Stop Hatin' On Healthy Eggs, Sally Squires

If you are even a casual reader of health journalism these days, then I'm sure you've run across the regular columns from The Washington Post health and nutrition columnist named Sally Squires. Her regular "Lean Plate Club" feature includes lots of news and commentary on the latest developments in the world of diet and living healthy. Unfortunately, Squires comes at it from the conventional low-fat, low-calorie, low-cholesterol, everything-in-moderation yadda yadda yadda approach that has dominated our culture for decades now.

And I've had my run-ins with her too: she dismissed weight loss bloggers like me as mere "amateurs", I chided her and other so-called "experts" for giving weight loss advice when they themselves are overweight, and I even praised her for her column about having a wide-open weight loss effort. You take the good with the bad, I suppose, but Sally Squires is back again with some decidedly BAD dietary advice regarding eggs.

Whether you're livin' la vida low-carb or not, egg consumption is a VERY healthy way to start your day with a power-packed meal or anytime as a snack idea. I love my eggs and probably eat 2-3 dozen by myself every single week. Yep, yolk and all, Ms. Squires! Why? Because they are indeed (say it with me now!) H-E-A-L-T-H-Y!!!

Studies have clearly shown eggs fill you up much better than their high-carb counterparts, they provide ample satiety so you are not apt to snack between meals, and most recently we learned that regular egg consumption acts as an anti-inflammatory food despite all the negative stereotypes against this nutritional powerhouse food. I even dedicated a YouTube video to the subject of eggs because it is too important for people to get bogged down by the ignorance being spouted off by people like Sally Squires.

First, let's address the "artery-clogging cholesterol" comment. Ummm, where's your proof that dietary cholesterol has any impact on your lipid profile or in your arterial walls? Noted researcher on low-carbohydrate diets Dr. Stephen Phinney (who I hope to interview for my podcast show when I meet him at a symposium on saturated fat in Phoenix, Arizona next month) once conducted a test on himself eating a total of 17 eggs in one day to see what impact it would have on his cholesterol levels. Guess what? His cholesterol went up by only one point. So, this myth that eating cholesterol will raise your cholesterol is as archaic and WRONG as eating fat will make you fat. Again, I ask, where is the proof?

Then Squires quotes a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health named Dr. Lawrence Appel who claims the "unhealthy saturated fat" that accompanies egg consumption from all the bacon and sausage they eat with them is what concerns him the most because it will in his opinion significantly raise LDL cholesterol levels. And he made one of the most asinine statements I've ever heard about why you shouldn't eat these delicious low-carb breakfast foods.

"And many of these foods are cooked in trans fat, which also hikes LDL levels," Appel exclaimed.

HUH?! What trans fat is used to cook eggs, bacon and sausage, Dr. Appel? If you're referring to margarine--a low-fat concoction that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole--then obviously you know nothing about people who are livin' la vida low-carb. We cook our eggs in butter, macadamia nut oil, avocado oil, and other wonderfully healthy saturated fats. There's no trans fat in my cooking oils. And you don't need a lick of oil when you cook bacon and sausage because they've got plenty of amazing fats in them already to get brown and crispy for a wonderful complement to eggs.

Ironically, Dr. Appel already understands this dynamic about eating less carbs and more fat for better heart health because of this study he published in the December 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Is he now disagreeing with what the science showed him quite clearly just a little more than two years ago? Come on, Dr. Appel, you know better than to allow your own personal zealotry to get in the way of being an objective observer.

This quote from Dr. Appel certainly took the cake.

"But what I am concerned about is that some people will think that the exception is the rule," he stated. "So they will eat an omelet on the weekend and then grab a breakfast sandwich on the run on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. We don't want people to reverse the strides that have been made."

Let me tell you, sir, it's not the eggs that will "reverse the strides" these people are making in their health. It's the SANDWICH part of that breakfast sandwich with all those carbohydrates in them that makes it worse for your body--NOT the eggs or the cholesterol and fat that's in them. If you cut out the bread and eat the eggs and meat for breakfast, then you've got just about the perfect meal. Check out my daily menus and you'll see that eggs are a major part what I eat and proudly so. They are AMAZINGLY good for you!

The final paragraph in Squires' column was a bit appalling, too.

"To make sense of all this, here's the bottom line: If you're healthy and you like eggs, eat them in moderation," she recommended. "If you've got high cholesterol or Type 2 diabetes, skip the yolks or limit your intake to no more than one per day."

In a word, Ms. Squires, NO THANKS (okay, that's two words!). I am VERY healthy precisely because I do eat eggs--yolk and all!--regularly as part of my reduced-carbohydrate nutritional approach. As long as you are limiting your carb intake, eggs can be a yummy way to get lots of hunger-satisfying protein and fat into your body to help burn body fat and build muscle. I wouldn't think of ever giving up my eggs as long as they are providing me an inexpensive way to stay healthy. And that's exactly what they are doing!

There was a chat about this Sally Squires column that was quite revealing about why she believes what she does about eggs being harmful to health, especially for Type 2 diabetics. Check out this question and answer exchange:

Eggs and Type 2 Diabetes: I can understand the cholesterol issue with eggs and heart disease, but why is there an issue with eggs and Type 2 Diabetes?

Sally Squires: Because diabetes significantly raises the risk of heart disease. In fact, some experts have told me that we should consider diabetes "early heart disease." It has just that much effect on blood vessels and the heart. So the National Cholesterol Education Program--part of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, advises that people with type 2 diabetes need to take many of the same steps in prevention as those who already have high blood cholesterol or other signs of heart disease.

The good news: We know from the Diabetes Prevention Program that weight loss, exercise and eating right can significantly reduce risk of developing diabetes. And we know from other research that people who already have type 2 diabetes can takes steps to control it and sometimes even reverse it.

Okay, Ms. Squires, if diabetes raises heart disease risk, then why not treat the diabetes first with the best proven method for controlling it--LOW-CARB! If you want to help diabetes ward off heart disease from happening to them, then logic tells you to cut down on their carbs along with a regular exercise routine to bring about those reductions in blood sugar, insulin levels, and weight. Why do we have to make this so difficult for people to understand? Just tell 'em the truth about livin' la vida low-carb and watch the results happen right before our very eyes.

Maybe that's what the Sally Squires of this world are afraid of!