You may want to rethink your salad ingredients!
According to a study from Purdue University, adding whole eggs to a colorful salad can increase the amount of Vitamin E your body absorbs from the veggies.
This finding is important because, for the average American, vitamin E is the second-most under-consumed nutrient.
Known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, this nutrient is usually absorbed along with dietary fats and is typically found in oils, seeds, and nuts.
Eggs, a powerhouse of nutrition that contains essential amino acids, unsaturated fatty acids, B vitamins, and even a bit of Vitamin E, now prove to play an important role in boosting Vitamin E absorption.
In the study, researchers observed how much total Vitamin E was absorbed when foods containing it were eaten with whole eggs. Sixteen participants were asked to eat a raw mixed-vegetable salad with three different conditions: no eggs, one and a half eggs, and three eggs.
All salads were served with a bit of canola oil, and the eggs were served scrambled to ensure the whole egg was eaten.
The results were pretty clear – Vitamin E absorption was 4 to 7 times higher when three whole eggs were added to a salad. This is a pretty neat trick to increase the absorption of Vitamin E found in foods with low dietary fat.
The study is special because it looked at the absorption of Vitamin E from real foods, not supplements that often have very high doses of Vitamin E. This research also highlights how the nutritional value of one food can be improved when eaten with another.
The research, published in The Journal of Nutrition, was supported by the American Egg Board’s Egg Nutrition Center, National Institutes of Health, and Purdue Ingestive Behavior Research Center.
Citation for the curious: Kim JE, et al. (2016). Egg Consumption Increases Vitamin E Absorption from Co-Consumed Raw Mixed Vegetables in Healthy Young Men. The Journal of Nutrition, published online. DOI: 10.3945/ jn.116.236307.
