CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
142
I’ve gotten interested in buying eggs from pastured hens but haven’t had a lot of luck finding them around here. Got a dozen about a week ago but since then every time I hear some are available, they’re gone before I get them.
I started paying attention to what’s available in my grocery and there are a couple of brands certified as being laid by pastured hens, currently running $6.5 and $8.50 per dozen “large”. I got a dozen of the more expensive brand(*) and another dozen “Free Range” and “Certified Humane” (**) that were “extra large” at $4.70/doz.
When I got home I weighed the free range XL sized eggs and they averaged 63.1 g/egg. The “large” eggs in the pastured dozen averaged a bit more at 63.3 g/egg instead of the expected 57 or 58 g/egg, and they were all pretty uniform in size.
(*) I had to get the more expensive brand because all 5 cartons of the cheaper brand had a use-by date of 16 May. I’m not sure how no staff noticed this, because this is a very well run store. It may be that this was a 1-time offering so they just sat there unsold and uninspected. I’d have been okay buying at several days past a use-by date, but not 3 weeks after. Anyway, I took the 5 cartons up to customer service and the lady gave them the red sticker treatment.
(**) I wasn’t too clear on all the labels except a vague notion from reading here and elsewhere that “cage free” and “free range” don’t mean a whole lot in real world terms - e.g. imagine a huge, packed henhouse with an exit to outside at either end, which most of the residents don’t even know exists. I think this counts as “free range” because in literal terms, they do have access to the outdoors and they’re not held in cages. But the “Certified Humane” label does have at least some (but not much) meaning - they have to have access 6 hours a day and at minimum 2 square feet per bird. Not positive how “access” is defined, though.
If you combine the “pasture raised” and “certified humane” labels, that means the birds have considerably more space per bird outdoors (108 sq.ft), but the “pasture raised” label is not regulated by USDA and producers could be lying about conditions. OTOH, although the people at the “Certified Humane” organization complain about deceptive use of “pasture raised”, they do give (sell) their “CH” designation to operations they’ve inspected and who are labeling the eggs as such. So if I see eggs sold as pasture raised but absent the CH designation I’ll now wonder if they’re lying, or if they’re honest but not willing to knuckle under to what seems sort of a mob-style “protection money” situation.
The medium sized producers I buy from say the feed has gone up in price quite a bit while taking a downturn in quality. fertilizer and, subsequently, feed are driving costs up on all foods.
Eggs were 97 cents/dozen on digital coupon last week (limit 2). I picked up two dozen and Sunshine picked up 2 dozen, so we are now well stocked for eggs.
I’ve been wanting some egg salad, so now I can make it.
5 Likes
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
145
Saaaaaa-WEEEEEET!
Buck a dozen, I haven’t seen here in way too long, not even on coupons.
I got a dozen eggs from my family farm last month and the yolks were so orange they made an orange’ish omelet. Delicious!
I wonder what causes yolk color variation? Time to do a little research. I think Perdue feeds their chickens marigold seeds to turn the meat from greyish to golden. Different aspect of the same animal.
So the results were clear: For the best tasting eggs, go for pastured chickens. Barring those, choose whichever eggs have the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Where flavor is concerned, it doesn’t matter if the eggs are organic, cage free, or from a cage battery.
I just checked my meat delivery, and I always order pasture raised chicken eggs with my delivery. The price went up from $6.99 a few years ago, to $7.99 during pandemic, and now it’s $9.99
You can’t go back to regular eggs though once you’ve had the pasture raised chicken eggs.
THe color of the yolks is deepened by aspects of their diet. Lots of beta carotene = orange yolks. Apparently, feeding them red pepper scraps leads to VERY orange yolks. BUT. Color != flavor. There’s no correlation between the color and flavor of the eggs, all other aspects being equal.
You are being ripped off, paying $9.99/dozen for pasture raised. Grocery stores carry them here in MN for (correction) around $6/dozen. And I’d suggest you try a blind taste test between egg types – really very minimal differences in flavor.
READ the full article - in a blind taste-test "This time, most people could not taste any difference in the eggs. Those who did taste a difference picked a totally different batch of eggs—this time, there was no clear winner, and no discernible trends based on how the eggs were produced or levels of omega-3’s"
I’ve tried just about every egg vendors at farmers market as well as many store brand eggs. My conclusions:
When the chicken is fed right, whether they are poking at worms on a pasture or free range (like actually wandering outside, not just provided an opening, the eggs are spectacular.
Last week we bought a carton of eggs produced by Kite Hawk Farms, a small, mostly vegetable farm in Brentwood. We hard boiled a few for breakfast. I asked my kid how it tasted and she said its better than the ones we usually get. I was a bit skeptical since the ones we get were pretty decent. But wow, the differences were huge. Its one of the most enjoyable eggs I’ve eaten in the last few years. With that said, I don’t know how they raised their chickens.
Years ago there was an asparagus vendor who had a small flock of chickens. Their eggs were consistently spectacular as well. Pastured. Then they expanded their flocks and the quality dipped. Eventually they just gave up. They said its too hard to make money with pastured eggs.
There was a pastured egg vendor about 1.5 hour north of us. When they were operating years ago, their eggs were also shoulders above others. They folded, however. Economics did them in.
With other pastured eggs, I’ve found that its very difficult for larger vendors to maintain a high level of flavor consistency. A few in a carton may be better than others, or none of them are distinguished. My theory is if you have farmer that is like the one profiled in Michael Pollan’s book, who rotated chickens to different patch of grass every day, then chickens will get new worms daily and their eggs are likely much better. But efforts will be higher from the farmer and cost will be higher. Whereas if you have a vendor who let the chicken out on the same patch of grass every day, those chickens aren’t going to find many new worms daily.
These days a lot of times we just get TJ pastured at $4.69, because partially they are always there when we need them, and its cheap. but that’s also because we don’t get pastured eggs in our farmer’s market that’s consistent.
