Obesity and a high-cholesterol, high-fat diet are both well-established risk factors for atherosclerosis. In fact, obese individuals are two and a half times more likely to develop heart disease. However, the mechanistic link between obesity and atherosclerosis eludes scientists. The researchers behind this new study believe the link may be in how specific derivatives of natural emulsifiers in a Western diet alter the way that cells that line the intestines interact with gut-resident bacteria. âWe study natural emulsifiers in the diet called phospholipids. For example, if you look at salad dressing and shake it up, it is the phospholipids, or emulsifiers, that keeps the oil in globules. Those emulsifiers can get modified by specific enzymes in the intestinal cells into very potent pro-inflammatory molecules in the body.â
Using a mouse model, researchers found that on a high-fat high-cholesterol diet, the cells that line the small intestine churn out reactive phospholipids that makes the intestinal lining more susceptible to invasion by the bacteria that live in the gut. âThe normal defenses for intestinal lining cells to keep bacteria in the lumen of the intestine are reduced when they take up large amounts of cholesterol and fat. This also results in bacteria being able to come in direct contact with the cells lining your intestines called enterocytes. Without those defenses, this results in more bacterial products, like bacterial cell membranes that contain a toxin called endotoxin, getting into the bloodstream to cause inflammation.â
âPeople who are obese and people eating high-fat, high-cholesterol diets have higher levels of endotoxin in their blood. Itâs not at the level of causing sepsis, but it causes a low level of inflammation. When the cholesterol and fat come into the mix, the endotoxin kind of turns up the thermostat on inflammation and that accelerates atherosclerosis and leads to increased heart attacks and strokes.â
Thanks for this. I eat 3 egg yolks every morning, and only now I see that they are emulsifiers. I quit heavy cream because they have to add emulsifiers. Half and half works without.
Actually right now Iâm using raw milk from the goats, but thatâs another story.
Yes, I think this is a big deal.
Iâm struggling to make sense of this as there are contradictions in what is being stated.
Obesity is not a direct risk factor for heart disease. Eating eggs is not a risk factor. Sepsis requires infection. Too many contractions to take this seriously.
I donât know, maybe Iâm worried about something that is not real, but in Lustgartenâs book about (the microbial burden and what you can do about it) microbes he cites papers where they give healthy 26 year old humans LPS (endotoxin) and they get T2D. The microbial burden can come through your gut wall if it is not managed carefully. Emulsifiers get the mucous layer out of the way and let bacteria through.
What Alex is quoting up there makes sense and follows what I read.
It seems an interesting and potentially relevant argument, but we need to see the underlying paper to consider whether it is a valid thesis or not.
There is an interesting question as to why T2D is becoming more common.
I wonder about gellan gum. Itâs in my alt milk. Itâs a stabilizer, not an emulsifier.
Karpathy cited a tweet/video about choosing low-emulsifier almond milk (at least whole foods contains SOME, but NOT AS MUCH as some other brandsâŠ).
Idk, I dont care about almond milk emulsifiers that much, I need food to be filling but like **stay tf away from primal kitchen avocado salad dressing w/emulsifiers
Do whole eggs âcontain emulsifiersâ?
Yes â egg yolk is itself a powerful, natural emulsifier.
| Where the âemulsifierâ lives | Main molecules | Typical amount in one large egg (â 50 g) | What they do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yolk | âą Phosphatidylcholine (ââlecithinâ) âą Phosphatidylethanolamine |
â 1.3 g total phospholipids, of which ~ 0.8â1 g is phosphatidylcholine (â 115â170 mg choline) (PubMed Central, PubMed Central) | Amphiphilic heads + hydrophobic tails sit at the oilâwater interface, lowering surface tension and stabilising the emulsion (e.g. mayonnaise, hollandaise). (American Egg Board, MDPI) |
| White | Proteins such as ovalbumin & ovotransferrin | â | Provide some secondary emulsifying & foaming capacity, but far weaker than yolk. |
So when you crack a whole egg into salad dressing or a blender, youâre supplying the emulsifier straight from the food itselfânothing âaddedâ or synthetic.
How this differs from âadded emulsifiersâ on labels
| Natural egg-yolk lecithin | Common processed-food emulsifiers (CMC, polysorbate-80, mono- & diglycerides) |
|---|---|
| Chemical class: phospholipid exactly like those in human cell membranes. | Synthetic surfactants or modified cellulose/fats not normally eaten in bulk. |
| Dose in a dish: typically †1 % of the finished mayo/dressing. | Can reach 3â5 % of product weight in ultra-processed foods. |
| Microbiome evidence: no data linking native yolk lecithin to mucus erosion; most studies focus on large supplemental choline â TMA/TMAO, a different pathway. | CMC & polysorbate-80 repeatedly thin the mucus layer and drive dysbiosis in mice; epidemiology now probing humans. |
| Regulatory status: âwhole eggâ or âegg yolkâ on the ingredient line (nothing more). | Must appear individually on the label as emulsifiers. |
In short, eating eggs gives you lecithin in its natural matrix, accompanied by protein, cholesterol, vitamins A/D/E/K, and carotenoids. Thatâs a world apartâbiochemically and by doseâfrom purified emulsifiers sprinkled into plant-based milks or candy coatings.
Practical take-aways
- Whole eggs already are an emulsifier; nothing additional is hidden inside.
- âLecithinâ on an ingredients list usually means soy- or sunflower-derived phosphatidylcholine extracted and dried. Egg-derived lecithin exists but is costly, so the additive is almost always plant-based.
- If youâre avoiding microbiome-disrupting emulsifiers, there is no evidence you need to exclude normal culinary use of eggs. The main gut-related caution with eggs concerns high choline â higher TMAO in some people, not mucus-layer stripping.
Feel free to ask if you want more on choline/TMAO metabolism or how egg proteins contribute to foams and emulsions in baking.
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Step 1 â roughly how much emulsifier youâre actually getting
| Daily almond-milk habit | Volume | Typical gellan-gum level (0.02 â 0.03 % w/w) | Sunflower-lecithin level (order-of-magnitude estimateÂč) | Total emulsifier load |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Âœ gal (1.89 L) | 1 900 g | 0.38 â 0.57 g gellan | â 0.8 â 1.6 g lecithin | ~1.2 â 2.2 g |
| Ÿ gal (2.84 L) | 2 840 g | 0.57 â 0.85 g gellan | â 1.2 â 2.4 g lecithin | ~1.8 â 3.3 g |
ÂčBlue Diamond, Silk, Chobani, etc. list sunflower lecithin ahead of gellan, which means it occurs at slightly higher weight than gellan but still < 0.5 % of the product; 0.04 â 0.12 % is the range used in beverage R-&-D trials (Blue Diamond, PMC, Shine Additives).
Step 2 â how that compares with doses that bother the gut
| Emulsifier | Human safety/tolerance benchmark | Your maximum intake | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gellan gum (E 418) | EFSA: âno ADI neededâ; human volunteers tolerated 200 mg · kgâ»Âč dayâ»Âč for 3 weeks without issues (European Food Safety Authority) | 0.85 g Ă· 70 kg â 12 mg · kgâ»Âč dayâ»Âč | â„ 17 Ă lower |
| Xanthan / guar (if present) | EFSA: transient GI bloating above 214 mg · kgâ»Âč dayâ»Âč for 10 days (PMC) | usually < 0.1 g total | > 200 Ă lower |
| Sunflower lecithin | GRAS; typical background exposure ~55 mg · kgâ»Âč dayâ»Âč in Western diets (Oxford Academic) | 2.4 g Ă· 70 kg â 34 mg · kgâ»Âč dayâ»Âč | Within everyday range |
The human controlled-feeding trial that did show mucus-layer erosion used 15 g dayâ»Âč of carboxymethyl-cellulose (CMC) â not gellan or lecithin â for only 11 days (PMC). Your whole-day almond-milk quota delivers ~40 Ă less total emulsifier mass, and none of it is CMC or polysorbate-80, the two additives repeatedly implicated in the mouse colitis model (Nature, BioMed Central).
Step 3 â mechanistic considerations
- Gellan, xanthan & guar are high-Mw polysaccharides. They are not surfactants; they thicken the continuous (water) phase. They are minimally fermented and largely recovered intact in stool; no mucus-stripping activity has been demonstrated in vivo.
- Sunflower lecithin is a phospholipid mix. Itâs chemically similar to egg-yolk lecithin and is hydrolysed to choline + fatty acids by pancreatic phospholipase Aâ long before it reaches the colon; again, no data link dietary lecithin to barrier erosion.
- Synthetic surfactants (CMC, P80, sucrose fatty-acid esters, mono-diglycerides) can insert into micelles and bacterial envelopes; that is the class that triggers proximity of microbes to the epithelium in animal work. None of the mainstream unsweetened almond milks in the US market uses them.
Step 4 â so is œ⟠gal a day âan issueâ?
- For the microbiome? Unlikely, provided your brand is free of CMC / polysorbate-80 / carrageenan. Your gellan + lecithin dose is well below levels considered safe in human and EFSA assessments, and mechanistic concern is low.
- For nutrient balance? A bigger practical worry: drinking 2â3 L of ultra-dilute almond milk crowds out protein (1 g · cupâ»Âč) and fiber; watch total calories and micronutrients.
- Individual sensitivity exists. A minority of people in the CMC trial showed marked mucus thinning; if you have IBS/IBD and notice bloating or loose stools that track with almond-milk load, do an n = 1 trial off emulsifiers or switch to Elmhurst/MALK (no gums, no lecithin) or homemade.
How to minimise any residual risk
- Scan the ingredient list â avoid products that name carboxymethylcellulose, cellulose gum, polysorbate-80, mono- & diglycerides, or carrageenan.
- Rotate brands â spreads any additive exposure narrower and keeps the microbiome from adapting to one formulation.
- DIY option â 1 cup soaked almonds : 4 cups water + pinch salt; add ÂŒ tsp sunflower lecithin only if you hate shaking.
- Diversify fiber elsewhere â 25â30 g/day of mixed soluble & insoluble fiber (oats, psyllium, legumes, veggies) buffers whatever trace gums you ingest and feeds butyrate producers.
Bottom line: At œ⟠gallon per day youâll take in roughly 1â3 g of gellan + lecithin, a fraction of doses that raise red flags in either the toxicology or microbiome literature. Stay away from almond milks formulated with CMC or polysorbate-80 and the evidence says your gut barrier should be fine â the bigger question is whether that much low-protein milk is crowding out more nutrient-dense foods.