Eating Raw Eggs!....good Or Bad?

Hi guys

There's alot of discussion in my 'nutrition and performance' class whether or not eating raw eggs is bad for you. Theories that side with good are: more nutritional content in eggs when raw, alot of nutrition is lost when cooked. And theories that side with bad are: SALMONELA poisoning and badly developed or damaged eggs.

So what do you guys think? Was Rocky really doing the right thing??

Cheers

From a purely strength-oriented perspective, eat them cooked. Cooked eggs allow for higher protein absorption: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.full

So Rocky was in fact doing the wrong thing. 

To my knowledge, there's no scientific evidence suggesting that cooking causes significant breakdown or decrease in bioavailability of the fats or micronutrients in eggs. So even from a general health perspective, I don't think there's any good reason to prefer eggs raw. 

Don't know about the nutritional side, but the salmonella risk is way overhyped.

Along with the other common nutrition dogmas.

As far as salmonella goes, if you eat soft-boiled eggs, the risk with raw egg is no bigger.

As long as you don't heat - without heating so much you kill the salmonella - then cool, it's usually not an issue, and especially not with single eggs. The problem usually is with some cooking (cakes etc.) where you heat the egg (and often more than just one) without heating through, then cool it, usually mixed with sugar, which makes for the optimal environment for bacteria. That's often the case in Denmark, at least. One egg makes all of them go bad, obviously.

Also, the Japanese eat raw eggs daily, and neither of them fear it.

Both are good but cooked is better nutritionally for reason referred to above. 

Do you really like the taste and texture of raw eggs? Plus the chance of contamination though small is greater

so why risk it?

Well there is always the issue of oxidizing the cholesterol with cooking aswell as removing the glutamyl-cysteine bonds which can help with glutathione production. Of course this is generally not something to worry about if your diet is great already.

Razz said:

Well there is always the issue of oxidizing the cholesterol with cooking aswell as removing the glutamyl-cysteine bonds which can help with glutathione production. Of course this is generally not something to worry about if your diet is great already.

We really get into some 

eggsoteric 

discussions on this board! 

Both of those I believe are generic cooking issues, not specific to eggs only. Oxidation of CR can occur spontaneously both outside and inside the body, so it's rather impossible to prevent. Cooking inside the egg, soft or hard boiling, will minimize it to a degree. Like with most fats, it can occur.

In regards to the peptide bonds, there is a good chance they will be broken during digestion anyway. In any event the body will form glutathione using enzymes and the building blocks provided my a basic DRI/RDA type of diet.  You're unlikely to be deficient in it without a major illness or genetic abnormality.

The bonds don't break during digestion - it's the same bonds as whey protein has, which is why whey protein is so effective at raising glutathione levels. Though, as we seem to agree on, not something most people should worry about.

Another bad thing about raw eggs I haven't seen mentioned yet is that raw eggs contain a protien, Avidin, which strongly binds to the co-enzyme Biotin. Avidin has one of the strongest dissociation constants for non-ionic bonds known, at Kd = 10^-15 M, so it will very tightly bind up all available biotin, rendering you biotin deficient. Two more more raw eggs daily for a few months is enough to cause biotin defiency. This is bad since biotin is a crucial co-enzyme for the Krebbs cycles, as well as the metabolism of some fatty acids and amino acids. Fortunately, Avidin is denatured when cooked, so cooked eggs posed no problem.

You're right. I thought that would have been mentioned in the linked article but it wasn't. Of course, 

a simple solution to all the mentioned problems is to eat pasteurized eggs.  Usually whites are 

in the box, but whole eggs can be pasteurized at home without fully cooking them,

leaving them in warm water for about 3-4 minutes @ 140 degrees.

http://www.howtobaker.com/techniques/baking/how-to-pasteurize-eggs/

Well, everyone has covered everything i would have covered, and then some (txtumbler's explanation of involvement of biotin with krebs cycle) so nice job!

If you want to be a badass and eat raw eggs, you should scrub the outside of the shell extremely well or buy steam-pasteurized shell eggs. Salmonella is on the shell, not in the egg itself.

However, in this case there is absolutely zero advantage to eating raw (as is actually true in a surprising number of cases), because you absorb 50% less protein in the raw state, as well as the Avidin issue.

Just eat your cooked eggs with a lot of veggies and preferably greens, just like you should be doing anyways, and you won't need to worry about the oxidation "issues".

excellent stuff guys!....i'm reading it all and now i have to find a reference for my assignments on all this input!....you guys rock!

I wasw reading up on another forum how some people are switching to eating RAW meat!?....i mean obviously beef steak and sushi grade fish can be done but...surely you can't eat chicken, wild fish etc raw!????

My diet is consists of mostly chicken and fish but i do like my steak once a week (rare of course ). Along with that is alot of brown rice (real brown rice not brown covered white rice!) and the rest is organic. fruits and vegie's!

What do you guys think about the raw meat vs cooked meat?? I saw a guy called Aajonus Vonderplanitz who eats not only raw food, but ROTTEN RAW MEAT!

don't think i'll be trying that one out myself personally

cheers

I really hate to correct you, Joshua, but I'm pretty certain salmonella is also to be found in the yolk (if one is unlucky).

Some of the only ways I love raw eggs is with sukiyaki and nama tamago nattou. Reminds me I need to make some more nattou... I cannot wait to go back to Japan! K2 my way!

I really hate to correct you, Joshua

Why? Since when did teaching someone something become a bad thing?

Bissen said:

I really hate to correct you, Joshua, but I'm pretty certain salmonella is also to be found in the yolk (if one is unlucky).

 

Some of the only ways I love raw eggs is with sukiyaki and nama tamago nattou. Reminds me I need to make some more nattou... I cannot wait to go back to Japan! K2 my way!

Always good to correct!

I haven't heard of salmonella getting in there if the shell is clean, but after looking around you are right! It can apparently be in the white or yolk as well.

That pretty much settles it for me, eat cooked eggs.

Oh man.. the Sukiyaki set at Restaurant Gyuemon was my #1 favorite thing to eat of all time!!!