For the first time in more than 50 years, eggs could be sold in a new healthy light and not with a cholesterol warning. This all depends if the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee files its springtime report with USDA and HHS (after the public comment period), and sticks to its decision to no longer caution against eating foods that contain cholesterol.
Either way, eggs are great any time of the day; for breakfast, lunch or dinner or even a quick snack, they provide a ton of nutrition for low cost, and they don’t take long to prepare. So what kinds of eggs should you choose? Here are some of the different ways eggs are marketed in the US:
- Cage-free or free-roaming: Over 90 percent of hens are raised in cages that are between 48 and 68 square inches. Birds that are cage-free or free-roaming are not caged; however, they likely were still raised within the confines of a small building and generally do not have access to the outdoors. So this is a distinction without much of a difference.
- Certified humane: For a farm to make this claim, it must meet specific criteria: The hens may not be caged; their feed must be vegetarian and contain no antibiotics; and the birds need to live in a natural environment that allows for behaviors like preening and scratching.
- Fertile: These are eggs that, when incubated, will develop into chicks. They are no more nutritious than other eggs and are usually priced higher than others. Usually fertile eggs are cage free and come from hen houses where roosters roam as well; some consumers believe this is a more natural habitat.
- Grass-fed/Pastured: There is no USDA-approved definition of this term when it comes to hens. Farms touting grass-fed egg laying hens claim their hens are as close to being “wild” as possible. Grass-fed hens are usually allowed to roam freely and so they eat a variety of things found in their natural habitat: grass, bugs, and whatever animals they might catch and kill. All of these (individually and together) contain adequate protein. (Including vegetation) Because this term is not USDA regulated, if you are interested in purchasing grass-fed eggs it may be best to get to know your farmer and their farming practices.
- Hormone free: The use of hormones in poultry has been banned since the 1960s. So by law, all eggs are hormone-free. If a carton offers this claim alone, it’s a waste of money if it costs more.
- Natural: This is another meaningless term. According to regulations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, no additives or colors can ever be added to eggs.
- USDA-certified organic: This means that the hens have eaten only organic feed and grain grown without fungicides, herbicides, commercial fertilizers, and pesticides and that their diet hasn’t contained any animal or poultry by-products. The hens also have not been given any antibiotics or growth hormones, and they’ve been allowed access to the outdoor.
So what are the best eggs for your nutrition buck? Look for pastured eggs or those that have access to the outdoors (although this is no guarantee); also get to know your local farmers and find out how their chickens are raised – this is your best bet for the best nutrition and for supporting your local economy and community.
According to Mother Earth News, one (of many) study demonstrated that free-range or pasture-raised chicken eggs have four to six times more vitamin D (one of the only natural sources), three times more vitamin E, two-thirds more vitamin A, one third less cholesterol, and seven times more beta carotene. They also have two times more omega-3 essential fatty acids, and some would say a better taste. Buying eggs from a local farmer also ensures their freshness, you know they were produced only days before.
In any case, eggs are a great all day long and all year round!
If you think buying organic chickens keeps you safe from added antibiotics, think again. Organic chickens are not necessarily 100% antibiotic-free. There is a loophole, allowing unhatched eggs and freshly born chicks to be administered small doses of antibiotics, including the powerful antibiotic gentamicin. Even if the label reads “organic”, the law regulating antibiotic use in organic products doesn’t kick in until the second day of life. So, while unhatched and during the first 24 hours, organically-destined chicks are allowed to be raised conventionally, including antibiotics. But, do unhatched chicks really need to be dosed up with antibiotics?
The prolific use of antibiotics in livestock has raised significant concern over antibiotic resistance in humans. Two million people develop antibiotic resistant infections each year, over 1% of which prove to be fatal. The increase in this number is associated with our increased use of antibiotics in everything from livestock feed and water to unhatched eggs. By giving all of our livestock mass amounts of antibiotics, we may be encouraging antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
Regardless, organic chickens should be antibiotic-free from the egg. You would think that there would be a stipulation in the law stating that all organic chickens must come from organic, no-antibiotic hatcheries. But, alas, there isn’t. Therefore, an organically raised chick may have come from a non-organic hatchery, meaning that chicken spent its crucial development stages in non-organic, antibiotic-laden conditions. In many such hatcheries, eggs are poked with a thin needle to inject sterilizing antibiotics to prevent common chicken diseases. This unnecessary, as many have found a decreased incidence of disease once moving away from antibiotics since the hole leaves an opening in the shell for unwanted antibiotic-resistant bacteria to potentially slip through. (Note: This practice isn’t used in eggs meant for eating.)
Antibiotic-free means that no antibiotics were ever administered, so make sure you look for that phrase on your organic eggs. Interestingly, Perdue recently announced its shift towards 100% antibiotic-free hatcheries. The company steadily made the shift away from administering antibiotics to its chickens, and the eggs are a final piece of the puzzle. They have succeeded in keeping 80% of their hatcheries antibiotic-free thus far — to great success — which is a tremendous step for the massive corporation and an example for other large companies.
The blanket use of antibiotics in mass scale livestock production has been deemed inappropriate and unnecessary by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Make sure you know what you’re buying — do your research and read the labels. If you don’t want antibiotics injected in chicks, sign this Care2 petition.
Here are the top reasons more people are turning to backyard chickens.
Chickens make great pets. They have personality galore, and they're extraordinarily easy to care for. They're bright, funny, quirky, friendly, loving little balls of feathers-and they're entertaining, too. When you have a flock, you'll find they have their own friends, their own cliques, their own favorite nests. Chickens come in such an array of colors, patterns, shapes, and sizes that some of them look more like exotic tropical birds-or even alien life-forms-than farm animals.
Keeping chickens is a lifestyle choice; you keep chickens if you want to try to live in a more sustainable way. Having chickens helps fulfill a positive, back-to-the-farm way of living that's about becoming more sustainable. It's also a way to celebrate local, slow food, and reestablish a constructive connection with your neighbors and your neighborhood.
Raising chickens allows you to have more control over the type of food you put on your table. You want organic? You want non-GMO? You want cruelty-free? These choices are all yours to make when raising your chickens.
Chickens will eat your table scraps and convert them into eggs on the one hand, and fertilizer on the other. If you grow vegetables or flowers, you'll find that composted chicken manure is great for your home garden, adding organic matter and nutrients to the soil. Plus, chicken manure from layers tends to be relatively high in calcium, which is helpful for plants, warding off blossom-end rot on tomatoes, for example.
Chickens will cut down on the number of insects in your yard. Anywhere chickens are allowed to forage, they'll snap up spiders, ticks, beetles, grubs, worms, grasshoppers, and more. They love to dig through lawn clippings and yard waste, too.
The eggs from hens raised with access to your backyard will be tastier and more nutritious! Research shows they're not only higher in omega-3s, beta-carotene, and vitamins A, D, and E, but they're lower in cholesterol and saturated fat.
They taste better, too. It's something you can see: All that extra nutrition gives backyard eggs a dark orange yolk-not the pale yellow color you see in store-bought eggs.
You'll be eating really fresh eggs—sometimes just minutes old-as opposed to the eggs you get in a grocery store, which can be 6 weeks old or more.
You'll be giving your children positive values. Just as with other pets, keeping chickens can help kids learn about responsibility. But because chickens give back in such a tangible way-eggs!-your kids can also learn about reciprocity and how the care they provide impacts their pets directly. Once they taste the eggs, they'll also come to learn that store-bought isn't always better. Some things are worth doing yourself.
You'll have control over how humanely your wonderful egg producers are treated—and how healthy and clean their environment is.
Chickens are so easy to care for. No walking, no pooper-scoopers, no grooming, no boarding when you go away; they won't scratch up your furniture or chew your favorite slippers.
No plastic Easter eggs! Make that your mantra, and you’ve just banned quite a bit of the toxicity of Easter. Besides, you don’t need plastic Easter eggs, not when there are both beautiful, vegan alternatives to plastic eggs, and beautiful, creative, unusual ways to decorate traditional, edible Easter eggs.
Want something to fill with candy? This list has it. Want something extra fun and unusual to do with yet another carton of hard-boiled eggs? This list has it.
Vegan Easter Egg Alternatives
- Egg carton Easter eggs. Bum a few cardboard egg cartons from a friend, and turn them into Easter eggs of your own.
- Embroidery floss Easter eggs. These eggs made from embroidery floss or yarn are delicate, but quite beautiful.
- Felt Easter eggs. Using Eco-fi felt (which is made from recycled plastic soda bottles), you can sew your own Easter egg stuffies. Decorate them with buttons and ribbons instead of dye.
- Papier mâché eggs. These papier mâché Easter eggs are a favorite of mine; the kids can paint them, they’ll last forever, and they hold treats!
- Pine cone Easter eggs. Painted pine cones make great Easter eggs.
- Rock Easter eggs. Rocks are just as fun to paint as eggs.
- Upcycled book page eggs. Pages torn from broken books are transformed into three-dimensional eggs.
- Wooden eggs. Wooden eggs are fairly easy to source, and you can do so much with them–paint them, color on them with Sharpies, decoupage them, glue on buttons or photos. Your imagination is the limit.
Other Easter Egg Alternatives
- Felted wool Easter eggs. When my kids were too young to decorate Easter eggs, these Mama-made felted wool Easter eggs were just the thing–big, soft, and colorful!
- Felted wool sweater Easter eggs. Sew Easter egg stuffies from prettily patterned wool sweaters. Here’s how to felt wool sweaters.
- Hollow chocolate Easter eggs. Use the embroidery floss technique above, but substitute melted chocolate–yum!
Natural Easter Egg Decorating
- Blown-out eggs. Decorate them however you’d like when you’re finished; blown-out eggs will keep beautifully indefinitely.
- Earth Paint Easter egg dye. Natural Earth Paint makes an Easter egg dye kit that uses the same natural ingredients that you’d use to make your own Easter egg dyes, but in a quick and easy kit form.
- Homemade natural dyes experiment. What color would the spices in your pantry turn an egg? Now’s the time to find out!
- Plant silhouettes. These dyed eggs show the delicate silhouettes of leaves, stems and flowers.
- Ruby eggs. Why dye the eggshell, when you can dye the egg itself? These hard-boiled eggs are dyed in beet juice, so they turn out beautiful and fun, but with no unwanted synthetic chemical coloring. If you use natural food coloring, you can dye your peeled eggs in even more colors. And if you’re still hankering for even more egg dyeing fun, check out Green Living Ideas for more natural egg dyeing tutorials.
- Vegetable-dyed Easter eggs. There’s nothing but wholesome, food-based pigment in this dye. Secret tip: to get a beautiful crimson color even more vibrant than food coloring could yield, use yellow onion skins.
Upcycled Easter Egg Decorating
- Melted crayon Easter eggs. Use up your broken crayons to decorate eggs with a marbling effect.
- Silk tie Easter eggs. Use those tacky silk ties to make beautifully patterned Easter eggs.
- Tie-dyed Easter eggs. If you’ve got some junky old fabric scraps that you don’t want to use for anything, then use them to make these tie-dyed Easter eggs; fabric is the key ingredient to create that tie-dyed look on the eggs, but you don’t want to use your nice swatches, obviously.
