Egg Yolk as Means for Providing Essential and Beneficial Fatty Acids

The new American Dietary Guidelines now recommend optimizing the types of fat consumed instead of reducing or eliminating fat from the diet. Chicken eggs are a means to deliver essential and beneficial human dietary fatty acids (FA), and can be staple component of healthy eating behavior. Additionally, polyunsaturated fatty acids can be increased in the avian egg yolk by simply incorporating selected lipid sources into the avian diet. Poultry feed rich in omega‐3 FA (omega‐3) has allowed commercialization of enriched eggs containing up to 600 mg of omega‐3. Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has also been used in the research setting to enrich eggs to provide a portion of the 3–4 g CLA day^?1 needed to promote weight loss to combat obesity. However, Americans consume only 50% of the omega‐3 recommended adequate intake, and average CLA consumption is under 600 mg day^?1. While a variety of foods are naturally rich in omega‐3, conventional sources of CLA are limited to bovine milk and meat, which do not provide enough CLA to produce clinical effects in a balanced diet. Since eggs and egg‐based products are common in the Western diet, eggs enriched with both omega‐3 and CLA using dietary additions to poultry feed may promote consumption of the recommended levels of these FA. This article reviews the design of poultry eggs with enhanced lipid profiles through dietary intervention, and discusses the future direction of enriched egg research.