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I read yesterday that a single egg contains 70% of my daily cholesterol. I will frequently cook myself an omlette for lunch with 2-3 eggs. Is this unhealthy if I do it more than once a week?

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    +1! Folklore in my country says that you shouldn't eat more than 3 eggs a week, but I never took the time to research the theory behind that.
    – AndrejaKo
    Commented Mar 23, 2011 at 11:37
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    Cholesterol in food is not problem as to my understanding body just produces less cholesterol to take account the cholesterol in food.
    – Illotus
    Commented Jan 8, 2012 at 11:49
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    Have you a reference to back that up, @Illotus?
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Commented Feb 6, 2012 at 1:42
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    More than 3 per minute is said to be of non benefit, in the long run.
    – user unknown
    Commented Feb 6, 2012 at 3:34
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    I think we can agree that the number 3 is key here.
    – Zano
    Commented Feb 6, 2012 at 12:06

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The BBC quotes Professor Bruce Griffin as saying:

"The ingrained misconception linking egg consumption to high blood cholesterol and heart disease must be corrected. The amount of saturated fat in our diet exerts an effect on blood cholesterol that is several times greater than the relatively small amounts of dietary cholesterol. The UK public do not need to be limiting the number of eggs they eat - indeed they can be encouraged to include them in a healthy diet as they are one of nature's most nutritionally dense foods."

The British Heart Foundation make the point that the eggs are fine, but the other things you add during cooking, such as butter fat etc are why eating a lot of eggs would be bad.

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    I substantially edited this answer to bring it in line with the current expected standards of Skeptics.SE (although quoting a peer-reviewed paper would make it better still.) I also deleted a lot of banter in the comments which is no longer relevant.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Commented Feb 6, 2012 at 1:50
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    And whether butter fat is harmful is also a highly contested claim.
    – Flimzy
    Commented Aug 8, 2012 at 2:00
  • OK, what about the doctors that keep on saying it's unhealthy to eat eggs everyday?
    – supertonsky
    Commented Aug 26, 2014 at 12:06

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