How many eggs a day is it safe to eat?

For decades British advice put a number on eggs, and it was removed rather than lowered — the NHS and the British Heart Foundation both now say there is no need to limit them. The reasoning is worth understanding, because it also explains where the remaining caution sits.

Step by step

1. Understand why the limit went.Eggs are high in dietary cholesterol, and it was assumed that eating cholesterol raised blood cholesterol proportionally. The evidence did not support that. The liver makes most of the cholesterol in your blood and reduces its own production when you eat more, so the dietary contribution is small for most people.
2. Know what does raise blood cholesterol.Saturated fat, principally. That is why an egg poached on toast and an egg fried in butter alongside bacon and sausage sit in completely different places nutritionally, despite containing the same egg.
3. Know what an egg contains.A medium egg is roughly 6 to 7g of protein, about 5g of fat of which under 2g is saturated, and around 70 calories. It carries vitamin D, B12, selenium, iodine, choline and riboflavin. It is one of the more nutrient-dense cheap foods available.
4. Identify who should still take advice.People with familial hypercholesterolaemia, and some people with type 2 diabetes or existing cardiovascular disease, are advised in some guidance to moderate dietary cholesterol. That is a conversation with a GP or dietitian, not a general rule, and it is a much smaller group than the old advice implied.
5. Look at the whole meal instead of the egg count.Two eggs a day is unremarkable. Two eggs a day fried in lard with white bread and processed meat is a different diet from two eggs a day poached with spinach and wholemeal toast. The egg is rarely the variable that matters.
6. Keep the safety question separate.How many eggs is a nutrition question. Whether they can be runny is a food safety question, and in the UK the answer for British Lion marked hen eggs is yes, for everyone. The two get confused constantly.

Tips

• Eggs are one of the few natural food sources of vitamin D, which is worth knowing in a British winter.
• If you eat a lot of eggs, vary how you cook them. Poaching and boiling add nothing; frying adds whatever you fry them in.
• Egg white on its own is nearly pure protein with almost no fat, but you lose most of the vitamins and minerals, which are in the yolk. Whole eggs are the better food.
• For children, eggs are an excellent early protein and — with a Lion mark — can be given runny from around six months under current FSA advice.
• Nothing in current UK advice supports counting eggs per week. If you are following a number you remember from years ago, it has been withdrawn.

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