain yogurt, added to smoothies for extra sweetness, on cereals or oatmeal, in baking, or where ever else you might need a sweetener but want to reduce the sugar content.
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder – Truth About Abs
Does Diet Soda Make You Fat?
June 3, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Truth About Abs
We all know by now that soda (aka “pop” in some areas) is one of the most evil things you can put in your body… the nasty chemicals, the gut-fattening high fructose corn syrup, and a myriad of health problems caused by this carbonated cocktail worshipped by those that don’t care about their health or body.
Since you’re one of my subscribers, I know that you actually do care about your health and the appearance of your body.
Surprisingly, many people falsely believe that “diet” soda is in some way a good thing for losing body fat. In fact, I hear people all the time proudly state that they eat so healthy and only drink diet soda.
So let’s set the record straight…
There is NOTHING even remotely healthy about drinking diet soda. In fact, I’ve even seen several studies that showed dedicated diet soda drinkers got even FATTER than their regular soda drinking counterparts.
Here’s some findings from an 8-year University of Texas study that I had read…
An excerpt from the study author:
“What didn’t surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity,” Fowler tells WebMD. “What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher.”
“There was a 41 percent increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day,” Fowler says.
Ok, as if we didn’t already know how bad regular soda was for us, and now they’re showing us studies that diet soda makes us even fatter than the already bad stuff!
There’s a lot of complicating factors as to why this occurs…
One reason is that the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas create a negative hormonal response in the body that increases fat storing hormone production and increases cravings for more sweets and refined carbohydrates in the time period after consuming the diet drink.
Another reason is that people may subconsciously think that because they are drinking a diet soda, that gives them more leeway to eat more of everything else, hence consuming more calories overall.
I’ve said this all along, but the bottom line is that if you’re serious about your health and body, soda of any kind (and artificial sweeteners in anything for that matter!) should be avoided at all times, except for very rare occasions when you can’t avoid them.
Another article I did about artificial sweeteners explains more of the problems with them and good substitutes.
So what is a good alternative to diet sodas?
The best alternatives are good old water with lemon or unsweetened iced teas… you have plenty of options with teas – green, white, black, oolong, red… be creative in making your iced teas and you’ll enjoy it more. Plus you’ll get a more diverse array of antioxidants.
I just add a little of the natural non-caloric sweetener stevia to my iced teas and I love them.
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder – Truth About Abs
Three Best Ab Exercises That Are Not Exercises
June 3, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Truth About Abs
Here is a unique ab workout that doesn’t contain your typical boring stomach exercises – no crunches or situps here.
Instead of the typical ab routines that we see so often with crunches, situps, leg lifts, etc… I like to give my readers better options for metabolism-boosting high intensity workouts that work their entire body while also working their abs… thus building rock hard abs & core, but also creating a much better fat-burning workout than a typical ab workout.
I’m going to show you an example today of one of my favorite “ab workouts” that doesn’t include any direct “ab exercises” at all. It’s in a tri-set format (similar to a super-set but alternating between 3 exercises).
Here goes:
1a. Renegade Dumbbell Rows
1b. Front Squats with Barbell
1c. Mountain Climbers on Floor
A good rep scheme to use with this could be 3-4 sets of 8 reps for each exercise, or more sets for less reps, such as 5 sets of 5 reps of each exercise. Mountain climbers can be done for a time interval (such as 30 seconds) instead of “reps”.
Exercise Pics & Descriptions:
Renegade dumbbell rows are done starting in a pushup position with the hands on 2 dumbbells. You then row one dumbbell up while stabilizing your body with the other arm. Bring the dumbbell back to the ground and alternate the rowing arm while stabilizing with the opposite arm. This stabilizing effect during the rows creates incredible work for your entire midsection core area. Trust me… you’ll feel it in the abs!
Renegade Rows shown above
Front squats are done similar to back squats, however with the barbell in front of your body on the front of your shoulders instead of resting on the upper back as in back squats. You stabilize the barbell on your shoulders by crossing your arms and pushing your fists into the bar against your shoulders while keeping your elbows out in front of the body.
This takes a little practice at first, so you will want to seek a professional trainer at your gym to help you with the form. Front squats require extreme stabilization strength from the abs due to the barbell weight being shifted to the front of the body instead of the back. Even though this is mostly a leg exercise, you’ll feel this one in the abs big time!
Front squats shown above
Mountain climbers are done by starting in a pushup position and then shuffling your feet in and out so that your knees are moving in under your chest and then back out to starting position. It sort of resembles climbing a mountain but flat on the floor. If you want an advanced version, you can also shuffle your hands 8-10 inches forward and backward in addition to the leg movements. This really makes it a full body exercise and MUCH more difficult than standard mountain climbers.
Mountain Climbers shown above
After finishing each exercise, rest about 30 seconds before starting the next exercise. Rest about 1-2 minutes after completing each “tri-set” before repeating.
This will give you one of the best ab workouts you’ve ever had without even doing any direct ab exercises. You’ll see what I mean after you try it!
This is just a sampling of some of the killer ideas you’ll discover in my internationally best-selling ebook program, The Truth About Six Pack Abs, currently the #1 most popular abs program on the internet (as ranked by clickbank.com) with over 200,000 users in over 150 countries. If you don’t already have a copy be sure to pick one up today…
Not only will you receive a complete blue-print for challenging full-body workouts that will thoroughly define your entire body in addition to your abs (can be adjusted to beginners or advanced levels), but you’ll also gain a thorough understanding of what types of nutritional strategies and other lifestyle aspects that it takes to reduce your belly fat to the level where your abs are visible. Remember, nutrition and mindset are MORE important than just the workouts!
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder – Truth About Abs
Simple Trick To Flatten Your Stomach, Even While Driving!
June 2, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Truth About Abs, Weight Loss
If you’re already a reader of Truth about Six Pack Abs manual, then you may already know this unique trick… it’s basically a simple exercise that you can do anytime, anywhere to help get a flat stomach over time.
Now I will say that this exercise does NOT increase fat burning, but it CAN help to flatten your stomach by strengthening your deeper transversus abdominis muscles and hence “pulling in” a lazy stomach (aka beer belly or “pooch belly”).
It involves doing an exercise called “ab vacuums”.
I find it a good time to get in the habit of doing daily ab vacuums while driving on your daily commute or another time that would get you in the habit of doing them regularly.
(please make sure this doesn’t distract you from driving safely… I find that it doesn’t distract me at all…it’s certainly much safer than driving while on the cell phone!)
Of course, ab vacuums can be done anywhere and don’t have to be just for driving, but I’ve found that it helps me to remember to do them if I do them at a specific time when driving regularly…. this could be while driving home from the gym every time, or perhaps during your daily commute to work.
Ab vacuums are simple:
You can do ab vacuums pretty much anywhere, at any time. You can do them standing, seated (such as in a car), kneeling in a four-point position, or even lying flat on the floor.
The movement is as simple as pulling your belly button in as far as you can by imagining you’re trying to touch your belly button to your spine and holding for 10-20 seconds at a time.
Start by inhaling deeply. Then, as you exhale, start pulling the belly button in towards the spine and hold it there for 10-20 seconds while just taking short breaths. Repeat for several holds.
Get in the habit of doing this at least 4-5 days per week while driving somewhere and you may find that this helps to flatten your stomach more by strengthening the transversus abdominis muscle (the deep abdominal muscles beneath the rectus abdominis) if you previously had a “lazy belly”.
Like I said, this exercise doesn’t increase fat burning… it only helps to flatten a round stomach that has lazy deep ab muscles.
If you want a true ”six pack abs” appearance, you obviously still need to burn off the body fat that covers your abs… and that calls for a fully encompassing workout program (not just ab exercises), a strategic nutrition program, and the right mindset for success.
This idea of “ab vacuums” while driving is just one of the dozens of tips and tricks found inside my Truth about Six Pack Abs manual. If you don’t already have a copy, see what other readers are saying about Truth about Abs here
Or if you have questions whether the Truth about Abs program is right for you, go here
If you liked this post, feel free to email this link (or post this link to twitter or facebook) to any friends or family that may want to try these “ab vacuums” to get a flatter stomach.
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder – Truth About Abs
Are Whole Eggs or Egg Whites Better for You?
June 2, 2010 by Mohamed
Filed under Truth About Abs, Weight Loss
I was on a weekend trip with some friends recently and one of my friends was cooking breakfast for the whole group. I went over to see what he was cooking and saw he was getting ready to make a big batch of eggs.
Well, to my shock and horror, I noticed that he was cracking the eggs open and screening the egg whites into a bowl and throwing out the egg yolks. I asked him why the heck he was throwing out the egg yolks, and he replied something like this…
“because I thought the egg yolks were terrible for you…that’s where all the nasty fat and cholesterol is”.
And I replied, “you mean that’s where all the nutrition is!”
This is a perfect example of how confused most people are about nutrition. In a world full of misinformation, somehow most people now mistakenly think that the egg yolk is the worst part of the egg, when in fact, the YOLK IS THE HEALTHIEST PART OF THE EGG!
By throwing out the yolk and only eating egg whites, you’re essentially throwing out the most nutrient dense, antioxidant-rich, vitamin and mineral loaded portion of the egg. The yolks contain so many B-vitamins, trace minerals, vitamin A, folate, choline, lutein, and other powerful nutrients… it’s not even worth trying to list them all.
In fact, the egg whites are almost devoid of nutrition compared to the yolks.
Even the protein in egg whites isn’t as powerful without the yolks to balance out the amino acid profile and make the protein more bio-available. Not to even mention that the egg yolks from free range chickens are loaded with omega-3 fatty acids.
Yolks contain more than 90% of the calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin, B6, folate, and B12, and panthothenic acid of the egg. In addition, the yolks contain ALL of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K in the egg, as well as ALL of the essential fatty acids.
And now the common objection I get all the time when I say that the yolks are the most nutritious part of the egg…
“But I heard that whole eggs will skyrocket my cholesterol through the roof”
No, this is FALSE!
First of all, when you eat a food that contains a high amount of dietary cholesterol such as eggs, your body down-regulates it’s internal production of cholesterol to balance things out.
On the other hand, if you don’t eat enough cholesterol, your body simply produces more since cholesterol has tons of important functions in the body.
And here’s where it gets even more interesting…
There are indications that eating whole eggs actually raises your good HDL cholesterol to a higher degree than LDL cholesterol, thereby improving your overall cholesterol ratio and blood chemistry.
And 3rd… high cholesterol is NOT a disease! Heart disease is a disease…but high cholesterol is NOT. Cholesterol is actually a VERY important substance in your body and has vitally important functions… it is DEAD WRONG to try to “lower your cholesterol” just because of pharmaceutical companies propaganda that everyone on the planet should be on statin drugs.
You can read the following article about why trying to attack cholesterol is a mistake, and what the REAL deadly risk factors actually are… Cholesterol Myths
In addition, the yolks contain the antioxidant lutein as well as other antioxidants which can help protect you from inflammation within your body (the REAL culprit in heart disease, not dietary cholesterol!), giving yet another reason why the yolks are actually GOOD for you, and not detrimental.
To help bring even more proof that whole eggs are better for you than egg whites, I recently read a University of Connecticut study that showed that a group of men in the study that ate 3 eggs per day for 12 weeks while on a reduced carb, higher fat diet increased their HDL good cholesterol by 20%, while their LDL bad cholesterol stayed the same during the study. However, the group that ate egg substitutes (egg whites) saw no change in either and did not see the improvement in good cholesterol (remember that higher HDL levels are associated with lower risk of heart disease) that the whole egg eaters did.
So I hope we’ve established that whole eggs are not some evil food that will wreck your body… instead whole eggs are FAR superior to egg whites.
Also, your normal supermarket eggs coming from mass factory farming just don’t compare nutritionally with organic free range eggs from healthy chickens that are allowed to roam freely and eat a more natural diet. Your typical cheap grocery store eggs will have lower nutrient levels and a higher omega-6 level and lower omega-3 level. On the other hand, the cage-free organic eggs from healthier chickens allowed to eat more natural feed and roam freely will have much higher vitamin and mineral levels and a more balanced healthier omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio.
I recently compared eggs I bought at the grocery store with a batch of eggs I got at a farm stand where the chickens were free roaming and healthy.
Most people don’t realize that there’s a major difference because they’ve never bought real eggs from healthy chickens… The eggs from the grocery store had pale yellow yolks and thin weak shells. On the other hand, the healthier free range eggs from the local farm had strong thick shells and deep orange colored yolks indicating much higher nutrition levels and carotenoids… and just a healthier egg in general.
So next time a health or fitness professional tells you that egg whites are superior, you can quietly ignore their advice knowing that you understand the REAL deal about egg yolks.
And can we all please STOP with this sillyness about eating an omelete with 4-5 egg whites and only 1 egg yolk… If you want real taste and real health benefits, we’d all be better off eating ALL of our eggs with the yolks.
Another interesting thing about eggs…
I read a study recently that compared groups of people that ate egg breakfasts vs groups of people that ate cereal or bagel based breakfasts. The results of the study showed that the egg eaters lost or maintained a healthier bodyweight, while the cereal/bagel eaters gained weight.
It was hypothesized that the egg eaters actually ate less calories during the remainder of the day because their appetite was more satisfied compared to the cereal/bagel eaters who would have been more prone to wild blood sugar swings and food cravings.
Enjoy your eggs and get a leaner body!
Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder – Truth About Abs
