Writer Alfred Hitchcock once asked, "Have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid?" Regardless of your personal feelings about yolks, you can't deny this food -- derived by separating the egg yolk from the egg white -- is chock full of nutrition. Yolks may range in color from pale yellow to rich orange, depending on the feed of the chicken from which the eggs came. Chickens consuming high levels of carotenoids -- the pigment that gives carrots their color -- lay orange eggs.
Calories and Fat
A serving of 1 large, fresh egg yolk contains 54.7 calories. While you can eat egg yolks by themselves, it is not common practice. Include the calories from the full recipe in which you use the yolks in your meal plan to carefully control the number of calories you consume. One serving of yolks is high in fat. The fat content in eggs is primarily concentrated in the yolk, which contains 4.5 g. This accounts for 74 percent of the calories. Approximately one-fourth of the fat in an egg yolk comes from the "bad" kind of fat, called saturated -- 1.6 g. While saturated fat may contribute toward an increased risk of heart disease, research presented in the October 2010 issue of the medical journal "Lipids" suggests that genetics, activity level and a variety of other factors impact the way saturated fat acts in your body.
Protein and Carbohydrates
One serving of egg yolk has 0.6 g of carbohydrates, which does not do much to meet your daily requirements of 130 per day. Your body relies on carbohydrates to supply energy, so ensure that your meal plan contains the right amount. An egg yolk provides 2.7 g of energy-producing protein, which satisfies 4.8 to 5.8 percent of the daily recommended intake.
Vitamins and Minerals
A serving of egg yolks is a good source of selenium. One yolk provides 13.6 percent of the amount your body needs each day. This mineral aids in the production of antioxidant enzymes, and also might improve fertility in men. You will also get approximately 6 percent of the daily recommended intake of folate and phosphorus, as well as about 5 percent of the vitamins B-2, B-5 and B-12 you require every day.
Myths
One egg yolk contains 209.8 mg of cholesterol, which is roughly two-thirds of the recommended limit of 300 mg per day. While egg yolks often come under fire for the amount of cholesterol they contain and their role in raising blood cholesterol and causing heart disease, research published in the January 2006 journal "Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care" notes that consuming eggs raises the good type of cholesterol in most cases. Seventy percent of study participants showed no negative health effects from consuming high amounts of cholesterol.
References
- The Poultry Site: Introduction
- CalorieLab: Egg, Yolk, Raw, Fresh
- EurekAlert: Think Saturated Fat Contributes to Heart Disease? Think Again
- Institute of Medicine: Dietary Reference Intakes
- McKinley Health Center: Macronutrients: The Importance of Carbohydrate, Protein, and Fat
- MedlinePlus: Selenium in Diet
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