Egg Whites
Food · Protein · Food, Typed Supps
Egg whites are almost pure protein with barely any fat or calories, but you should always cook them first.
Stage by stage
- Chewing & Moistening (Mouth): Chewing breaks the cooked egg white into smaller pieces while saliva starts moistening the dense protein for digestion.
- Acid Denaturation (Stomach): Stomach acid and pepsin unfold the egg white's globular proteins, exposing peptide bonds so they can be cut into smaller fragments.
- Amino Acid Absorption (Small intestine): Pancreatic and intestinal enzymes break those fragments down into individual amino acids and small peptides, which are absorbed through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream.
- Muscle Protein Synthesis (Muscle tissue): Circulating amino acids, especially leucine, are taken up by muscle and other tissues to support protein synthesis and repair.
Timing
Egg whites work at any meal, but cooking them fully before eating matters far more than timing for both safety and how much protein you actually absorb.
Time to effect
- Hours: After cooked egg white is eaten, amino acids begin entering the bloodstream within roughly 1 to 3 hours and continue supporting muscle protein synthesis for several hours afterward.
Allergens
Contains: Eggs. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.
Eating patterns
Fits: Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Keto, Low-FODMAP, Gluten-free.
Satiety
231 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — very high. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.
Environmental footprint
4.7 kg CO2e and 578 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Eggs" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.
Cost band
Mid — roughly £4.5 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.
Key nutrients
Nutrition per 100g
- Calories: 48.8
- Protein: 11.6g
- Carbohydrate: 0.4g
- of which sugars: 0.4g
- Fat: 0g
- of which saturated: 0g
- Fibre: 0g
- Sodium: 175mg
Food vs. supplement
Whole egg whites deliver a complete, high-quality protein along with riboflavin, selenium, and potassium in a low-calorie, virtually fat-free package, while isolated egg white protein powders offer a more concentrated, portable dose but strip away that surrounding food matrix and satiety.
Kitchen tip
Cook egg whites fully (scrambled, boiled, or poached until opaque, never runny) rather than eating them raw, for both food safety and nearly double the usable protein.
Common myth
Drinking raw egg whites, like Rocky Balboa chugging them for breakfast, is a pure, efficient way to get protein for building muscle. In reality: A controlled human digestibility study using stable-isotope tracers found the body absorbs only about 51% of the protein in raw egg white versus roughly 91% when it's cooked, so cooking effectively doubles the usable protein; cooking also destroys avidin, the raw egg white protein that otherwise binds biotin and blocks its absorption, and eliminates the Salmonella risk of raw egg.
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