• Heart disease, cancer and diabetes risk could be cut by losing weight
• Risk reduced by avoiding inflammatory foods
• Eggs are the most nutritious foods you can eat
• Poached and hard boiled eggs had the fewest calories

Heart disease, cancer and diabetes risk could be reduced by maintaining a healthy weight and reducing inflammation - and eating enough eggs in your diet could be the key.

Despite being vilified in past decades as a cholesterol and salmonella risk, they are now a go-to brunch option thanks to their range of health benefits.

Rob Hobson, Healthspan’s head of nutrition and author of The Detox Kitchen Bible, pointed out that eggs are one of the most nutritious foods you can eat.

“As well as being rich in protein, they are one of the only foods to contain vitamin D, and are a source of nearly every vitamin and mineral you need,” he explained.

“Additionally, eggs contain the antioxidants choline and beta carotene which both reduce damage caused by free radicals and help to lower inflammation in the body.”

From poached to hard boiled and scrambled to fried, what form are eggs best consumed in?

“They are great served any which way,” explained Hobson.

“But if you are watching your weight, poaching and hard boiling are going to contain fewer calories and fat compared to scrambled or fried which are often cooked using oils, butter and cream.”

Jeraldine Curran, The Food Nutritionist (thefoodnutritionist.co.uk), also suggested consuming eggs as a frittata.

“That way you can cook it thoroughly on a low heat,” she explained.

“A low heat is particularly important with scrambled eggs which, if cooked at a high temperature, can damage the delicate oils and potentially create free radicals.”

However, eggs should always be cooked thoroughly, says to Rick Hay, nutritional therapist and nutritional director at healthista.com.

“This is to reduce risk of salmonella,” he explained.

“I would recommend boiling or poaching them to more than a soft boil or soft poach.”

But Aleksandra Vicentijevic, a nutritionist for Pure Package, suggested not going over-board on the heat to ensure you don’t lose all the nutritional benefits. 

“While it is important to destroy any dangerous bacteria, shorter cooking times, even at higher temperatures, have been shown to retain more nutrients in eggs,” she explained.

“When baking eggs, for example, studies have shown we can lose up to 60 per cent of vitamin D content. Heat could also influence their vitamin A content as well as specific antioxidants.”

She added that it’s important to cook eggs with an oil that is stable at high temperatures, like coconut oil.

Jody Middleton, a nutritionist, agrees that the oil you cook your eggs in matters a lot for health.

“Consuming heated vegetable oils has been associated with inflammation and cardiovascular disease,” she explained.

“Poached eggs and hard boiled eggs contain the same nutrition and don’t require any fat or dairy to cook them.”