I am a regular consumer of raw eggs. I love them. I don’t eat them plain straight out of the shell, but I absolutely love mixing them into shakes, pudding recipes, and anything else they’ll fit into. Eggs are the most anabolic food available, and eating raw eggs not only helps me fit more eggs into my diet, but I also feel provides benefits that cooked eggs do not. Raw eggs have helped me pack on more muscle than any other food, save for beef.
My love for raw eggs troubles a lot of people, but it shouldn’t. It’s almost comical to me the mass hysteria that surrounds every facet of eggs — salmonella poisoning, high cholesterol, egg whites versus whole eggs. There are legitimate concerns over eggs, but most are over-blown. This is to the detriment of those who are looking to improve their bodies, because raw eggs are, in my opinion, the greatest tool I’ve got in my arsenal for the Anabolic Diet.
Why raw eggs are safe
Recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveals that roughly one in every 30,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella, or 0.003% of all eggs. If you eat a dozen eggs a day on the Anabolic Diet, five days a week when excluding carb up days, then you have eaten 3,132 eggs in the course of one year.
Now let’s assume you’re a smart consumer and don’t waste your money on tons of unnecessary supplements. The money you save can be invested toward higher-quality eggs, which are less likely to be infected with any virus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s numbers are highly skewed by low-quality, commercially-produced eggs, because these eggs record the highest incidence of salmonella poisoning. We can assume that, if eating high-quality, farm-fresh eggs from a source like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, far less than 0.003% of all eggs you consume will be infected.
In other words, getting salmonella from a raw egg is an absolute anomaly. If eating responsibly, you have well less than a 1 in 30,000 chance of contracting any kind of disease. Statistics show that every time you hop in your car, there is a 1 in 5,000 chance of being in a fatal crash. Almost everything you do carries some sort of risk. Why small, harmless eggs have built themselves to be a great fear for our society, I will never know.
Eggs to avoid
If you still want to be absolutely safe, I can assure you that you can avoid most contaminated eggs fairly easily. These “sick” eggs will be an abnormal color once cracked open, and often contain tell-tale signs around the shells, like cracks or abnormal patterns. I once cracked open an egg that I was going to dump in a shake and it was an abnormal greenish hue. Needless to say, that entire shake got dumped into the drain immediately. (As a side note, this egg came from a bulk batch purchased from Costco. I now only buy fresh eggs from Trader Joe’s.)
Why raw eggs are good for you
There is controversy around whether an egg is healthier cooked or uncooked. I consume mine both ways. At least half, if not more, if my eggs eaten every day are raw, while the rest are either soft boiled (with a soft or runny yolk) or lightly scrambled.
The idea is that when you cook a yolk until it hardens, you are killing a number of nutrients and enzymes inside the yolk. This is the case any time you heavily cook fats, although saturated and
monounsaturated fats hold up to heat better than their counterparts. I always eat my omega 3-enriched eggs raw because omega 3s do not hold up to heat, and cooking them negates any benefits I’ll receive from eating them. Most other eggs contain fats that stay stable at higher temperatures.
When I cook, I only cook with fertile eggs.
Eat both the yolk and the white
Raw egg whites contain high levels of avidin, which when consumed in large numbers, can cause a biotin deficiency. Biotin deficiencies can cause all kinds of nutritional problems. Consuming raw egg whites then can pose a problem.
However, the yolk of the egg contains high levels of biotin. When consuming the whole egg, a biotin deficiency is not an issue because the white and yolk counteract each other.
The take-home lesson: don’t take my advice and then consume just raw egg whites! I want you to be eating the entire egg.
The convenience of raw eggs
You could eat all soft-boiled eggs, but when you start to eat lots of them — which, if you want great results on the Anabolic Diet, you will — it will become too difficult to fit that many in, as well as the time to prepare them will be astronomical. Raw eggs provide a convenience that no other food does. Dump a bunch of eggs into a container, put in other anabolic shake ingredients, mix it together, and you have a healthy, calorie-dense, Anabolic Diet-friendly meal!
What kind of eggs to buy
I eat a mixture of omega 3-enriched eggs and fertile eggs. Vince Gironda believed fertile eggs to be the best and most bio-available, while omega 3 eggs help me get more of the essential fatty acids in my diet. Although I mentioned that I will cook with fertile eggs, I still eat both types of eggs raw more often than not.
How to prepare raw eggs
I don’t put my raw eggs into a blender anymore. I used to, but read that Vince Gironda advised against it, since it was essentially homogenizing the eggs, making them into particles too small to be
digested and assimilated properly by the body. I don’t know if this is exactly the case with a consumer blender, but I follow the advice regardless.
I use my raw eggs primarily in shakes, like Vince Gironda’s Hormone Precursor Shake. I put my eggs into a shaker bottle with the rest of my shake ingredients and just shake vigorously, which is enough to get everything to mix together. You can also use a fork to mix the eggs together. I also am a big fan of creating Anabolic Diet Pudding, by mixing one scoop of protein powder with a raw egg and some heavy cream.
Any famous raw egg consumers?
Although it’s taboo these days to admit to eating raw eggs, many top bodybuilders from the 1970s swore by them. (I’m sure many of today’s top bodybuilders are big fans of raw eggs, too.) VInce Gironda was the biggest proponent of raw egg consumption, and the bodybuilders he trained would sometimes eat up to 36 raw eggs a day!
Eat up!
The preceding hopefully will spell out why raw eggs are beneficial to someone looking to pack on more muscle. The convenience and nutrition raw eggs provide are too good to pass up. Raw eggs and the Anabolic Diet are naturally a perfect match.
