Cholesterol in Food – Good or Bad?
I’ve been asked this question several times and want to take a moment to explain how the cholesterol found in foods relates to your blood cholesterol levels.
Dietary Cholesterol
Cholesterol is found in animal products, such as cheese, steak, and eggs. You will not find cholesterol from plant sources. The cholesterol in foods is simply “dietary cholesterol”. It is neither “good” nor “bad”. When you consume a food containing cholesterol the different components of the food are processed by the body. The liver packages the dietary cholesterol into low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. This is where the labels “good” and “bad” come into play. (FYI – There are other packages, such as very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) cholesterol, but for simplicity we’ll stick with LDL and HDL.)
