Eggs are one of the most versatile foods out there you can cook them in endless ways, they keep you full for hours and theyre a nutritional powerhouse loaded with protein and other nutrients that protect eye, muscle and bone health.

Despite all these benefits, eggs have gotten a bad reputation at times because of the high cholesterol found in their yolks. The information is confusing: One week the news will tell us eggs are perfectly healthy and the next were told to stop eating eggs . To find out how many eggs are healthy to eat, we reached out to medical and nutrition experts to help clear up some of the confusion.

Can eggs be part of a healthy diet?

If youre generally in good health and dont have heart disease or high cholesterol, eggs can be part of a healthy diet when eaten in moderation. Eggs are good for us for a lot of different reasons theyre unprocessed, rich in protein, low in calories and contain healthy fats and other nutrients.

One egg provides 6 grams of protein about the amount found in an ounce of beef, turkey, chicken or fish along with other nutrients such as vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamin B6 and small amounts of iron and vitamin D, all for only 77 calories, said Lisa Diewald , a registered dietitian and program manager at Villanova Universitys MacDonald Center for Obesity Prevention and Education.

Eggs are also relatively inexpensive compared with some other sources of protein, like meat, fish and nuts. In addition, they contribute to a feeling of satiety, which may keep you from reaching for snacks between meals.

But you can easily diminish the health benefits if youre not careful about what you pair eggs with. People often eat eggs alongside bacon, sausage and other processed foods.

There is substantial evidence that processed and highly processed foods are associated with overweight and obesity, as well as higher cardiovascular risk, said Artur Viana , a physician and clinical director of the Metabolic Health and Weight Loss Program at Yale Medicine.

How many eggs are too many eggs?

Theres no magic number when it comes to how many eggs you can each day. This depends on a lot of factors, including your biology and the other foods you eat throughout the day.

Nutrition research and recommendations consistently go back and forth on whether the cholesterol in eggs is bad for human health, and this can be seriously confusing.

Both the 2010 and 2015 versions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Dietary Guidelines for Americans (these recommendations are updated every five years) say a 2,000-calorie diet should include 26 ounces of meat, poultry and eggs each week as part of protein requirements (for reference, a large egg weighs around 1.7 ounces ). Beyond that recommendation, there is no information in the guidelines about limiting egg consumption. Diewald said this is because there wasnt sufficient evidence to show a relationship between cholesterol consumption and its impact on blood cholesterol when the guidelines were released in 2015.