Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Quick Tip: another use for Egg Whites

I'm always looking for low-calorie protein sources, and egg whites give a great protein bang for their caloric buck. But I am really unenthusiastic about scrambled egg whites. I'm also typically not hungry in the morning and find it difficult to eat...but if I don't, I become ravenous by lunch time and I don't like the helpless feeling I get when I'm out in public and suddenly intensely hungry. This feeling leads me to pizza!

So I find that a nice, light-tasting and refreshing smoothie goes down very easily and keeps me fueled for the first half of the day. One thing I've taken to doing lately is adding egg whites (uncooked) to my smoothie to give it a low-cal protein boost. I use Trader Joe's egg whites, which are pasteurized--and that means they are safe to eat uncooked. Here's the recipe:

  1. 1 cup nonfat yogurt
  2. 1 cup blueberries
  3. 1 cup egg whites
  4. 1 tsp flax oil
  5. 1 tsp cinnamon
  6. optional: one scoop whey protein

You could easily scale down this recipe to fit your caloric and protein requirements.

Banish from your mind the "ewww, gross" factor of raw egg whites. They aren't snotty-textured or gooey or stringy or anything. They are basically a flavorless liquid that completely disappears in the smoothie (actually, they improve the texture and taste in my opinion).

But think twice before you use fresh raw egg whites--there is some risk of microbes.

1 comment:

Hazel said...

Raw egg white inhibits biotin absorption. So I would imagine that a full cup of raw egg white could be way to much- biotin is important.

Keep up the good blogging and CRONing- you're a great support.