Recently, a friend complained about the cost of grocery store, organic eggs. Having been in egg bliss for some years now - looking no further than my backyard for those staples of the kitchen - I thought: "I wonder if she realizes organic isn't necessarily the best way to go?"
I do understand that current food labels - including those for eggs - are ridiculously confusing and often misleading. And the truth is, I think a lot of people are parting with extra cash without getting the quality they really think they are getting. "Free range," "organic," and many of those other labels may not mean exactly what you think. Here's the scoop.
Certified Organic: These eggs come from hens who don't receive vaccines or antibiotics; they also don't get hormones - but no legally raised, U.S. commercial chicken is allowed to get hormones. In
addition, organic eggs come from hens whose feed is grown on land that’s been free from chemicals for at
least three years. But here's the problem: Certified organic eggs can't come from hens given a natural diet of bugs. (Which, incidentally, also means the hens can't free range.) The reason? The government doesn't know where those bugs have been or what they've eaten. So, organic eggs come only from hens fed grains (though those grains are free from GMOs). This means, as I'll point out in a moment, that organic eggs aren't as healthy as they could be.
Free Range: "Free-range” eggs come from hens who are allowed to free range - that is, scratch around and forage outside, as is natural. This sounds good, but according to current guidelines, to qualify as free range all a farmer has to do is give the hens one tiny door leading out to a tiny piece of earth. Most commercially raised free range hens live in overcrowded barns and have no real opportunity to scratch around outside.
Truly free range eggs come only from hens who spend most of the day outside, eating bugs and weeds; have higher nutritional value (2/3 more vitamin A, 2 times more omega-3s, 3 times more vitamin E, and 7 times more beta carotene) and less cholesterol (about 1/3). Where can you find real free range eggs? From a backyard hen owner or smaller farms.
Cage-Free: Most
commercially-raised hens are live in small wire cages that don’t allow them
to spread their wings or move around much. If eggs are marked "cage-free" and you're buying them in the grocery store, the hens who produced them live in a barn, not cages. Unfortunately, these barns are usually crowded. And even if they are not, chickens get extremely stressed when living in a large flock, as commercially-raised hens always are.
Certified Humane: These eggs come from birds that live cage free, usually inside barns that are not as crowded as the typical “cage free” bird; however, these hens are still raised in large flocks; this results in stress, which leads to pecking. Certified Humane hens are, however, allowed to nest, perch, and dust bathe – all things a hen does naturally, given a friendly environment.
Natural: A totally meaningless label. All eggs are natural. Nothing is injected into them. This label does not refer to what the chickens who laid the eggs ate, either.
Brown vs. White: There is no difference in taste or nutrition between white- and brown-shelled eggs. Why do some hens lay brown eggs while others lay white? It all depends upon the hen's ear lobe color (not the color of her feathers, as some claim). Hens with red ear lobes lay brown eggs; those with white ear lobes lay white eggs.
So...what type of eggs should you buy? As you can probably guess, I suggest backyard eggs, if you can have hens. Otherwise, I highly recommend finding someone in your area who has backyard hens and an overflow of eggs - or finding a small farm in your area that sells eggs. If you really must buy grocery store eggs, you will have to decide what's most important to you...I hope that after reading this post, you have a much clearer picture of what you are buying.
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