93% of Americans Are Deficient in This Nutrient, Here's How to Fix it

Despite urging from supplement companies to buy their vitamin and mineral products, a true nutritional deficiency for someone in a developed country is somewhat rare. Even if you don't have a ton of diversity in your diet, there is so much overlap with nutrients among common food sources that you'd be able to get by.

There is, however, one exception.

Choline is an essential nutrient that the body needs to build cell membranes, remove fat from the liver, and create acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter for the brain.

Believe it or not, only 6.6% of U.S. adults meet the recommended daily intake for choline. In a controlled study where researchers deliberately fed 57 healthy adults a low-choline diet for up to 42 days, 77% of men developed fatty liver or muscle damage.

Another problem is that it can be challenging to get adequate choline in your diet. Unless you are regularly eating beef liver, the best source of choline is whole eggs.

Pound-for-pound, eggs are the best reasonable source of choline. One whole egg has more choline than 3 oz. of lean beef.

Unfortunately, there is still a stigma around whole eggs. People are frightened by the cholesterol content, even though it's been shown that dietary cholesterol has a minimal effect on blood cholesterol. Regardless, nutrition myths die hard.

Overall, eggs are one of the most nutritionally dense foods out there. A single large egg delivers high-quality complete protein, vitamin D, B12, selenium, and roughly a quarter of your daily choline needs. If you were designing a supplement specifically to address choline deficiency, you'd essentially be designing an egg in a capsule.

Without eggs, hitting the recommended 425–550 mg/day of choline would require deliberate, unusual dietary choices (organ meats, significant fish intake, careful legume planning). Most people simply don't do that.

You probably don't need to stress about most nutritional gaps in your diet. With a solid diet, most of it takes care of itself. But choline is the rare case where the deficiency is real, the consequences are documented, and the fix is sitting in your refrigerator. Eat the whole egg.

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This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 7:16 PM.