How bad are eggs?

Eggs are not bad, but if you are eating up to 36 per week you should work out how much cholesterol that is and then look at how much cholesterol you are aiming to stay under per week.

Well, I go through at least a dozen eggs per week, probably close to a dozen and a half. But I have a deal around here where I get fantastic pasture raised eggs for $2.50 a dozen. The yolks are deep orange (the darker the yoik, the more nutrient dense). Damn.

I eat eggs not in spite of my health goals, but to maintain my heart health.

Absolute cholesterol levels in the body are not what is important. And dietary cholesterol does not have deleterious effects on body cholesterol. First of all, it is too small in amount compared to body cholesterol levels. And our body creates the different kinds of cholesterol in the body based on response to interactions of genes and diet. There are other factors too of course, but let's just stick to those two main ones.

You want as high an HDL as possible and low Triglycerides. Even LDL level does not tell the whole story. Small dense LDL particles are bad - they accumulate in atherosclerotic plaque. Large buoyant LDL particles are harmless, esp if your inflammation levels are low (low glycemic, no insulin spikes).

What actually does increase the main bad components of cholesterol (Triglycerides, VLDL and small dense LDL) are grains. Excessive sugar will also increase VLDL.

What actually increases HDL (good cholesterol) is saturated fat. It also increases large buoyant LDL, thus your overall LDL, but because the large buoyant LDL is harmless, so is your increase in LDL.

So "people" will often tell you to have a good cholesterol profile, eat that lean piece of toast and skip the eggs, when in actual fact, you should be eating the eggs (esp if they are pastured!) and skipping the toast.