PUFA In Eggs: Should I Be Concerned?

[Francisco]

There is a lot of debate in this community about whether or not one should consume eggs because of their generally high PUFA content. I have been eating eggs regularly for all my life in some form, but since going Peat-o mode I have restricted my egg consumption to a maximum of 2 each day at breakfast. This is the only significant source of PUFA in my diet, putting the total amount of PUFA I consume now at around 2g each day. I figured 2g of PUFA each day would not be enough to cause any harm, so I haven’t worried about it. However, many people in the Peat community seem to think that any amount of PUFA is detrimental to health. Since I am currently experimenting with different foods and tweaking my diet in different ways to see what works best for me, I decided this morning to not have my usual 2 soft-boiled eggs. I wasn’t expecting to see any difference, but my body feels warmer. My hands, which are usually ice cold after breakfast and remain that way through the rest of the day, are warm right to my fingertips. It’s a good feeling, but I can’t yet say if it’s because of zero-PUFA. I’ll have to do this a little longer before I can say anything definitively.
Anybody else have a similar experience?

 

[schultz]

It might have more to do with you having eggs for breakfast when you're blood sugar is vulnerable. You should try them for lunch and see how you feel.

 

[Francisco]

It might have more to do with you having eggs for breakfast when you're blood sugar is vulnerable. You should try them for lunch and see how you feel.

Explain?

 

[Cirion]

As far as I know peat usually limits his eggs to a couple a day also typically for this very reason. And yeah, he also said in a recent interview that his breakfast usually consists of some milk/oj/coffee and then maybe an hr or two later, some eggs/cheese. You want to bring your blood sugar up first thing the morning before anything else.

 

[Waremu]

There is a lot of debate in this community about whether or not one should consume eggs because of their generally high PUFA content. I have been eating eggs regularly for all my life in some form, but since going Peat-o mode I have restricted my egg consumption to a maximum of 2 each day at breakfast. This is the only significant source of PUFA in my diet, putting the total amount of PUFA I consume now at around 2g each day. I figured 2g of PUFA each day would not be enough to cause any harm, so I haven’t worried about it. However, many people in the Peat community seem to think that any amount of PUFA is detrimental to health. Since I am currently experimenting with different foods and tweaking my diet in different ways to see what works best for me, I decided this morning to not have my usual 2 soft-boiled eggs. I wasn’t expecting to see any difference, but my body feels warmer. My hands, which are usually ice cold after breakfast and remain that way through the rest of the day, are warm right to my fingertips. It’s a good feeling, but I can’t yet say if it’s because of zero-PUFA. I’ll have to do this a little longer before I can say anything definitively.
Anybody else have a similar experience?

It all depends on what your dietary goals are regarding total intake of PUFA. If you’re trying to do some kind of PUFA ‘depletion’ diet, then yes, eggs probably are not your best friend. However, If you’re just trying to keep PUFA fairly low but not do an extreme low PUFA diet, then eggs will only really matter relative to your total PUFA intake. You can keep PUFA pretty low and eat -12 eggs per day, but if your max allowance is only 2-3 grams of PUFA, then you’ll have to have your other foods be very low PUFA relative to the PUFA coming from the 1-2 eggs. If your goal is 2 grams of PUFA max per day, then yes, it will be very hard if not impossible hard to get 2 eggs in while keeping a balance of other nutrients.

I personally think eggs can have their place in the right context, but I also think that, in the right context, they aren’t needed and sometimes tend to be overrated compared to the nutrition you can get from other foods like organ meat, etc.

To me, the only real thing eggs have going for them is choline and biotin, but if you want to keep PUFA that low, you could easily get sufficient choline from quality low fat milk and low PUFA white fish and your biotin from free range chicken liver, which is a far superior source of biotin than eggs. That’s what I would do if I was eating no more than 2 grams of PUFA per day. But choline is very important for a number of biochemical actions in your body, including healthy methylation/detoxification, etc. So if you definitely want to make sure you’re adding in the choline and biotin that would be missing from skipping those eggs from another food source(s).

It seems almost impossible to be able to do a proper very low PUFA diet without milk because it’s one of the very few nutritionally dense lowest PUFA food sources. So if I were doing very low PUFA (I stay around 3 grams currently), I would probably focus on low fat milk and chicken liver for my choline and biotin.

My first time I did very well when I cut out eggs and went extremely low on my PUFA intake but then hit a wall because I had major issues with methylation due to not getting sufficient choline/methyl donors in my diet as a few other things which were not added back in the form of missing eggs. A new person who isn’t aware of these things would probably blame going low PUFA for feeling the way I did, but it was the lack of choline, biotin, and other nutrients in my diet. Chicken liver and increasing the milk solves those issues. Also getting enough gelatin since glycine buffers the methylation system. Orange juice concentrate is also one of the best nutritionally dense low PUFA foods which really helps on very low PUFA diets.

Aside from the PUFA and choline issue with eggs, eggs do tend to drop my blood sugar, in my experience, and as Ray Peat has mentioned, but this was only when not enough carbs were consumed with the eggs or I was new and my blood sugar wasn’t as well regulated as it is now. I find that when I eat eggs or drink milk, my carb to protein ratio needs to be about 3:1 for best results.

 

[lampofred]

I think pasture raised eggs might have lower PUFA. I do a lot better on those as opposed to ordinary eggs where chickens eat soy/corn feed.

 

[Sativa]

Explain?

egg amino acids stimulate insulin release == blood sugar drop.