bioavailability of pasteurized eggs

[Ivanko]

I've always heard that drinking raw eggs is an poor way to get protein because the actual protein you're able to use from a raw egg is only about 1/2 of what it is for a cooked egg. So, I was looking at a box liquid all egg whites and it said that they pasteurized them, so really they're cooked and not raw. Would drinking pastuerized liquid egg whites be nutritionally the same as a cooked egg then?

 

[bigguns078]

No.. because your only getting the whites.. And the yolk has all the nutrition..

 

[ojs]

You question is good. But it's incomplete. And you seem to be short a few small details. Eating raw egg white yields a very low absorption rate. This is true. Some studies show as little as 50% of aminos in the egg white are actually absorbed. If you cook them you increase the absorption dramatically. At least that's what I understand.

The way I understand it is that raw egg whites have a large deposit of a biotin-binding protein called avidin. Biotin is essential in the human body's ability to absorb all the amino acids in eggs. So as the avidin binds it up, there goes your absorption.

But that's very different than eating "whole" raw eggs. Healthy chickens produce eggs with egg yolks that are omega 3 rich and packed with highly bio-available biotin (*a lot of this), lethicin, inositol, choline & methionine; some of the amino acids missing from the egg white. So if you don't throw the egg yolk away you get a perfect amino acid profile and excellent absorption.

...just my 0.02 cents

 

[mountaindog1]

I agree with what Tony posted and most of what Oscar posted - one correction Oscar, when the egg white is pasteurized, it neutralizes the avidin.

JM