Is Eating 4 Eggs A Day Too Much?

Dobbler

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2016
Messages
680
4 eggs a day too much from PUFA standpoint? Im balancing them with 30g of coconut oil at same meal. Total daily PUFA intake is between 4-5g, and SAFA intake is between 70-90g.

What u guys think?
 

Tenacity

Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2016
Messages
844
I've seen PUFA intake recommendations as:
  • 4g or less daily.
  • As a 10:1 SFA:PUFA ratio.
  • As 2% of energy intake.
You're likely fine.
 
L

lollipop

Guest
4 eggs a day too much from PUFA standpoint? Im balancing them with 30g of coconut oil at same meal. Total daily PUFA intake is between 4-5g, and SAFA intake is between 70-90g.

What u guys think?
I think it really depends on your goal and your starting point and your overall diet and macros. It will be hard to reach agreement here between people. My first reaction is no but maybe not everyday, maybe several times a week? But my goal is low PUFA, vibrant health, not low, low PUFA. Low, low PUFA goal people will say yes too much. Even Peat has said he eats one (or was it two?) eggs a day.

I also would see how you feel. If you eat 4 eggs and feel healthy and strong, then you have some clear data to go by.
 

Kate

Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2017
Messages
66
Ray peat only recommends 1-2 (a day so 4 seems a bit much.
If your eating coconut oil with the eggs it should be fine, (and grass fed would help to)
But there are other thing besides pufas that would make 4 eggs very unappetizing (cysteine, methionine, and tryptophan etc.)
 

dookie

Member
Joined
May 5, 2015
Messages
517
@Dobbler
@lisaferraro
@Tenacity
@Kate

I think this PUFA avoidance obsession is distracting too much from the real problems. With a hormonal imbalance, like excessive estrogen, it seems even saturated fats can become unsaturated in the body. And if your metabolism and hormonal balance is good, the PUFAs will be metabolized and kept away from the mitochondria. While PUFA may be slightly "estrogenic" in themselves, they are much less estrogenic than, say, eating a small slice of unripe fruit

If the overall diet isn't very high in fat, the discussion of keeping PUFA under a certain number of grams per day isn't useful at all, and doesn't really make a noticeable difference in health. In my opinion.

The real question about the eggs is: won't that many eggs stimulate too much insulin? Insulin in excess can be estrogenic, regardless of PUFA
 
L

lollipop

Guest
@Dobbler
@lisaferraro
@Tenacity
@Kate

I think this PUFA avoidance obsession is distracting too much from the real problems. With a hormonal imbalance, like excessive estrogen, it seems even saturated fats can become unsaturated in the body. And if your metabolism and hormonal balance is good, the PUFAs will be metabolized and kept away from the mitochondria. While PUFA may be slightly "estrogenic" in themselves, they are much less estrogenic than, say, eating a small slice of unripe fruit

If the overall diet isn't very high in fat, the discussion of keeping PUFA under a certain number of grams per day isn't useful at all, and doesn't really make a noticeable difference in health. In my opinion.

The real question about the eggs is: won't that many eggs stimulate too much insulin? Insulin in excess can be estrogenic, regardless of PUFA
I eat this much occasionally and mix with butter, sautéed mushrooms and/green bell pepper, and drink an 8ounce glass of fresh OJ and have NEVER had a problem.

Ray says he needs lots of OJ with eggs. Again to my point above: depends, what is starting point? How is health of liver? How are the combined? Etc.
 

Simba1992

Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2017
Messages
120
I eat this much occasionally and mix with butter, sautéed mushrooms and/green bell pepper, and drink an 8ounce glass of fresh OJ and have NEVER had a problem.

Ray says he needs lots of OJ with eggs. Again to my point above: depends, what is starting point? How is health of liver? How are the combined? Etc.
What about quail eggs? Have understood that they are in many way different in their nutritional qualities as well as effects on metabolism(?).
 

BibleBeliever

Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2016
Messages
403
Location
Canada
4 eggs a day too much from PUFA standpoint? Im balancing them with 30g of coconut oil at same meal. Total daily PUFA intake is between 4-5g, and SAFA intake is between 70-90g.

What u guys think?
I used to eat over 20 eggs a day. Many athletes consume large quantities of eggs; i.e the stereotypical bodybuilder drinking a glass of raw eggs.
If your metabolism is stimulated than you should burn the pufas before they are stored. All our ancestors ate eggs and embraced them sweetly.
It also depends on your body weight and how much muscle mass you have; and how active you are. Ray looks like a smaller fella and from what I understand isn't very active; so his needs would be low.

For instance tryptophan is recommended for the youth because they are growing. Logically then if one is having there muscles grow via training the tryptophan is probably used better. Nevertheless adequate b6 helps convert tryptophan to niacin instead of serotonin.
If you are sedentary then your needs decrease; still 4 a day isn't that much. You get all kinds of b-vitamins and fat soluble vitamins that you probably wouldn't get otherwise.
The protein composition of eggs is very similar to milk.
 

Energizer

Member
Joined
Mar 3, 2013
Messages
611
If you know and trust the source of the eggs, I don't think restricting would be as necessary. But if you're talking store bought grain-fed chickens with high pufa eggs, 4 eggs per day would be a lot of pufa and maybe cause issues in the long term.
 
J

James IV

Guest
No. Unless you are allergic, Eggs have zero negative effect on health. I eat at least a half dozen daily. The array of nutrition in an egg, far outweighs the small amount of PUFA, which probably isn't an issue anyway in the grand scheme.
 

Tarmander

Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2015
Messages
3,763
No. Unless you are allergic, Eggs have zero negative effect on health. I eat at least a half dozen daily. The array of nutrition in an egg, far outweighs the small amount of PUFA, which probably isn't an issue anyway in the grand scheme.
I also eat around this much and it helps considerably with all aspects of health.

I leave out the egg whites though.
 

DaveFoster

Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2015
Messages
5,027
Location
Portland, Oregon
It depends on the other parts of your diet. Staples devoid of the unsaturated fats, such as low or non-fat dairy products along with fruit and their juices will allow you to eat a couple eggs daily, but eating more than will likely lead to hormonal problems in your 70s, 80s, and further decades.
 

Travis

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2016
Messages
3,189
Might be better from a protein standpoint to eat less eggs and more cheese—together. That would lower the tryptophan ratio but you might have some opiate-like effects to contend with. Goat cheese would be expected to have less opiate-effect (I really think it does. I used to eat quite alot of cheese—like ¹⁄₂ pound per day, every single day.)

I did see an analysis once that showed that the egg yolk fatty-acids depend greatly on the diet of the chicken. I would stay away from the once popular "vegetarian eggs", a label that practically means "soy-fed".

And the steroid hormones. Just remember that they're there.

And methionine seems to be able to control growth. Excess methionine can become polyamines. If you are getting towards you ideal weight (high-end), you might want to limit methionine. To give you an idea of how powerful methionine is, just look at Figure 2...
richie.png

...from one of the classic methionine studies. They all show basically the same thing. There was a buzz around this time with a few people replicating the experiments and speculating on why this occurs. Theories ranged from DNA methylation to glutathione, but I'm pretty sure that it's the polyamines.

The only difference between the two diets was:
Methionine 0.17 (0.86)
Glutamic acid 3.39 (2.70)

Ray Peat cites this study. He talks about methionine in a few articles. Almonds have methionine, tryptophan, and lysine as the limiting amino acids so they would be awesome if it weren't for the PUFAs. Coconuts have virtually no PUFAs but they are a bit high in tryptophan. Hopefully some day we'll have a genetically-modified Peat Tree that grows the perfect nut.

Richie, JOHN P., et al. "Methionine restriction increases blood glutathione and longevity in F344 rats." The FASEB Journal 8.15 (1994): 1302-1307.
 

Dave Clark

Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
1,978
I suppose just like chickens if the commercial quail farmer is feeding the quail the wrong food (i.e. high PUFA grains and soy with pesticides, fungicides, herbicides) the eggs will be negatively affected. Probably hard to find an organic free-range quail egg.
 
OP
D

Dobbler

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2016
Messages
680
Im experimenting between dairy free and non dairy free diet, to see if theres any difference. I have depression and fatique so i have to be careful with foods i eat. Also my budget is very low so eating things like shrimp every day is not really option. I also eat gelatin and beef as my protein. Carbs are over 300g everyday.
 

Simba1992

Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2017
Messages
120
Interesting @Simba1992. Thank you :) I just saw that Wellness Meats where I get my liverwurst has quail. I also just saw some at Whole Foods. Funny since you mentioned them, they have popped up all around me - lol. Never noticed them before.
I start my morning with a shot of three quail eggs, tsp olive oil, ginger and lemon juice scrambled together.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom