Egg beaters: The stupidest product in the world?

June 1 2011 by in Industrial food-like products

Only in America. How about a REAL EGG PRODUCT to lower your cholesterol?

Let’s find out how “real” this is.

Nutrition facts…

Egg Beaters

Let’s compare the ingredients to a real egg. A real egg, as you know, has no other ingredients. This REAL EGG PRODUCT is something else:

Ingredients: Egg whites, Flavor, Color, etc. etc., Xantan Gum, Guar Gum, Maltodextrin.

Only fake industrial food-like products need stuff like that.

Does this fake food product lower your cholesterol? Sure. Eating low fat products lowers your good HDL cholesterol. And a lower HDL means your risk of heart disease is higher.

Time to end the insanity

Why not have all the real eggs you want instead? The way nature designed them. Perfectly healthy great tasting real food that doesn’t even have a list of ingredients:

Eggs

LCHF for beginners

The problem with low carb in America

The Dreamfields Pasta Fraud

Eating LCHF in America

Coconuts: Tropical LCHF

25 comments

1
Andrew
June 1 2011
My mother used to buy this product in the 90's. It smelled and tasted "eggy" in the way that margarine tastes "buttery" -- a highly exaggerated flavor.

On a related note, it's shocking how much butter in my local grocery store contains flavoring. Even the expensive, "European" stuff and the organic brands. The only brand I was able to find that had no added flavoring was Valu Time (a discount brand). It seems that we have gotten so used to margarine that we need butter-flavored butter.
2
Sanddog
June 1 2011
Egg beaters wouldn't exist if it were not for the anti-cholesterol scare perpetuated by so-called scientists. Seriously, who would eat that nasty crap instead of a real egg unless they were told eggs = poison?
3
Sanddog
June 1 2011
Andrew, if you can make a trip to the nearest Whole Foods, give Smjor a try. Or, if you can get it locally, Kerrygold.
4
James
June 2 2011
It really is time to end this. But even in my own family my Dr Sister inlaw just asked me if I ever tried this crap and maybe I should eat more fruit.

I nodded and smiled not wanting a family melt down...LOL

You are a beacon in the dark Doc keep up the good work. Heard you on Hank's pod cast your English is top notch nothing to worry about
5
Milton
June 2 2011
From Wikipedia: "Maltodextrin is a polysaccharide that is used as a food additive. It is produced from starch by partial hydrolysis and is usually found as a creamy-white hygroscopic spraydried powder." In other words, a refined and processed sugar. In a product meant to replace eggs. Sheesh.
6
Funderaren
June 2 2011
Just eat normal eggs, we humans seems to have done just fine with eating eggs for a thousands of years. If anything eat eggs that comes from outdoor hens that eats real food (chicken food) themself.
7
Stacie
June 2 2011
Great post, Doc. Three questions, though. Are we the only country that makes egg-beaters and other such frankenfoods? And, why do you refer to HDL as good cholesterol, since it is not cholesterol, and we do not have "good" or "bad" cholesterol? One more: Is it the HDL itself that is healthy, or the "thing" that raises HDL (namely, saturated fat)?
8
Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt, MD Team Diet Doctor
June 2 2011
Stacie,
1. There are frankenfoods everywhere I guess. But they always seem much worse when I go to the US.

2. HDL particles contain cholesterol and are usually referred to as "HDL cholesterol", the "good" cholesterol.

3. Statistically it is a good thing to naturally have high HDL levels. Although raising it by drugs have repeatedly failed to make patients healthier, so maybe HDL is just a marker for something else that is healthy. Such as a high fat low carb diet perhaps?
9
Arnstein Bjone
June 2 2011
After switching to LCHF last October, I have been eating 20-40 egg each week.... (and LOTS of butter/fat). My blood values are now perfect. So far only 14 kg weightloss, but that's OK. It took me 4-6 months to get rid of the carbhunger. NOTHING with sugar tempts me anymore. Started at 136 kg. My goal is 100 kg, and that is no problem at all within the next 12 months. It also took me some time to begin to eat enough fat ("reprogramming"). I'm also drinking a liter of vodka each week.
10
Margaretrc
June 3 2011
Once upon a time, when I believed all the propaganda against cholesterol, I tried to eat this stuff and I just couldn't. The best I could do was mix it with some real egg to give it some flavor and bake with it. I love real eggs and am so glad I learned the truth (about 6 years ago), so I could stop consuming this awful stuff and go back to real eggs. I am hard boiling 4 from our Farmer's Market right now and will use them to make a nice egg salad for lunch today and tomorrow with a touch of of real mayonnaise made with coconut, sesame, and olive oils--not soybean oil. No bread--just the salad in a bowl. I see other people buy this all the time--along with myriad cereals, breads and other carby foods--and can only shake my head and feel very sorry for them and think, "If they only knew..."

Reply: #17
11
Max Power
June 7 2011
Time to start teaching this stuff to the kids in school, get rid of all the sugar that Corporate America is feeding the masses and give this revolution a kick start. But its going to be a looong time in the happening, Corporate America won't have it, even with the evidence available today. Can anyone imagine a pharmaceutical company losing money because the population is generally healthy and nobody needs their magic potions?
12
Funderaren
June 7 2011
Max, now is a perfect time to start a health revolution. With the current budget issues who would be against better health for the population? (Not counting the pharmaceutical industry ;) )
13
Katy
June 15 2011
The Wellspring Academy, a private boarding school for overweight teens and young adults, recommends Egg-Beaters, as well as low fat snacks such as Snackwell cookies and pretzels. The focus is on a very low fat diet, with the goal of eating zero grams of fat if possible. It's tragic, really.

http://www.wellspringacademies.com/recipes.html
14
Sara
December 6 2011
I know this is an older post, but I just came across it and wanted to add my experience with this stuff.

I went camping with several friends a couple of months ago. Most of us were happy with scrambled eggs (mixed with heavy cream and cooked in bacon fat, yum!), but I had one friend who was on a calorie restricting diet and requested that I make a separate batch of egg beaters for him.

Never again. The egg beaters actually STRIPPED the seasoning off of my cast iron pan! I'm still working to re-season it, but what a mess! They smelled like plastic that was trying to be an egg, it almost made me gag when I was cooking it. Washing the dishes afterwords was a nightmare. I can only imagine what that nastiness is doing inside my friend's gut. Ew.
15
Jo
December 6 2011
I am from Australia and thankful I have no idea what egg beaters are and our butter is not flavoured with anything other than cream, water and culture. America sounds scary!
16
Dean
March 29 2013
Geez, I love eggs as much as anyone, but you people do realize how unhealthy they can be, right? I guess doctors are the stupid ones.
17
Reply to comment #10 by Margaretrc
Dean
March 29 2013
Yeah, wouldn't want any of that unhealthy bread with your eggs and mayo.
18
Dean
March 29 2013
"the way nature intended it". Why cook them, then? Foxes stealing eggs from a henhouse don't cook their eggs. They eat them raw, just like nature intended, and they're fine! Eat raw meat, too... it's natural!
19
Russell Crow
July 22 2013
Eating raw meat is not the best. It is a known fact that cooking meat actually makes it more digestible, easier on the stomach, and frees up the protein content to make it more absorbable by the your intestinal tract. Even Neadrathal man discovered the benfits of cooking meat 25,000 years ago.
20
Karen
November 12 2013
I just found your site as I was looking for recipes using Eggbeaters. Though my opinion is late in posting, I still chose to say something. What you, unfortunately, do not account for in your opinion is those of us who have severe sensitivities to real eggs. I love eggs, but I absolutely cannot have them. My last sensitivity bout almost landed me in the ER due to so much pain, and I suffered the aftereffects for nearly 2 weeks. Eggbeaters are my only option. And they taste very good, to boot. Therefore, I am grateful someone invented them, despite your opinions to the contrary. Before you bash foods, think about those of us who have no choice, and perhaps tame your opinion accordingly. If people listened to purist opinions like this, and did not invent alternative foods, the food world would be much grayer for many of us. Think on that, please.
21
Donnie
February 25 2015
Karen,

You do have a choice. You can chose not to eat eggs or egg beaters. I understand you think people here are bashing egg beaters, but the fact of the matter is processed foods simply are not healthy. I recently have started to eliminate all processed foods and replace them with the natural thing, and I feel better than I have in a long time. So while you feel that you MUST eat egg beaters because you can't eat the real thing, I would rather go without eggs than to eat something I know is not good for me.
22
Brigitte
March 6 2016
I have been working on eating cleaner for the past six months. I've discovered a few times that I need to be more careful. Old habits die hard. A few weeks ago, I ate a very small amount of egg beaters and had a headache for four days. Also last night I ate a little Halloween sized pack of M&Ms and again have a headache. Perhaps a coincidence, but I'm wondering if I'm suddenly sensitive to these dyes. I've eaten plenty of M&Ms in my day and haven't associated any headaches with them until now. Do you know if the same yellow dye is used in both?
23
Michael
December 21 2016
Well put Donnie! Never fall prey to the lesser of two things. It's like saying that if I needed a babysitter so I can go out, I'd pick the best of the bad. How about not going out???
24
Ananth
January 20 2020
Egg Beaters have toned down on a lot of the processed crap they add to the "real egg whites" (the white liquid that you get, with AllWhites). Their 'Original' flavor has almost no crap in the ingredients. And I love them because it gives me the flexibility to control my calorie intake. People who want high protein but who also need to keep their calorie intake low to lose weight, benefit a lot from Egg Whites and Egg Beaters. I add half a serving of mozzarella cheese to 3-4 servings of Egg Beaters and scramble it up. This gives me 140 calories (1/2 serving of mozzarella is 40 cals) with 24g of protein. Imagine eating real eggs to achieve 24g of protein? I have to eat 4 eggs (1 egg is 6g protein) and each egg is 70 calories. Which means, I will be eating 280 calories. That's double the calories for the same amount of protein. This is why products like Egg Beaters and Egg Whites can be a boon for those wanting to control energy intake. P.s: I am not anti-fat and pro-sugar. I will never shy away from fat. But some low fat products can be helpful in managing energy intake.
25
Linda
December 30 2020
I started having issues with my gallbladder and was having major discomfort, after eating more products with high fat content. I had started bicycling heavily and was burning an extra 1000 calories a day that I had to make up in order to not lose weight. I've eaten clean and organic (pescatarian as well) for a really long time. When I started eating more items that are typically not a heavy part of my diet, such as cheeses, pizza, ice cream, etc. to make up those calories, I had issues. I was put on a low fat diet (3g/meal or 8g total fat a day), and it the symptoms went away. So, when I eat real eggs (which I love), it's too much fat content. After a while I was allowed to start adding fats back into my diet, which I did, and started having issues again. So, at this point, will either stick with liquid egg whites or Egg Beaters. I eat so healthy otherwise, with no processed foods, that I'm not going to worry about it.

Egg beaters: The stupidest product in the world?

Nutrition facts…

Time to end the insanity

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