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Are Raw Eggs Safe To Eat? | Ask The Fitness Nerd

Is eating raw eggs healthy, or even safe? Just because Rocky did it, doesn’t mean you should be using raw eggs in your diet. 

Dear Fitness Nerd,

One of the guys at the gym recommended drinking raw eggs in place of one of my protein shakes. He said eating eggs raw, instead of cooked, is more natural and healthy and makes more of the proteins available to the body. Is there any truth to this? I’ve heard that eating raw eggs can make you sick. Who is right? Thanks - Mark (Shaker Heights, Ohio)

Great question Mark.

The whole idea that athletes, boxers and bodybuilders should drink raw eggs is one of the most persistent and enduring diet myths out there. While it certainly is true that some athletes do eat or drink raw eggs, this isn’t necessary, or even healthy. Just because someone does something, doesn’t mean it makes sense.

Eating Raw Eggs: How Did It Get Started?

The idea that eating raw eggs is a better way to build muscle or become strong goes back over a century. 

In the 1890s a fitness and nutrition guru named Bernarr Macfadden recommended eating a diet of raw eggs, coupled with whole grains and fruits. Bodybuilder Charles Atlas – father of the Dynamic-Tension training plan popularized by  ads in comic books — was a big fan of eating raw eggs, and included them in his diet recommendations. Ironically, Atlas probably picked up the idea of eating raw eggs from Macfadden, who dubbed Atlas “The World’s Post Perfectly Developed Man” in 1921. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger advocated drinking raw eggs mixed with cream when he was preparing for his first Mr. Olympia.   

However, the idea that eating raw eggs is somehow more healthy and will make you get bigger in the gym really got a boost in the PR department in 1976 when millions of people watched Rocky Balboa down pitchers-full of raw eggs while he trained to take on Apollo Creed in the the original Rocky movie.  The enduring popularity of the movie ensures that new generations of Rocky-wannabes get re-exposed to the raw egg myth nearly every weekend on cable T.V.  After all, if it worked for the Italian Stallion or Arnold, it must be a good idea, right?

Not so fast.

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Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness Juice | Healthy Food of the Day

This Nutrient-Packed Fruit and Vegetable Juice From Bolthouse Farms Tastes So Good, You’ll Forget It’s Good For You

Getting your five servings of fruits and vegetables each day shouldn’t be difficult. But sometimes it is.  Although fruit juices count toward your “Five A Day”, they can be high in fruit sugars (fructose) and often don’t have the nutritional benefits of the whole fruit (especially when it comes to fiber.) Also, many bottled fruit juices are made from concentrate and don’t even contain 100% fruit juice.

So I was intrigued when I ran across the Bolthouse Farms  line of fruit and vegetable juices at the grocery store. These 100% all natural juices had all kinds of cool names like Blue Goodness, C-Boost and my new favorite, Green Goodness. I’ve tried some of the Odwalla juices in the past and wasn’t terribly blown away, so I decided to give Bolthouse Farms a shot.

Green Is Good!

I was particularly interested in something called Green Goodness – a vegetable/fruit juice (actually it’s more like a smoothie) that had all kinds of interesting, healthy ingredients that frankly didn’t sound like they would taste very good blended up in a bottled juice. But being the healthy food adventurist that I am, I decided to spring for a bottle of Green Goodness just to see for myself. The worst that could happen, I figured, is that I’d be out a few bucks.

Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness is a blend of wheat grass, de-odorized garlic (curious as to how they do this), spirulina, spinach and blue-green algae. I told you it wasn’t going to sound very appetizing. But hang with me here. Bolthouse then adds in some pretty tasty fruit including apple, pineapple, mango puree, banana puree and kiwi juice. There’s also a bunch of exotic sounding ingredients like jerusalem artichoke, Nova Scotia dulce, dragon fruit juice, open-cell chlorella and even echinacea purpurea extract.

Oh, did I mention the broccoli and barley grass?

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