An Egg Nutrition Symposium is underway at the Princess Hotel and Casino, reports Love FM. Representatives from the Belize Poultry Association, doctors and representatives from the Belize Agriculture Health Authority gave presentations on the nutritional benefits eggs and the fact that it is the most affordable protein in Belize.

Orlando Habet, Manager of the Belize Poultry Association, said: "The Belize Poultry Association has ventured into organizing this Table Egg Nutrition Symposium because we celebrate the World Egg Day in Belize similarly to what the other countries in the region and around the world do on the second Friday of October every year. Several countries are also doing several promotional activities and advertisements for October because most of the most of them consider October as World Egg Month.

"The primary reason is that we are trying to see if our consumers become aware and become knowledgeable about the benefits of eggs. In the late 70s and 80s, the consumption of egg all over the world went down because there was this myth on cholesterol and how it affect cardiovascular disease and the risks involved in consuming too much cholesterol.

"However, recent research over the past twenty years is showing that all this was a myth because what produces cholesterol in the body is saturated fat and very little of the diet or the cholesterol ends up in the blood stream. Many people do not know this so they still have this fad about cholesterol. So we invited medical doctors to come and do some of our presentations," he said.

Dr Cardo Martinez is a paediatrician who attended the meeting.

He told Love FM: "Egg is second to breast milk. In terms of bioavailability, which means that everything in an egg is made available for use in the body, and egg is second only to breast milk in terms of that definition. Egg has in all the building blocks that are needed to produce muscle mass and egg also has in cholesterol which is not as bad as people think because cholesterol is essential to life and finally, egg is rich in what we call LCUFAs, which are fundamental in the development of memory and cognitive development in the brain.

"If you were to compare the cost of an egg to a piece of meat of a similar weight to a piece of fish of similar weight then egg is affordable. If you look at everything else I said egg is certainly good," Dr Martinez said.

Other presenters include Dr Fernando Cuellar who spoke on the benefit of eggs for adults, and nutritionist Robin Daly, who spoke on eggs daily nutritional value. There were also presentations from Dr Michael Deshield and Dr Victor Gongora from BAHA on food safety concerns of the egg industry and the medicinal, medical and other uses of egg.