How Many Calories In A Fried Egg? Are They Healthy? Find Out Here!

Everybody is always looking for ways to eat that little bit healthier without having to sacrifice their favourite food. So what about fried eggs, the comfort food of many? Do you have to give up those to be healthier?

Eggs themselves have a significant nutritional value which changes depending on how you prepare them. Typically a fried egg adds up to about 100 calories which is fairly healthy, but what you use to fry it can increase or decrease that number.

The positive nutritional value of an egg

The main appeal of eggs is their high levels of protein, with many body builders and fitness fanatics including multiple eggs in their everyday diet to boost their protein levels.

However, it is not just the protein that makes eggs a great healthy food choice. A range of vitamins provides help with your healthy eating goals as well as your physical health goals:

• Vitamin A - strengthens your bones and helps with healthy skin, preventing breakouts.
• Vitamin B2 - one of the most important vitamins to consume while you are recovering from an illness or growing as it pushes your body to repair itself. Likewise, if you are targeting muscle growth during your workouts then you need to absorb enough vitamin B2 to encourage that growth as you break and repair your muscles.
• Vitamin B12 - it is not just physical types of vitamins that eggs include but also mental with B12 allowing your mind to function to the best of its ability.
• Vitamin D - as well as being a good source of calcium, vitamin D allows your body to absorb and use other much needed vitamins or minerals so that your body can function at top capacity

There has been some concern amongst heart doctors that eggs increase your cholesterol. However, upon close inspection, it has been countered that only a quarter of all of the fat in eggs is saturable. This means that even though eggs contain a medium amount of fat, three quarters of it is a healthy fat.

Of course, this does not mean that you can go egg crazy and still eat high amounts of fat from other food sources.

If you wish to indulge and have a fried egg every day for breakfast, then much like with other healthy food you need to be considerate of what other medium or high fat foods you eat.

What is the healthiest way to fry an egg?

While a standard egg does have significant health advantages when hard boiled, frying your egg does affect the benefits as well as the calorie count.

Many weight loss organisations will encourage you to buy an air fryer so that you can still enjoy your fried food with less of the unhealthy fat that traditional frying provides.

They recommend this as when you fry an egg using a frying pan, you must add oil or butter which is high in unhealthy fat in order to stop your egg from sticking. While this may provide a desirable taste to your fried egg, it is doing no good to either your waistline or your heart.

How air fryers work means that you can skip this fattening step and enjoy the crispness of your fried egg without losing the health benefits. The same principle can be applied to tower air fryer.

The best low calorie oil to use

Having an air fryer to hand is not always an option for many people due to lack of storage space of lack of use. But this does not mean that you need to miss out on eating fried eggs.

There are other alternative, healthy cooking methods available for you to try and low calorie types of oils that you can use to reduce your added fat.

Some food experts have argued that olive oil is the healthiest oil to fry your food with due to the fatty acids naturally found in the oil. There have been significant links to the use of olive oil in cooking and the reduced risk of heart diseases due to the low levels of saturated fats.

It is for this reason that weight loss diets such as the Mediterranean diet almost exclusively includes olive oil.

Although, the issue with this type of oil is that the flavour can often overpower the flavour of the humble egg. If you are not willing to experiment with different types of olive oil flavours, then the next best solution is sunflower oil.

While there is not a lack of flavour in sunflower oil, it is certainly not as flavoursome as olive oil which can be used to your advantage as you will be able to season your egg as you wish without the interference of the oil.

If you decide for sunflower oil to be your oil of choice then it is worth noting that you will need to balance out the high levels of omega-6 with omega-3 which can be found in foods such as fish or nuts.

All that is left to do now is enjoy your healthy fried eggs on a few pieces of wholemeal toast and you have conquered the endless task of trying to balance healthy eating with comfort food.