Plumster wrote:(is the egg industry behind this?? Chris Masterjohn does take money from industries, like the meat industry)
Masterjohn is a published nutrition scientist who strives mightily to explain how he arrives at his recommendations. I see no reason to impugn his motives especially since he is so transparent about his sources and reasoning.
I think Masterjohn uses eggs as a communication device to make this nutritional requirement more clear. In his own words:
As with biotin, the best sources of choline are liver and egg yolks. Since eggs are so much more popular than liver, let's talk about the choline requirement in terms of "egg yolk equivalents."
I find the rhetorical device to be helpful. According to Masterjohn's research into choline's interactions with the methylation cycle, Jmac's genetic makeup requires 8 egg yolk equivalents daily. That's 1,100 mg of choline. If we convert the top source on the list Plumster linked, we can see that 12 cups (7,016 kcal) of buckwheat groats also provides 1,100 mg of choline. Too many calories? Instead, we could consume 127 Swiss chard leafs at only 1,159 kcal. 17 cups (973 kcal) of Brussels sprouts or 23 cups (626 kcal) of cauliflower would also do the trick.
I think Masterjohn's point is that most people grossly underestimate what is required to get enough choline to stave off fatty liver, insulin resistance, hyperhomocysteinemia, and the resulting cascade of chronic disease. Simply eyeballing a list of foods containing choline and trying to eat more of them is unlikely to work - we actually need to do some calculations to give us a feel for the magnitude of this requirement.
