Are Brown Eggs More Nutritious Than White? Test Your Egg IQ

As a country, we consume billions of eggs a year, and as an individual with a passion for them, I am quite sure I consume more than my per capita share. Which is why marketers are working hard to convince us that their eggs come from blissfully happy, healthy chickens. But what do the labels really mean ... Take this True or False "quiz" below to see how egg-savvy you are.
For more food facts, trivia and recipes (beyond eggs!) check out the blog The Sweet Beet. Win 6-mos of artisanal food by signing up for emailed posts!

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Free-Range Means Hens Live Outside: True or False?

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False. It simply means they have "access" to the outdoors, but the door may be tiny, and the "outdoors" may be nothing more than a concrete slab. This photo shows how most free-range hens do NOT live. Learn more about eggs here. Photo Copyright, The Sweet Beet

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False. It simply means they have "access" to the outdoors, but the door may be tiny, and the "outdoors" may be nothing more than a concrete slab. This photo shows how most free-range hens do NOT live. Learn more about eggs here.

Photo Copyright, The Sweet Beet

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Comments

[grumpyfarmer]

12:03 AM on 12/18/2010

What is the "protective coating", and, should a person raising their own eggs wash them before putting them in the refrigerator, or not, if not, is there danger of contaminating the rest of the food?(I am a farmer, just not a chicken farmer).

[Treehuggindirtworshiper]

11:27 AM on 12/16/2010

To all the naysayers out there.....Organic eggs actually have flavor. I buy my eggs from a friend who has an organic farm. She doesn't force her hens to lay eggs in the winter so I have to buy them at the store. Even organic eggs from the store don't taste as good as hers. Her duck eggs are pretty tasty too!

[jumbotron16]

06:08 PM on 12/17/2010

It's not being organic that gives them flavor---it's allowing the hens to forage and eat different things...like bugs, grasses, and seeds and etc.

[Treehuggindirtworshiper]

08:46 PM on 12/17/2010

Check out prairiebirthdayfarm.com. Linda is an authority on sustainable agriculture.

[dporterdvd]

12:21 AM on 12/16/2010

Looks like the only way you can know for sure what kind of eggs you have is to raise your own chickens.

[liberalrebuttal]

08:42 PM on 12/15/2010

So I have to get Organic humane raised open farm more than a slab of sidewalk range eggs ?

:)

[carrieanna]

03:12 PM on 12/15/2010

Mmmm, I love eggs. The fastest and cheapest "fast food." ...but not "junk food!"

[land2341]

02:31 PM on 12/15/2010

In my region I cannot call my chickens organic if I feed them leftover food from the house. I was told they would balk at my calling them organic if I free ranged them since I could not be totally certain everything they ate was organic! (What exactly is a non-organic bug anyway??)

[jumbotron16]

06:09 PM on 12/17/2010

If they eat a bug you can't call them "vegetarian fed" either!

[merlinspinoza]

02:10 PM on 12/15/2010

how to answer the question ? no doubt a million scientists are studying the matter

and thebigger question : organic i.e. unpoisoned

the other blog says 29 000 000 pounds of antibiotics used on commercial farm animals yuk doctors might step in and say first do no harm the Hippocratic oath

http://biointegrity.org/

http://istpp.org/bio/fagan.html
http://www.archive.org/details/JohnFaganSpeachAt2ndMediterraneanConferenceOnOrganicAgriculture
http://www.purefood.org/
http://www.purefood.org/Organic/farmersfight081701.cfm

http://www.panna.org/

http://www.bangmfood.org/

[oneyippie]

12:56 PM on 12/15/2010

Despite the fact that I knew all this about Organic eggs, I didn't realize the brands I was buying are just "faking" it. Now that I know the conditions of the chickens of those eggs I consume, I'll choose differently. The scorecard is an excellent idea and they should do that for other organic products!

[Ozark Homesteader]

10:18 PM on 12/15/2010

"They" do for "organic" milk. :-)

[Rachael Marie]

08:51 AM on 12/15/2010

I, thankfully, have had access to eggs from chickens raised out in the open (in summer at least) all my life. I also drink bulk-tank milk. Mom raises a few pigs, cows, and sheep for meat.....enough for the family. We plant a garden every year and Can like crazy in the late summer and fall. It spoils you terribly.

As a result, I can't eat most store food without getting ill. It isn't the taste either (which in notably absent in most cases). Something about it just doesn't sit right with me. In college when I didn't have access to the food I was raised on, I gained 30 pounds and was sick all the time. I will never go back. Ever.

[cybersense]

10:24 AM on 12/15/2010

Rachael, had to help on the farm when I was a kid, but did not live there. One of those "get sent to help the farming". I could never get used the the tank milk, but everything else did taste better.
 
My organic veggie garden tastes like heaven compared to the store veggies. I have to learn to can more, I felt healthier too. You kind of get feeling like the food dosen't digest as well. Not sure that is exactly what is happening, but it feels like that. So, this year - more veggies any where I can find a sunny spot.

[satanlite]

10:53 AM on 12/15/2010

You are lucky! I wish I ahd access to that kind of food.
 
I know what you mean about the "reaction" to certain foods. There are many prepared foods I can't digest correctly (taste fine but make me ill later). Every time I've eaten veal I get very sick (after I knew what veal was I determined never to eat it anyway, but when i was much younger). Chicken (mass produced) seems to be falling into that category for my digestion as well - in the past few years I've been starting to get the "veal" reaction sometimes.
 
Stinking megafarms.

[Ozark Homesteader]

10:20 PM on 12/15/2010

Try a Locally Grown network or Local Harvest. I've got links to both here: http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/locally-grown-market-networks-a-wonderful-variation-on-csas/

[mcmutter]

08:40 AM on 12/15/2010

and egg is an egg is an egg is an egg .....

[we-r-stardust]

10:40 AM on 12/15/2010

Eggsactly....

[jsarets]

01:07 PM on 12/15/2010

To a certain extent, yes, but the diet of the laying hens really makes a difference. For example, the national Eggland's Best brand uses a special feed including alfalfa and kelp, and their eggs have three times as much omega-3 fatty acids and 25% less saturated fat than ordinary eggs.

[johnjohn1234]

08:12 AM on 12/15/2010

I like my eggs with bacon. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM, Bacon!

[llovejim]

06:07 AM on 12/15/2010

as Freud would say, sometimes an egg is just an egg.

[Ozark Homesteader]

10:21 PM on 12/15/2010

And sometimes it's not.

[PlutocratsSuck]

03:09 AM on 12/15/2010

That makes sense that Freud was involved with promoting eggs. Breakfast always makes me think of my mom. ;)

[imfrightened]

05:42 AM on 12/15/2010

LOL..Thanks for the laugh, it's a great way to start the day!

[The Iron Cage]

02:39 AM on 12/15/2010

When I was a kid, my neighbor across the road raised chickens. It was common for the hen on the bottom of the pecking order to hang out in our yard. I remember watching cartoons one Saturday and hearing a tap at the front door. I opened it up and the chicken (we named her "Lunch") was there, staring dumbly like chickens do. It was also common for her to sleep in my mom's flower pots. She laid eggs all over the yard, and my brother and I had made a fun sport out of throwing them against the trees (they were unfertilized, don't anybody worry). She also ate it when we gave her chicken meat.

[Iowafarmgal]

02:33 AM on 12/15/2010

The worst job I ever had was helping my grandmother take all the old hens that had died during the winter down to the dump to be burned. There is nothing quite like the smell of burnt chicken feathers, not to mention the lovely aura of rotted flesh. Then there were the days when we dressed chickens for the freezer. I still remember Grandma putting a board over the old chickens neck, stepping on the board and yanking on the chicken and off popped the head. Once she had a headless chicken jump up under her dress. Hey, when you're little you take your entertainment where you can get it!

[bedbugbite]

07:59 AM on 12/15/2010

I would never eat chicken if I had experienced that. I went to a cheese factory in kindergarten on a class trip and did not eat cheese until I was 30.

[carrieanna]

03:09 PM on 12/15/2010

I loved hearing my grandmother regale me with stories about beheading chickens and having them run around headless before keeling over.