How Much Protein is in an Egg?

By John Barban

Eggs are an excellent source of protein and relatively cheap too. They have a very high biological value and a full complement of essential and non-essential amino acids. In short, if you wanted a complete and easy to absorb protein source look no further than eggs.

With that said there are a few considerations you might want to make when buying and preparing eggs. First of all some of the protein in an egg is found in the yolk, so if you separate your whites and discard the yolk you will also be lowering the protein content of each egg you purchased and therefore increasing the price per gram of protein.

Second point is that eggs come in different sizes, and therefore the amount of protein they contain is different. For example the US department of agriculture categorizes eggs as small, medium, large, extra large, and jumbo. Each size has a different amount of protein as follows:

Size of Egg Grams of Protein Grams of Protein

(whole egg including yolk) (White Only)

Small 4.8 2.7

Medium 5.5 3.2

Large 6.3 3.6

Extra Large 7 4

Jumbo 7.9 4.6



As you can see about 58% of the protein in an egg is contained in the white, the rest is in the yolk. So if you like to separate the yolk out of your egg you're losing 42% of the protein in each egg. This is not very cost effective if you're eating eggs for their protein content. Every time you throw away a yolk you're literally throwing away almost half the protein in the egg as well.

The yolk of an egg provides lots of nutrients that your body needs, there is no reason to throw it away. The cholesterol and fat content of the yolk will only contribute a small portion to your overall daily intake with no detrimental effects.

Scrambled, poached, sunny side up, omelet, over easy, over hard, Benedict, whatever. Eggs are a great way to get your protein requirement for the day.

For the most up to date answer on the question of how much protein you need per day to build muscle check out the aptly named book How Much Protein.

John Barban is the author of the trademarked workout for ideal male proportions called The Adonis Index.

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