Aw, thanks!

I was using the potatoes as an example. I haven't had them myself since I started Atkins about 3 years ago.

Mickie, you're makin' me cry with your tales of throwing out egg yolks! I do the opposite now - I eat the yolks and save the whites to feed back to my chickens (cooked).

Have you ever tried pastured eggs? I don't mean the "cage-free" warehouse eggs you get at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, I mean eggs from chickens that run around in the grass eating grubs and worms. Sometimes the yolks are an intense shade of orange, there's so many carotenes in them.

I don't like the flavor of those pale washed-out yolks anymore, but mostly they're just a bit bland. So it's possible pastured eggs would just be a more intense version of the flavor you don't like. But they're worth a try. Sometimes Whole Foods does have them (look for "pastured" or "grass-fed" on the label - "free range" does not cut it), but if you have access to a farmer's market, that's usually a good place to find them.

It turns out that dietary cholesterol does not raise serum cholesterol at all in the long term. It causes a brief rise after you eat it, but your body is constantly making cholesterol and what you eat has very little direct effect on it.

Some encouraging words on saturated fat: Many saturated fats are powerful antimicrobial agents that boost your immune system. Saturated fat raises your HDL. If I remember correctly, it also raises your LDL, but the limited research that has been done suggests that it might only raise the "good" LDL. The "cholesterol lowering diet" studies, which lowered saturated fat intake without altering total fat intake did not reduce the risk of heart disease. In fact, lowering cholesterol in these studies increased the risk of death by cancer and trauma!