You’ve been boiling eggs badly all your life (for your health)

This food has been gaining popularity after overcoming the myth that its consumption triggers the risk of heart disease by increasing blood cholesterol (bad). Today, it is known that eating eggs is not a health problem, although the way of cooking them can influence their rise and cause harm if they are taken excessively.

Eggs are tasty and packed with high-quality protein, unsaturated fats, and vitamins A, D, and B12, making them a complete nutrition-recommended food. Even so, we always have doubts: Are the eggs as good as they seem? What is the healthiest way to take them?

Most of us believe that taking it boiled is a good option and that to do it well it must be cooked in boiled water for 10 minutes. However, this theory is not correct.

According to nutritionists, the poached egg or its ‘softened’ version is the healthiest. One is cooked without the shell and the other with, but both consist of placing the egg in very hot water -without it boiling- for three or four minutes so that it does not cook.

Come on! So what happens to those eggs that spend 10 minutes bouncing around in boiling water? Well, first of all, they don’t look good: green yolk, strings of plasticine sticking out of the shell and a flavor that discourages the most painted.

In addition, according to studies, an egg boiled for ten minutes (hard-boiled egg) contains three times as many lipid oxidation compounds as one that has been boiled for three minutes. This is because the heat and contact with oxygen stimulate the oxidation of the cholesterol contained in the egg yolk, and this could contribute to atherosclerosis or heart problems if a large quantity is consumed.

In other words, the first error is to let the water boil since the correct thing to do is cook the egg in a bath of hot water. Or put another way, a well-cooked egg should not boil. And it is that the preparations in which the egg white protein is well cooked and, at the same time, keep the yolk intact, without coagulating, are the most recommended.

These include, in addition to the soft-boiled egg, the ‘heated’ or poached egg, the steamed egg, and the “al Nido” egg. The key to all these culinary techniques is that the cooking time is very controlled.

“As far as cholesterol oxidation is concerned, it is better to keep the yolk whole and raw to avoid the formation of oxidized compounds, which are absorbed and are associated with a higher cardiovascular risk. On the other hand, when the coagulation of the yolk is avoided, the fat globules it contains are digested much better”, explains Lucía Redondo Cuevas, nutritionist, and professor at the FPS Roger de Llúria Institute, in Barcelona.

This is achieved by reducing the cooking time and waiting just long enough for the white to set. When coagulated, proteins with anti-nutritive characteristics are ‘denatured’: flavoprotein, which makes us absorb less vitamin B2; and avidin, which causes us to absorb less vitamin B8. A problem we can solve by boiling them.

However, when making a scrambled egg or an omelet, the cholesterol in the egg oxidizes due to the cooking temperature, especially in scrambled eggs, as the yolk is fried directly in the hot oil in the pan. In addition, in this type of preparation, the egg is exposed to the air -especially when we beat it-, which causes the cholesterol to oxidize quickly before we have time to eat it.

As for the fried egg, as you know, its usual consumption is not recommended since even if it is cooked correctly, that is, with the white cooked and the yolk raw, it is fried and will always provide more fat and calories.

Therefore, if we listen to the experts and opt for the healthiest way of preparing eggs, we must be clear that we must cook them over low heat and without bubbles, at a temperature between 80 and 85º to prevent the agitation of the boiled break the shell, the white is gummy and the yolk dry.

Maintaining a similar temperature is not complicated. You only have to lower the heat once the first bubbles begin to appear on the walls of the saucepan to control the cooking, preventing the water from boiling. In this way, you will avoid cracking, the sulfurous taste, and you will obtain a cooked egg with the white and the yolk solid but tender.