One egg yolk fries up more cholesterol for diners than some of the most larded fast foods ever sold, a new study published Monday says.

And Canadian egg marketers are using “propaganda” in their “Get Cracking” commercials by suggesting the products are healthy, especially for people at risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular ailments, the paper’s lead author says.

“The Hardees Monster Thickburger has 210 milligrams of cholesterol and that’s more than four days of meat for what I recommend to my patients,” says Dr. David Spence, a University of Western Ontario neurologist.

“And one large egg yolk has 275 (milligrams),” says Spence, one of the country’s top stroke researchers and the lead paper author.

That one yolk compares to a Hardees burger that delivers its cholesterol load in two one-third-pound beef paddies, three slices of cheese and four strips of bacon, he says.

The infamous Kentucky Fried Chicken Double Down, which features bacon and cheese sandwiched between two hunks of deep-fried chicken, has a mere 150 milligrams of cholesterol.

Bonnie Cohen, marketing and nutrition manager with the Egg Farmers of Canada, says it is “irresponsible” to compare eggs with junk food like the Double Down, which carries a wide variety of known nutritional hazards.

“If you look at the KFC website, the calories and fat content and sodium content just totally outweighs everything on the egg,” says Cohen, a registered dietitian.

“There’s 32 grams of fat on the Double Down sandwich and only five grams of fat in an egg.”

Cohen says most of the beneficial vitamins, like vitamins A and D, and half the protein offered by eggs are found in the yolk.

But while eggs can boast some redeeming nutritional qualities that fast foods lack, they offer nothing that can’t be obtained through less cholesterol-laden foods, Spence says.

He says even Omega-3 eggs, which are made by feeding hens flax seed, pack loads of cholesterol in their yolks.

“So better you should eat the flax seed and leave the chicken out of it,” he says.

Spence says the paper, published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, is meant to shed light on what he calls misleading advertising strategies of the country’s egg marketing boards.

He says the paper’s authors “have become concerned about the extent to which the propaganda from the egg marketers” has made the breakfast mainstays appear like a healthy choice for consumers.

“The public thinks that egg yolks are okay; they’re not,” he says.

He says marketers trot out a limited few studies that show eggs do no harm to healthy people. But that leads everyone, including people at risk for cardiovascular disease, to also assume they are fine for them, Spence says.

“When they tell you eggs are safe for healthy people, but they don’t tell you they are harmful in people at high risk, that’s a half truth,” he says.

Cohen says 30 years of research suggests eggs are not harmful for people with cardiovascular risks, but that the jury is still out on the role they may play in diabetes.

Spence, who disputes the studies, says there is no need to ditch eggs entirely and lose a main ingredient in so many recipes. He says, however, that people should separate out the yolk and use the whites alone.

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“Egg whites are fine, egg whites are a good source of protein,” Spence says.

High blood cholesterol is a key risk factor for arteriolosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. Cholesterol also amplifies the harmful effects of saturated fats.

“It’s the bacon-and-egg effect, the egg multiplies the harm from the (fatty) bacon,” Spence says.