What's the fat breakdown of egg yolk?

curiousz · Post by **curiousz** » Sun 07 May 2006 01:16

I know the eggs I eat have 5 grams of fat each...

1 of which is saturated fat.

What are the other 4 grams of fat, though?

Polyunsaturated - Omega 3 or Omega 6?

Monounsaturated?

I'm just curious, as I want to correctly balance my omega 6/3 ratio.

Post by **Oscar** » Sun 07 May 2006 01:25

I don't think eggs contain any omega-3, unless they are omega-3 enriched. You'd have to get it from fish.

curiousz · Post by **curiousz** » Sun 07 May 2006 01:57

my eggs have roughly 100 mg of EPA..

So, does that mean that when we consume eggs, that there's mainly 4 grams of omega 6 fats?

finnishfiend · Post by **finnishfiend** » Sun 07 May 2006 03:14

according to the waisays nutrient calculator, the omega-3 content is higher than the omega-6 content of the egg. According to nutritiondata.com, omega-3 seems to be slightly higher than omega-6. The numbers don't seem to add up totally, but both waisays calculator and nutritiondata.com claim there is ~1.6g sat fat, ~1.9g MUFA, and the other gram must be poly unsat...

so, if you are getting eggs that are treated to have extra omega-3, I don't see how the eggs could mess up the omega-3/6 balance (unless, of course, that missing data just so happens to be a few hundred mg of omega-6... but I somehow doubt it...)

_

finnishfiend · Post by **finnishfiend** » Sun 07 May 2006 03:32

whoops... I just realized that I read the data wrong... they don't seem to list the n-6 information....

but let's look at it from another angle...

some eggs say they are enriched with 200 mg of n-3 fats. Nutritiondata.com and waisays (appears to be the same data) say that there is ~600 mg linoleic acid (not n-3 or n-6). So, if there is between 700-1000 mg PUFA per egg.. 100-400 mg of n-3/n-6. So if there is 200 mg n-3, then the ratio should be relatively good (maybe even favoring n-3). Then again, the total PUFA content of an enriched egg might be higher. But even so, it still seems logical that the the ratio between n-3 and n-6 fats should be good in an n-3 enriched egg. (hope I did my math right...)

_

curiousz · Post by **curiousz** » Sun 07 May 2006 05:29

thanks for the info.

Post by **Oscar** » Sun 07 May 2006 11:34

Finnishfriend is right. Apparently sources differ greatly in opinion. I found this interesting quote:

“On the Ampelistra farm in Greece, purslane is plentiful and grows wild; the chickens make a feast of it, along with insects and lots of fresh green grass, supplemented with fresh and dried figs, barley flour, and small amounts of corn. We were therefore interested in the Omega-3 fatty acid content of the eggs from these hens. As we expected, the eggs contained substantial amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids.”
The Greek egg had a Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratio of 1.3 to one whereas the “supermarket egg” had a ratio of 19.4 to one.

Source: http://texasgrassfedbeef.com/omega_3_fatty_acids.htm

Apparently it can be different per kind of egg too...

Cairidh · Post by **Cairidh** » Sun 07 May 2006 12:34

Columbus Omega 3 Eggs are 1:1
They say "normal" eggs are 14:1