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Health Benefits of Poultry and Eggs
Although meat often gets a bad rap in epidemiological studies, poultry generally appears safe and possibly slightly protective against some diseases!
In a 2009 prospective study of over half a million people, white meat intake (including all forms of unprocessed poultry and fish) was inversely associated with total mortality, death from cancer, and death from all other causes in both women and men. Likewise, the high protein content of chicken can help maintain lean body mass and increase satiation, supporting a healthy body weight.
Poultry is one of the most concentrated food sources of easily-digested complete protein and is a good source of many other nutrients. For example, chicken is a great source of phosphorus, selenium, zinc, B vitamins, coQ10, taurine, carnosine, and creatine.
Eggs are one of the most hotly debated animal foods in terms of their health effects because, for decades, research has given us conflicting results on the association between eggs and heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and other health outcomes. You’ve probably noticed the news headlines flip-flopping between “eggs are safe” and “eggs are as bad as cigarettes”! Overall, research shows that eggs have a fairly neutral effect on our health. A recent overview of 29 different systematic reviews showed that eating eggs causes:
- no effect on risk of colorectal adenomas, bladder cancer, prostate cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and brain cancer.
- a slightly increased risk of heart failure, GI neoplasms, and ovarian cancer,
- a decreased risk of hypertension and stroke
And, there’s so much conflicting data on diabetes, breast cancer, cardiovascular diseases and upper aero-digestive tract cancers, that we can’t yet draw any conclusions.
Overall, eggs are nutrient-dense sources of highly-digestible complete protein and the risk of harm purported in the media is not supported by the scientific literature.
Examples of Poultry and Eggs
- chicken
- dove
- duck
- eggs (chicken, duck, goose, quail, and so on)
- emu
- goose
- grouse
- guinea hen
- ostrich
- partridge
- pheasant
- pigeon
- quail
- turkey
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Citations
Expand to see all scientific references for this article.
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