Egg White Nutrition: Calories, Vitamins, and Protein in Egg Whites
Eggs are well known for being a healthy snack. However, since they are so popular there has been a lot of controversy about which is healthier, the egg yolk or the egg white.
Due to their unique composition, egg whites have some important nutritional differences from yolks. Here are some nutrition facts about egg whites.
Egg whites are low in calories and fat. Despite making up most of an egg’s volume, the egg white contains only a few quarters of its calories and has almost zero fat. This suggests egg whites offer health benefits over whole eggs for people on low-calorie, high-protein diets, and may help with weight loss.
Egg whites are high in protein. Egg whites contain half an egg’s overall protein content: actually, the white of one large egg packs nearly 4 grams of protein. The white is additionally considered an ‘entire’ protein, which suggests that it contains all nine essential amino acids.
Egg whites are also generally not a good source of vitamins. However, a serving size of egg whites does contain about 12% of the recommended daily nutritional value of riboflavin (aka vitamin B2), a crucial vitamin for energy production and cell growth.
Recipes For Egg Whites
Aside from a healthy spin on scrambled eggs and omelets, there is a spread of recipes that call for just egg whites.
Meringue: apart from sugar, egg whites are the first ingredient in French meringue, also as its cousins, Italian meringue and Swiss meringue. The “stiff peaks” of an albumen meringue form the topping of a classic lemon meringue pie, and may even be wont to make meringue cookies. Learn more about meringue here.
Soufflé: While this notoriously temperamental dish includes both parts of the egg, it’s the egg whites that expand during baking to offer a soufflé it’s airy texture. Learn more about soufflé here.
Egg Wash: An egg wash made up of whites can create a glossy finish on food or help dry ingredients adhere to proteins, as in Gordon Ramsay’s sesame-crusted tuna recipe.
Macaroons and Macarons: Whipped egg whites bind ingredients together and add airy texture to gluten-free food, including both coconut macaroons and French macarons.
Pie Filling: When combined with egg yolks, juice, and sugar, egg whites give the filling of this lime pie recipe its light, mousse-like texture.
Egg Yolk Nutrition: Calories, Vitamins, and Fats in Egg Yolks
Egg yolks have their own nutritional advantages and disadvantages compared to egg whites. Here are some nutrition facts about egg yolks.
Egg yolks are rich in vitamins. The yolk is that the source of the foremost of an egg’s vitamins and essential nutrients, including calcium, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin (vitamin B1), vitamin B12, vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin D, and vitamin K. Finally, egg yolks are an upscale source of fat-soluble carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin, which protect your eyes from damage and reduce the danger of cataracts.
Egg yolks are high in fat, which is obviously great for keto. The yolk contains nearly all of the egg’s total fat: about 4.5–6 grams. Much of this comes from healthy fats—that is, omega-3 fatty acids, which can’t be made by our bodies and must be obtained from the diet. The rest, about 1.6 grams, come from saturated fats.
The one downside to Egg yolks is that they are high in cholesterol. Yolks are notorious for having one among the very best levels of dietary cholesterol of any food that we eat (about 213 milligrams per yolk), a characteristic once believed to extend the risk of disorder. However, newer studies show that enormous amounts of dietary cholesterol generally aren’t harmful to most people.
The Bottom Line
Overall the whites of an egg are healthier, however, the yolk is healthy in its own way as it is filled with vitamins. My final verdict is, if you don’t have high cholesterol, you shouldn’t have to worry about cutting yolks out of your diet and only eating egg whites. I say this as often as I can, “If you are going to cut out anything from your diet, let it be SUGAR!!