The egg has spent the last fifty years in nutritional ping-pong. First it was the perfect food. Then we discovered cholesterol and the yolk became suspect. Then it returned as the protein hero of breakfast. The truth refuses to fit in a thumbnail.
One large egg does contain a significant amount of cholesterol. That is not a myth. But the cholesterol we eat and the cholesterol measured in our blood are not the same thing.
The body produces cholesterol itself because it is needed for cell membranes, hormones and other functions. When dietary cholesterol intake changes, the body can partly adjust its own production and absorption. In some people the response to dietary cholesterol is larger; in others, smaller. At the same time, LDL cholesterol is influenced by overall diet, genetics, body weight, physical activity and especially the composition of dietary fats.
This is why the old equation — egg contains cholesterol = egg raises cholesterol = egg causes heart attack — is too simple. But neither is the new internet equation — dietary cholesterol doesn't matter = eat as many as you like — particularly clever.
Contemporary reviews of the literature present a fairly nuanced picture. A large umbrella review published in 2025 found that the quality of evidence for many reported associations between eggs and health outcomes is low or very low, with substantial heterogeneity between studies. Some meta-analyses find small increases in LDL in intervention studies or modest associations with certain outcomes, while others find no significant increase in cardiovascular risk at moderate consumption.
In other words: there is no good reason for a healthy person to treat an egg like a cigarette. But there is equally no need to make a religion out of six yolks for breakfast.
Context matters especially because people do not eat "one egg" in a vacuum. Eggs can come alongside vegetables, avocado and bread. They can also come with large quantities of processed meat, butter and other sources of saturated fat. When an observational study asks how many eggs someone eats, it is very difficult to cleanly separate the egg from the entire dietary pattern that surrounds it.
This is one reason why recommendations today focus more on overall dietary pattern than on one magic threshold that applies to everyone.
Eggs also have very practical qualities. They provide complete protein, vitamin B12, choline, selenium and other micronutrients. The yolk is not a redundant yellow addition to the white; a large portion of those micronutrients is precisely there. If we eat only egg whites to avoid every molecule of cholesterol, we also remove part of what makes an egg nutritionally interesting.
So how many eggs can we eat?
The least exciting answer is also the most honest one: there is no single number that is optimal for everyone.
For most healthy people, moderate egg consumption can quite normally be part of a high-quality diet. If you have markedly elevated LDL, familial hypercholesterolaemia, diabetes or high cardiovascular risk, the individual picture becomes more important — and there is little sense in taking advice from a brunch menu rather than a doctor.
For everyone else, it is probably more useful to look at what is beside the egg. If the plate holds vegetables, avocado, good bread and other whole ingredients, the question "is this second egg too much?" may not be the most important nutritional question of that day.
At VERA we love eggs for a considerably less dramatic reason: they taste good, they are versatile, they give breakfast its protein, and they work with almost everything we like to put alongside them.
Sometimes food is simply good food. It does not need to be a hero, then a villain, then a hero again before we are allowed to eat it.
Try it at VERA — specialty café and wellness bistro, Nikole Spasića 4, Stari Grad, Belgrade.
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