3 easy tips for tasty egg nutrition

The simple egg is one of nature’s most versatile foods. Packed with vitamins and minerals, you can serve eggs for breakfast, lunch or dinner in a variety of ways. These tips on storage and cooking will help you get the most out of this handy food.

There’s more to eggs than sandwiches and quick meals. Here are some simple and tasty ways to add eggs to your diet:

• Keep hard-boiled eggs in the fridge for a perfect protein-rich snack.
• For lunch, have an egg salad sandwich (made with low-fat mayonnaise) on wholewheat bread. Add chopped pickles to lower the glycemic effect of the bread. Or sprinkle on some turmeric, (also good on scrambled eggs).
• Serve a frittata for dinner. You can add almost anything to your frittata, such as lean ham, diced tomato, spinach and goat cheese. Use 250 to 500 millilitres of filling for every four or five eggs.
• Prepare deviled eggs with low-fat mayonnaise, chopped pickles, chili powder or paprika and mustard powder.
• Grill some French toast for breakfast. Dip whole-wheat bread in a mixture of egg, cinnamon, vanilla and milk, then spray the skillet with oil, add the bread and cook. The protein and fat in the egg will help blunt the blood sugar impact of the bread.
• Pickle some eggs in vinegar. You get the benefit of high protein plus the blood sugar–lowering power of vinegar.

How you store your eggs has a direct effect on their freshness. Check out these tips:

• If you have an egg tray in your refrigerator door, ignore it. Eggs maintain best freshness if you keep them in their original container, ends pointed down.
• Never buy eggs sold at room temperature at the store. Eggs age more in a single day at room temperature than they do in a week when stored in the fridge.

Eating raw or undercooked eggs carries a risk of salmonella poisoning – but the risk is lower than you might think. Only about one in 20,000 eggs carries the bacteria. Don’t take any chances though. You have two options:

• Eat only thoroughly cooked eggs. This means you have to give up dishes where eggs are "over easy" and Caesar salad made with raw eggs.
• Buy pasteurized eggs, which have been warmed enough to kill any salmonella bacteria but not enough to cook the egg.

Next time you go shopping, make sure you have eggs on the list for easy dishes and store them carefully for best health. These tips will quickly set you up for including this nutrition packed food in your diet.