Are Eggs OK - or Not?

Updated July 2026

If you grew up fearful of eggs, full of cholesterol and saturated fat, a supposed cause of heart disease, you are not alone. But an egg also delivers about 6 grams of complete protein, plenty of B vitamins, zinc, and choline, all for around 75 calories, along with some omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, and antioxidants. So which is it? Are eggs good for you or bad for you?

Do the eggs you eat raise your cholesterol?

Less than we used to think. A large egg carries about 180 mg of cholesterol. Dietary guidelines once advised capping cholesterol at 300 mg a day, or 200 mg if you already had heart disease, but that limit is gone, with no specific ceiling on cholesterol intake anymore. The reason for the change is that most of the cholesterol circulating in your blood is manufactured by your liver, not eaten. The relationship between food and blood cholesterol turns out to depend far more on your intake of saturated and trans fats, and on simple and processed carbohydrates, than on cholesterol itself. That does not make eggs a free-for-all. It means the overall quality and quantity of your diet matters far more than the level of any single nutrient.

What about the saturated fat in eggs?

There is surprisingly little. A diet low in saturated fat with no trans fat has clear cardiovascular benefits, and strict vegan diets that cut both have even been shown to reverse heart disease, so keeping saturated fat down is a good idea. The American Heart Association suggests holding saturated fat under 6 percent of calories, which on a 2,000-calorie diet is under about 13 grams a day. A single egg has around 1.5 grams. Put it together, and eggs fit comfortably within a heart-healthy diet, which is what the extensive research, much of it from Harvard, has found. As the doctors at Harvard Medical School put it, for most people an egg a day does not raise the risk of heart attack, stroke, or any other cardiovascular disease.

If eggs are heart-safe, why limit them?

Because there is more to health than heart disease, and this is where it gets tricky. Egg yolks are an especially rich source of choline, a nutrient related to the B vitamins that support brain function and keep metabolism active. One egg supplies as much choline as six ounces of chicken. But choline is also a driver of TMAO, a compound produced by gut bacteria that has been linked both to blood clot formation as well as colon cancer, liver cancer and generally more aggressive tumor growth and inflammation. In people who eat meat, TMAO spikes after eating eggs. In plant-based eaters, the TMAO response to eggs is blunted – likely because the makeup of their gut bacteria is different. Complex, indeed.

So how many eggs should you eat?

Enough to enjoy them, but not so many that they crowd out better choices. Eggs may be fine from a heart-disease standpoint, but for your overall health it still makes sense to limit them, especially if you also eat other animal foods. Personally, I try to follow a whole-food, plant-based diet. I am not perfect at it, but I keep getting better, I eat Step One Foods every day, and, as someone with a family history of both colon and liver cancer, I hold my own egg intake to at most two a week.

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