Belovo presents Columbus®, The Heart’s Choice

To produce Columbus Eggs we have gone back to the type of diet that the modern hen’s ancestors would have eaten in the wild, composed mainly of seeds and green leaves.
Our unique, totally vegetarian diet, produces eggs with all the expected nutritional benefits - rich in protein, vitamins and minerals - but also with a perfectly balanced and healthy composition of fats.

Table 1. Schematic of the relative contribution of different dietary fatty acids (saturated fatty acids, w6 and w3 polyunsaturated fatty acids) to the human diet some 4 millions years ago and possible changes subsequent to modern agriculture and industrial food processing, involving fattening of animal husbandry and hydrogenation of fatty acids (adapted from Leaf, A., Weber, P.C. (1987) Am. J.Clin. Nutr., 45(suppl.), 1048-53).

How can fat be healthy ?

It is well known that saturated fats are bad for us and polyunsaturated fats good, what is less well known is that of the two types of polyunsaturated fats, omega-6 (w6) and omega-3 (w3), we eat plenty of w6 and not enough of w3, when in fact they should balance.  Columbus Eggs contain twice as much polyunsaturated fats as standard eggs and have an exact balance of w6 and w3.
Scientific trials have shown that one can eat as many as two or three Columbus Eggs a day without increasing one’s cholesterol level whilst actually reducing the amount of fat circulating in one’s blood.
There is more good news - Columbus are not only healthier eggs, their light taste and texture is absolutely delicious - a discovery in itself.

Discover The New World of Healthier Eggs

The relative amount of saturated fatty acids in chicken eggs is a constant of about 30-35%, whatever the type of  feed the chickens are given.  On the other hand, the concentrations of mono- and poly-unsaturated fatty acids are mutually competing and dependent upon the feed composition.
The standard egg contains much monounsaturated (M = 55%) and relatively few polyunsaturated (P = 15%) fats, together with a high w6:w3 ratio (> 20) (table 2).  These figures result from modern feed habits based on animal and vegetable fats of almost exclusively the Omega-6 type.

 Table 2. w6-containing vegetable oils and standard eggs

(% of triglycerides)

Standard eggs belong to the major family of w6-rich dietary vegetable fats and oils showing trace amounts (< 1%) of w3 fatty acids.  The corresponding w6:w3 ratio of a diet whose fat contribution is mainly composed of these food ingredients is high to very high and in total contrast with the balanced (1:1) ratio upon which the human biology was initially determined (Table 1). Epidemiological and scientific studies have accumulated evidence of a potential correlation between long term imbalance in the dietary w6:w3 ratio and the appearance of certain chronic diseases characteristic of our society, including cardiovascular, inflammatory and auto-immune diseases.
Through an appropriate feeding of the chicken, it is feasible to readjust the w6:w3 ratio in eggs so that they present a balanced fatty acid composition comparable to the original ‘wild-type food’ available to early man.  As a lipid source, Columbus thus belongs to the minor family of w3-rich fats and oils and lies in between those from vegetable and fresh water fish origins (table 3). 

Table 3. w3-containing vegetable and fish oils and Columbus

(% of triglycerides)

Source: The Lipid Handbook, 2^nded, 1994, Chapman & Hall.

Some green-leaf vegetables (spinach,...) also contain w3-rich lipids but their contribution to the total dietary energy intake is usually small.  Columbus eggs and river fish deliver a minimum of 70% unsaturated fatty acids (the healthy one), equal amounts of both w6 and w3 PUFA (w6:w3 = 1:1) and non-negligible amounts of animal-derived w3 LC-PUFA in a favourable ratio (w6:w3 = 0.3:1)(table 4).

Table 4. PUFA and LC-PUFA in Columbus egg and wild-river fish

w3 LC-PUFA (DHA, EPA) required by the body is usually synthesised in vivo from w3 PUFA (a-LnA).  However, the overwhelmingly high w6:w3 ratio of the modern human diet almost precludes the biological synthesis of these important biological fatty acids, so that it is generally recommended to absorb some w3 LC-PUFA directly from food (river and marine fish).

In terms of concentration, river and sea fishes contain higher levels (about 5 times more) of w3 LC-PUFA than Columbus eggs.  However, and importantly, their bio-availability is inferior, for they are attached to triglycerides, whilst in eggs w3 LC-PUFA are exclusively associated with phospholipids.  Absorption in the intestine of long chain triglycerides from fish is not easy, owing to their tendency to form undispersed globules which are difficult to digest.

Furthermore, the physiological benefits of w3 LC-PUFA from fish may also be impaired through their partial presence at position sn-2 of triglycerides (insensitive to pancreatic 1,3-lipase), their absorption as monoglycerides and their dilution in the adipose tissue (Megremis, 1991).  In contrast, w3 LC-PUFA from eggs are exclusively present at position sn-2 of highly dispersed phospholipids and are thus efficiently released as free fatty acids in the gut by pancreatic 2-phospholipase.

- Megremis, C.J. (1991) Medium-Chain Triglycerides : A Nonconventional Fat, Food Technology, February, 108, 110 & 114.

Consumption of Columbus-type eggs and improvement of plasma lipid balance in human subjects

In a series of trials (Jiang & Sim, 1993, 1994) where healthy volunteers were asked to consume 2 to 3 eggs a day for a minimum of 2 weeks and a maximum of 30 days, the following observations were made :

(a)  subjects fed Columbus-type eggs equivalent had unchanged total cholesterol levels after 18 days and in fact reduced levels (-5.3%) after 30 days - both HDL/cholesterol and HDL/LDL ratios tended to increase.  Their mean plasma triglyceride levels decreased by 9.1% after 30 days of consumption of Columbus type eggs,
(b)  those who consumed regular eggs showed increasing plasma total cholesterol levels (+2.5% after 2 weeks, +5.1% after 18 days) - both HDL/cholesterol and HDL/LDL ratios tended to decrease.  Their mean plasma triglyceride levels were not significantly affected.

This study demonstrates that the consumption of Columbus eggs reduces plasma lipids, particularly plasma triglycerides.  In addition, it shows that dietary fats affect cholesterol metabolism with the harmonious fatty acid composition of Columbus (P:S = 1:1 and w6:w3 = 1:1) having a stabilising effect on total cholesterol plasma levels in human and a positive influence on its distribution between HDL- and LDL-cholesterol.
To our knowledge, this is the first time that the consumption of eggs (at a constant rate of two eggs per day for an extended period) has been scientifically shown to improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels in humans.

-          Z. Jiang and J.S. Sim Consumption of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid-enriched eggs and changes in plasma lipids of human subjects, Nutrition, 9, 513-518.

-          J.S. Sim and Z. Jiang Consumption of w3 PUFA enriched eggs and changes of plasma lipids in human subjects, Egg uses and processing technologies, Ch. 34, 414-420, CAB Intl.