Namaste,
I know that in yoga it is said that you should avoid eating eggs.
Does anyone know why?
I know Swami Sivananda wrote in his brahmacharya book to avoid eggs and Swami Satyananda Saraswati wrote something about eggs being bad for liver or kidney (dont remember which exactly), but does anyone know anything else?
The reason I am asking is because in the The Fountain of Youth (the book which brought out the 5 Tibetan rites to the world), the Tibetan Lamas told the author to eat one egg yoke a day, since an egg yoke has most of the substances that make the brain function correctly. I started doing this and did notice I could think better and clearer. After a week or so I stopped eating eggs because I got scared they might be slowing down my sadhana “progress”. This was done out of fear and not because I noticed any changes in my sadhana.
Now I am thinking about starting to eat the raw egg yoke once a day again.
I would appreciate any information anyone can provide as to what the scriptures or your experience suggest.
Take care,
svarupa
I eat eggs, Its a matter of personal preference. Not good to be toooo fussy about diet imo
I eat eggs almost every day.
Victor is correct … Eat what makes your body happy.
I also like the concept of eating eggs…eggs are the beginning of life…
Unless you believe the chicken came before the egg…which seems illogical to me.
Eggs are considered as a Tamasic type food in Indian scriptures,
In Egypt Eggs were referred to as liquid flesh
I myself have no problem staying away from them as I find they smell obnoxious when cooking them and smell up your house, my daughter loves them though 
Eggs actually contain 8 times more cholesterol than meat! Traditionally, in scientific studies on humans, eggs have been used as the source to demonstrate the adverse effects of cholesterol on our health & our heart arteries. Eggs provide 6-20 times more protein than we need which is BAD news for our liver & kidneys.
Protein is only bad for the liver and kidneys if your entire diet is high in protein. So the diets for losing weight by eating almost all protein work, but are bad for you. Just balance it out with veggies.
Cholesterol is a complicated and widely misunderstood subject. There is good and bad cholesterol, and new research is indicating that even those divisions are not correct. Every cell in our bodies use cholesterol, it accumulates on the surface of our skin, and when the sun hits it, vitamin D is produced. People who take cholesterol lowering drugs get a vitamin D shortage.
We would die without it. Eggs have cholesterol, but also lecithin, which helps in digesting cholesterol.
So as usual, moderation is the key. It is best to keep the amount of all animal products low compared to the vegetable products we eat.
I don’t eat animal products at all, I have been vegetarian since I was 16 (now 57 vegan) I have tried going back several times in the past and I basically get sick, a dead animal decomposing in my stomach does not set right with me or any spiritual practices I do.
I personally do not believe humans are carnivores or we all cavemen in the past,
Namaste all,
Thanks everyone for responding.
I wonder if the tamastic part of the egg is actually the protein since it gives the kidney some work to do. I was going to skip the whites and just eat the yoke.
Yogesh do you by any chance remember which scripture this is from? Not that I do not believe you, but wondering if there is more information in that scripture I could use.
Take care,
svarupa
No, humans are not carnivores, we are omnivores. If you can be healthy without meat, it is good. Some people like me, need at least some meat to be healthy. Different people need different diets. You are right Yogesh, meat decomposing in your system is not good. That’s why we need a lot of veggies, especially raw ones to keep our systems cleared out.
You will find mention in Hatha Yoga Pradipika in Chapter 2 verses 60,61. for starters
I actually do just the opposite because the yolk is where a lot of the cholesterol is.
The yolk is also where the lecithin is. I was wrong about it helping digestion; just the opposite, it restricts the absorption of the cholesterol. You will still get some, but not most of the cholestrol from eating a yolk. here’s the story:
http://www.unisci.com/stories/20014/1029013.htm
All I would say is eat in moderation and dont try to avoid them completely unless you are fine with it(i meant the forced dieting)
Self-pacing is wise.
If you skip eggs totally, remember to eat omega fat acids from algae and lecitin from organic buckwheat (soy lecitin is increasingly argued upon, especially when made of convetionally grown soy, but even the organic brands to some extent - it’s just an extract, omitting some other important ingredients).
Here’s an article about how vegans usually have a vitamin B12 deficiency, and why eating plant based B12 sometimes makes it worse:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/02/15/how-to-avoid-the-most-dangerous-side-effect-of-veganism.aspx?e_cid=20120215_DNL_art_1
usually the yogi diet is lacto vegeratian and not vegan…so one can eat diary products (cheese-milk- yogurt…here in Lebanon we also have Labneh,which can be found now also in US and Europe in groceries shops owned by arab immigrants…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strained_yoghurt
all diary is rich in B12…and one can still avoid eggs …but off course extreme behavior like not eating a cake beacuse it contains eggs is something that i dont do…you can send me all kinds of cakes
Yes, dairy products give you B12. For anyone who didn’t read the article, plants that have B12 usually have B12 analog that blocks the body from absorbing real B12. Also, the body stores large reserves of B12, so you may be able to go 7 to 15 years without B12 before you start to notice the debilitating effects.
So you can take supplements, but read about them because B12 is not easily absorbed as it is a large molecule. Also as you age, you absorb less B12 because stomach acid is necessary and declines, and also a protein intrinsic factor is produced less. Some companies have produced a sub lingual spray B12 with a reduced molecule size that is directly absorbed.
Thanks Ether - interesting. Fortunately, I’m not young, so Swedish doctors love to test my body liquids over and over, and my B12 level in blood has always been fine despite very small doses of supplements. The media here have warned for many kinds of supplements containing horse doses , like 800% of recommended daily allowance, which impairs the body’s ability to extract those nutrients the normal way, from food, and also creates disproportions between for example, different B-vitamins (I remember Mercola mentioned that much earlier, in some of his articles).
Maheshwari, I’m afraid lack of egg nutrition might take me into egg bulimia and make my Shakti bake a mazy, extremely unhealth-food Swedish “Crown cake” of mostly eggs and a little potatoes, almonds, and sugar 
… So I better self-pace instead, at about 1 egg a week, wholy organic, from lucky hens 
and hope the late Swami Sivananda’s spirit looks the other way as for my sins (an egg here and there, onion, peppers, and loads of garlic…)
i will stick to …chocolate eggs
Besides karmic reasons, cooked eggs need a long time to digest and till then the energy flow is blocked to some degree in the stomach area. With decreased metabolism due to lots of no mind any food that needs a lot of energy and time to digest will not be optimal. Any food that is easily digested and that gives your body what it needs, is optimal.
These dietery recommendations are of temporary nature and become more important in mid to later stages of practice and depend a lot on the intesity of the practice too.
So as a hint, when the system can’t handle dense food, lighten it up and it will be fine.