Why don’t vegans eat eggs?
Almost weekly in his letters, Eric Bahrt reminds us of the reasons vegans won’t eat animals or fish or drink milk. What Eric hasn’t yet explained is why vegans won’t consume eggs – say, from happy free-range hens (which may have transgressed and eaten innocent grasshoppers)!
I can think of two possible reasons. Eric will enlighten us curious omnivores if there are others.
Is it the murder of the undeveloped chick embryo in a newly fertilised egg? Or is it the artery-clogging cholesterol that doctors and dieticians severely warn us against, advising just two egg yolks a week?
The first question is ethical, so maybe that can be left up to a free-thinking individual. A well-read omnivore’s response to the second would go like this (and that should explain why I eat three raw yolks a day and sometimes many more, cooked or raw).
Artery inflammation is caused by insufficient anti-oxidants in the diet or from supplements. And it’s this inflammation that leads to calcification of the coronary arteries, one of the three main reasons. (Neither dietary cholesterol nor elevated total blood cholesterol causes artery calcification).
The amount of ongoing inflammation is measured by the LDL marker. High LDL shows high inflammation. Inflammation in the arteries is eliminated and LDL is then normalised by the intake of sufficient ant-oxidants.
Two egg yolks daily have sufficient anti-oxidants to stop all arterial inflammation. Egg yolks contain the following powerful anti-oxidants – the mineral selenium, the amino acids and proteins l-cysteine, l-tyrosene and l-tryptophan, and a full gamut of vitamins.
Eggs yolks are also high in Vitamin K2 that directs calcium into hard tissues and bones and away from soft tissues and arteries. Eggs not only keep arteries clean, but their phosphotidyls, serine and choline have great benefit for the nervous system, especially in the development of young brains and maintenance of older brains.
Further, two or more yolks at breakfast stabilise blood sugar throughout the day, preventing that after-lunch and after-dinner “low”. One caution: When yolks comes into contact with the very hot pan, as in the cooking of scrambled eggs or omelettes, they become oxidised, creating free radicals, exactly what causes arteries to become inflamed in the first place.
At 79, my coronary arteries are free of any calcium deposits, as shown by a heart scan with high-speed photography at Matilda Hospital in Hong Kong.
Thomas Turk
