Egg yolk value and new uses from its components
What it found
Egg yolk is underused because of negative perceptions, but its proteins and fats can be separated and turned into useful food and health products.
This is a review of current uses and future directions.
What they found
Current egg yolk use
Egg yolk is mainly a co-product of dried egg white and has low demand because of negative perceptions.
New commodity products
Fractionating egg yolk can create new commodity products for various food processing uses.
Functional proteins and lipids
Separating functional proteins and lipids from yolk can provide ingredients for food, drugs, supplements, and cosmetics.
Functional peptides and lipids
The separated proteins and lipids can be further developed into functional peptides and functional lipids for pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and cosmeceutical uses.
Scale-up production
Developing scale-up production methods is vital for practical applications of egg yolk components.
What the authors conclude
- They suggest that developing new commodity products and separating functional components can diversify egg yolk use and increase egg consumption.
- They recommend future directions for the best use of egg yolk components.
- They discuss scale-up production methods as vital for practical applications.
How it was done
Consumer demand for egg white is high, but demand for egg yolk is low, creating an imbalance. The authors want to find ways to increase the value and use of egg yolk.
What it can’t tell you
- We summarised it from the abstract only.
- This is a review, not a new experiment, so it cannot provide new data on health effects or safety.
- The paper does not report any studies in people or animals that test these approaches.
Who paid
- Funding
- Funded by Natl. Natural Science Foundation of China; Natl. Key Research and Development Program of China (from the PubMed record).
- Authors work at
- College of Food Science & Technology, China
The paper
- Title
- How Can the Value and Use of Egg Yolk Be Increased?
- Type
- ReviewThe authors read earlier studies and describe what they found. It isn’t a new study.
- Summarised from
- Abstract only
- Cite
- Huang X, Ahn DU (2019). How Can the Value and Use of Egg Yolk Be Increased?. Journal of food science. doi:10.1111/1750-3841.14430PubMed 30620779DOI
Summary written 26 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error