No, you can’t identify a Caged from a Free Range or a Free Farmed or whatever title you want to pick.
Colour, thickness of shell and the yolk are down to breed of chicken and their diet.
It’s down to your trust in the reseller and producer.
They usually mumble a bit when they explain that hexane is commonly used to extract the colorant from the marigolds and then that extract is added to the chicken feed. I’ve got no problems with medium straight chain alkanes, but some might.
If you want to buy eggs from chickens who lead a moderately ‘natural’ life, i.e. get to actually run about and scratch for bugs in the sunshine, you must buy certified ORGANIC eggs. That is the only label which means anything at all, frankly. It includes true free range conditions as well as other good things. There are good discussions of this around the internet.
If you want eggs from happy hens, the best way is to raise them yourself. It’s not difficult, and just a few hens can supply all the eggs one or two people usually need. Many cities allow them now.
I’m fairly certain diet does not affect the color of the shells, only the color of the yolk. Shell color is determined by breed genetics.
You’re saying that organic eggs are automatically not factory farmed eggs? Can’t they just be eggs from factory chickens that are fed organic feed?
Sort of. See the link to Cecil’s column above. Like free-range, the chickens must be allowed to leave the coop, but that doesn’t mean that they do leave. However, I believe there is some kind of ‘no cage’ regulation here in the US, so they aren’t going to be in the high efficiency factories where the chickens sit in a cage most of their life. The key with organic eggs is that their feed must qualify as organic.
Apparently I was incorrect. According to this page from the Humane Society of the US, certified organic eggs are from uncaged chicken (though they might be confined to a barn).
This is correct.
Truly free-range birds who eat a bunch of greenery and bugs and stuff have orange yolks in their eggs. Supermarket eggs, even ones that claim to be free-range, have yellow yolks. Photo comparison. They taste quite different, the free range eggs will be much richer and eggier. It’s easy and fun to keep a few hens of your own if you have even a modest back yard; I recommend it.
If you’re concerned about the welfare of the chickens, you don’t have to eat eggs at all. There are a variety of substitutes, and they’re getting better all the time. Nobody’s forcing you to eat chickens, either, or any animals for that matter.
It’s quite possible for someone to both a) want to eat eggs, and b) care about the welfare of the egg-laying chickens.
To quote an old and wise bumper sticker: “If we’re not supposed to eat animals, why are they all made of meat?”
Sure. But such an impulse might benefit from further thoughtful examination.
The main coloring agent added to chicken feed is Astaxanthin. It is added to the factory farmed eggs to give them the desired yellow color, and it is also what is added to feed for farmed salmon and trout to make the flesh pink.
It is produced in a number of ways, mostly by microalgae or yeast, although is can be produced from petrochemicals. There are microalgae farms in Hawaii that produce a major part of what is added in the feed industry. These algae and yeast sources can be certified as organic.
So you can buy your factory farmed eggs with their artificially colored egg yolks, or buy certified organic eggs with their artificially colored egg yolks. Take your pick. The best way to get good, organic or free range eggs is to source them locally from someone you know. Otherwise you may just be paying extra for a kinder, gentler, artificially colored egg.
Ah, yes, now that’s an egg!! I’ve never gotten anything that looks like the bottom from any cage-free/organic eggs at the market. That’s why I’ve just gone back to the cheap eggs. There’s no difference in flavor to me and, well, I’m not socially conscious enough to care about chicken farming. But I have had those orange yolked eggs from people who raise chickens and in Europe. They taste phenomenal, are more “eggy” in every way. I would pay $5/dozen or more if I could find a brand in my supermarket that truly sells free range eggs with chicken on a free range type diet.
There’s a brand available in most supermarkets here in the UK called The Happy Egg Co. I think they’re about as free range as you’ll get in a supermarket egg. They cost about £1.90 for six (equivalent to a little over $6 per dozen). How much are supermarket eggs usually in the US? I just looked and a box of 12 “free range” Tesco eggs is £2.78 ($4.55).
Since shell color was brought up, I wanted to also mention that chicken eggs don’t just come in brown or white. Different breeds can also lay very dark brown eggs (Marans) or blue/green eggs (Araucanas). The shell color does not reflect the color or quality of the insides, but they look pretty in the refrigerator.None of these eggs are dyed. You typically don’t see these colored eggs in the supermarket because the breeds that lay them are not the heaviest producing breeds, and thus not the most economical to keep in factory farm situations.
My mom describes her eggs as free-range, cage-free, and cruelty-free, but does not describe them as organic, because she can’t vouch for everything that the chickens might find on their own and eat while they’re freely ranging. The feed she gives them is, as are all of the garden scraps she supplements the feed with, but they’re actually pretty resourceful at feeding themselves (you should see them when a mouse gets into the coop).
For your cheapie eggs, at my grocery, I would say a good average is about $1.49(£0.91)/dozen for extra large eggs. Sometimes you can get them cheaper, sometimes it’s a little bit more. A “very good price” for me for extra large eggs is around $1.19(£0.73)/dozen.
The “cage free” types and organic eggs usually run about 2-2.5x that. I seem to remember them generally being in the $3.49-$3.99(£2.13-£2.44)/dozen area.
I would pay the $6+/dozen for eggs that really taste like those beautiful farm eggs I know. We eat a lot of eggs in our household and would pay for the quality if it was easy to find them.
So you have to shell out more money then?
I’m gonna reiterate the above link to the Cornucopia Institute’s Organic Egg Scorecard, because even among Certified-Organic egg producers there is a huge variance in how they treat their chickens. The scorecard ranks various brands on things like how big the outdoor space is, whether chickens are shown/encouraged to go outside, how many doors there are, how many birds can utilize the outdoor space at one time, whether they’re seasonally limited, if the outdoor area has vegetation, etc. It also takes into account their indoor life: how much space each bird gets, whether they have perches and litterboxes, natural light, whether they get their beaks forcibly trimmed, etc.
On the social side of things they also rank the brands by ownership structure, consumer transparency, etc. There’s a bias towards local small family farms, meaning big industrial organic companies that treat their chickens just as well will not score as high just by virtue of their organizational structure.
One last note is that the scorecard is based on a questionnaire instead of inspections, but they do factor in who the third-party organic certifier is (because the certifiers apparently have different standards). It’s still a whole lot better than just blindly trusting the weak Organic label, though, if chicken welfare is your concern. For example, big brands like Horizon, Judy’s Family Farm, the house brands of Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, and Costco all scored the lowest possible scores because of their complete unwillingness to participate in the questionnaire – presumably, though not necessarily, because they’re not particularly proud of the way their chickens are treated.
Label issue aside, it should be pointed out that most male chicks (of the egg-laying breeds) are violently killed minutes after their birth, sometimes being crushed alive, sometimes being gassed, etc.
On the other hand, eggs are a nutritious source of protein and just plain delicious. Can’t really blame people who like eating them.
But if you do want to care about the chickens’ welfare, buy from local farmers who you can personally visit and inspect. This matters far more than any label, many of which have been co-opted for marketing. The smaller farms will even let you play with the chickens for a great afternoon in the sun.
Failing that, at least choose a certified organic egg brand and look at the scorecard to find a brand near you that tries to treat their chickens well.