The Coveted Brown Eggs …
There are so many ways to eat eggs. Hard boiled. Soft boiled. Scrambled. Omelet. Sunny side-up. Easy over. In your burrito, in your soup … you get the picture. But before you cook it, you have an important choice to make, right at the egg stand.
The question is this: Do you pick those pricier brown eggs or the much cheaper white eggs?
For decades families around the world have preferred those aristocratic brown eggs assuming them to be the nutritionally better deal, but most of them settled for their more plebian white cousins, primarily because they are … oh so much cheaper.
So is it indeed true? Are the more expensive brown eggs better? Or are all eggs the same nutritionally no matter what color, price and size? For those of us who choose brown eggs, are we really getting the best value for our money?
Unlike Gulliver in Lilliput, we may not have to decide which side of the egg to crack. But we do have to determine the color first.
Another school of thought is – “Who cares?” Well, I think you should. Eggs are easily available in most parts of the world, and are one of the most valuable sources of clean and healthy protein as well as other nutrients. For most of us, eggs are a significant part of our diet.
So let us get cracking, shall we?
What is the Difference Between White and Brown Eggs?
Check Out the Chicken’s Color. White-feathered chickens with white ear lobes lay white eggs and red-feathered ones with red ear lobes lay brown eggs (disclaimer: this may not apply to all breeds). Typically, the darker colored feathers are associated with the browner eggs.
There are, of course, certain other chickens that even lay speckled eggs and blue eggs. Nutritionally, however, they are all pretty much the same.
So Why the Price Difference in the Eggs? It Comes Down to the Size of the Chicken. The chickens that lay brown eggs are genetically larger than those that lay white eggs and thus they are more expensive to feed – yes, they eat more! Hence, the higher cost of the eggs.
So the good old saying “Its not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog”, doesn’t quite apply to chicken. Size matters! And chickens seldom fight as far as I know (Disclaimer: I am not a chicken expert).
What Should You Be Worried About
What you should be worried about is the source of your chicken. Have the chickens been genetically modified? Have they been pumped with steroids and/or antibiotics? Have they grown in a cage? What kind of feed have they pecked away at all their cluckety lives?
These are important issues that we will address in future articles, so stay in touch through our blog, newsletter and Facebook page.
But for now, let us leave it at this: find yourself a reliable source of free range, organic eggs from genetically unmodified chicken. The color of the eggs is not crucial, but these other factors definitely are.
Another question that makes eggs a controversial breakfast table conversation topic: yes, cholesterol! How many eggs is too much? Do eggs really contribute to a poor cholesterol ratio? Are just egg whites good enough nutritionally?
Look out for future “egg-citing” (groaner!) articles in the coming future.
