Alyssa Luck – Page 5

This is a research paper that I wrote for my English class this semester. I wanted to share it on this blog because it’s about eggs, cholesterol, and the Dietary Guidelines, three things that definitely impact the ancestral health community!

Abstract

With rising rates of obesity and diabetes, most Americans feel more pressure than ever to make the right food choices. However, the country’s primary source of nutritional guidance – the Dietary Guidelines for Americans – has been criticized for being misleading, inaccurate, and potentially harmful to public health. In this paper, I present eggs as a ‘case study’ to strengthen the criticisms that others have brought against the Dietary Guidelines. The Guidelines advocate limiting egg consumption because of their high cholesterol content. However, having reviewed the scientific literature on cholesterol and health, I conclude that there is no documented health benefit to limiting dietary cholesterol. Additionally, eggs are an excellent source of choline, a nutrient that is sorely lacking in the diets of most Americans. For these reasons, the Dietary Guidelines should actually encourage egg consumption, rather than limit it.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve eaten an extremely healthy diet. That is, healthy by the USDA’s standards. My friends in middle school would make fun of me for having Triscuits and cheese and a bag of raw veggies for lunch, while they had muffins or pizza.

Sometime during middle school, I decided to be vegetarian. I also meticulously removed as much saturated fat and cholesterol from my diet as possible, and I rarely ate anything that wasn’t whole grain. Now keep in mind, I was never overweight. In fact, I’ve been underweight almost my entire life, and I got even skinnier after these self-imposed dietary changes. But whenever somebody told me that I didn’t have to worry about eating a little ‘unhealthy’ food, I would fiercely reply that skinny people can die of heart disease, too. [Read more…] about My Story (to be continued…)