Egg whites

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Nutritional Properties

The egg white, due to its nutritional characteristics, is an important food for the human diet.

Unlike the yolk, the albumen is practically free of fat and cholesterol; for this reason it is also suitable for those suffering from hypercholesterolemia or gall bladder cancer.

Egg white is in fact mainly composed of water and protein. Inside there are also mineral salts (magnesium, sodium and potassium), B vitamins, and glucides (especially glucose).

	% Whole egg	% Water	% Proteins	% Lipids	% Glucides	% Minerals	Kcal
Shell	8, 5-10, 5	1	4	-	-	95	-
Egg white	60-66	87-89	10.7	-	0.4-0.5	0.5-0.7	43
Yolk	24-30	46.5 to 48.5	15.8	29.1	0.15-0.25	1.1 to 1.6	325
Egg white + Yolk	90-92	74-76	12.4	8.7	0.3-0.4	0, 8-1	128

Its nutritional composition makes it a precious food also for athletes. It is not by chance that many products based on egg whites are found on the market (protein paste, bars, egg proteins, etc.).

	Egg (100 g)	Egg white (100 g)	Yolk (100 g)
Protein	12.4	10.7	15.8
Lysine	880	725	1250
Histidine	298	235	394
Arginine	767	603	1103
Aspartic acid	1209	1060	1524
threonine	623	500	826
Serina	842	702	1170
Glutamic acid	1508	1329	1885
Proline	496	417	685
Glycine	419	371	490
Alanine	719	659	878
cystine	323	312	328
Valine	823	732	993
Methionine	437	422	422
isoleucine	657	572	842
Leucine	1041	862	1347
Tyrosine	503	448	663
Phenylalanine	662	626	707
Tryptophan	197	171	237

Digestibility and Avidina

Egg white, unlike many other foods, including yolk, has poor digestibility in the raw state. Cooking, by coagulating proteins, facilitates the action of digestive enzymes and neutralizes avidin, a protein that binds vitamin H (biotin), preventing intestinal absorption.

For the yolk proteins the opposite is true: if eaten raw they are well digested, while if they are overcooked they are difficult to digest.

However, cooking or pasteurizing eggs is essential to remove the danger of infections (salmonellosis in the first place). Inside the albumen there are in fact proteins with an antiseptic action, such as lysozyme, whose bactericidal function fades as the egg ages.

PROTEIN CONTENT OF EGG'S ALBUME
Protein	%	Function
Egg albumin	54	Nourishing, coagulant, it blocks digestive enzymes
conalbumin	13	Coagulating power and iron fixation and flavoprotein
ovomucoid	11	It blocks digestive enzymes, in particular trypsin
Ovoglobulina	8	Rising power (foaming)
Lysozyme	3.5	Digests the bacterial wall, rising power
Ovomucina	1.5	Responsible for dense albumen, stabilizes the foam, antiviral action
flavoprotein	0.8	Binds and transports riboflavin from blood to egg
avidin	0.05	Binds biotin by preventing intestinal absorption
Other proteins	8.15

The protein composition of the albumen can cause allergic manifestations in children, which is why it should be introduced gradually into the infant's diet.