How Eggs Benefit The Skin + 4 Delicious Breakfast Dish Ideas

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While people tend to switch up their go-to dinner menus, it’s common to opt for a similar, if not the exact same, breakfast each morning. For some, this repetition may be due to a lack of time in the early hours of the day; for others, a consistent meal may serve as an enjoyable ritual (hey, we love a solid morning routine!). 

Everybody has their own taste preferences, but one popular daily breakfast item has a lengthy list of benefits, one of which is particularly skin-loving. Below, we’ll dive into what makes this breakfast food so powerful and why it’s an adaptable pick for healthy, youthful-looking skin.

See, eggs contain a hefty dose of high-quality protein, and the amino acids that make up this protein are particularly beneficial for skin health. 

“Eggs, specifically the whites, contain a good amount of glycine and proline amino acids, which is what makes up collagen,” board-certified dermatologist Whitney Bowe, M.D., once told mbg. So if you’re looking to maintain balanced collagen production (and healthy, supple skin as a result), you should pay special attention to those star amino acids. 

Maintaining healthy collagen production in the skin is especially important for anyone in or past their mid-20s, as your natural production begins to slowly decline with age from that point on. And while you can always opt for hydrolyzed collagen peptides to help promote your body’s natural production of collagen, grocery staples like eggs are a great way to support those levels, too.* (And if you can’t tolerate eggs, don’t worry: There are plenty of other tasty and nutritious foods that support collagen production.)

Bowe specifically touts egg whites, but we can’t ignore the benefits of the yolk, too. After all, as brain health expert Max Lugavere once said on the mindbodygreen podcast: “I actually think it’s really useful to have whole eggs as well as pure egg whites.” Specifically, eggs are rich in choline, the precursor chemical for acetylcholine, one of the most fundamental neurotransmitters.

But the best part about this breakfast item? You can add it to countless breakfast recipes, if you are one to switch up your morning dish. Here are a few of our favorite ways to incorporate eggs in the morning: 

• Add a cooked egg into your oatmeal for a protein boost
• Scramble an egg or two with greens like spinach, kale, or arugula 
• Top off a slice of avocado toast with a poached egg
• Make them the center of your meal—like this harissa egg dish