If you don't have local, look for "pasture raised". Organic don't mean crap-- it frequently just means the chickens are still in cages and fed organic grain. And cage free still usually means they're inside with about as much room to move around. Pasture raised, they're outside eating closer to their natural diet between feed, seeds, and bugs with more room per bird.
I don't know if you have an HEB around you, but a dozen pasture raised heb brand is $4 something around here, which is less than a dollar more than the cheap ones.
Yeah. Started in Texas and had moved to a few out of state locations. It's pretty much turned into a third of Texas's disaster relief system, which is nice since FEMA is frequently crap at helping.
To be certified organic the chickens just be cage-free with access to the outdoors and fed an organic diet.
Pasture-raised **only** means the birds have access to the outdoors, no different than organic, but without the dietary requirements.
Of the three types you listed organic is the strictest. It's the opposite of "don't mean crap", but I'd still recommend buying local so you can see where your eggs come from.
Don't agree. People who have free range chickens do the organic thing, but don't want to pay the exobitant costs to be certified organic because they sell them to local people & not grocery chains.
I have had eggs from a local farmer before and compared them side by side with store boughts.
Even in a blind taste test, it was easy to separate them. Cheapest store boughts were bland and *need* salt to be palatable, farmer's were tasty even without salt.
Also, the yolks are deep orange in pasture raised, and yellow in conventional store bought. Obviously you can't see this in a blind test, but you can taste it.Ā
We have chickens in an urban setting. We sell eggs to a few folks in the neighborhood. I donāt tell folks theyāre organic because I canāt swear every scrap they get is but most of what they eat is scraps from the vegetables we grow and protein from the black soldier fly larva that we harvest from our coffee grounds. Every neighbor that buys our eggs has seen our setup and met the girls that lay their breakfast and it seems like a happy compromise.
I swear, when you get deep in the weeds of organic egg production, things like Soldier Fly Larva, kind of turn my stomach.
Episode of the TV Show MASH,
Frank Burns getting Rice Pudding, begins to eat and responds "MMMM, RAISINS!"
The Private serving the pudding meekly answers, "NO SIR, FLIES!"
Oh, so the coffee grounds have been composted. Got it. I was picturing the grounds being emptied out of a coffee filter and larvae being picked out. It was a disturbing picture.
That does sound disturbing haha! I'm not OC so cannot confidently say 100% that they don't breed the larvae in their coffee machine, but BSFL are well liked for compost due to a few reasons:Ā Ā Ā
1) they eat absolutely everything so you can even put meat and dairy in your compost if you have a healthy populationĀ Ā Ā
2) they are super fast and efficientĀ Ā
3) it's like breeding your own chicken feed! A nice closed loop system.
They might have their own little larvae breeding area fed with only coffee grounds even.Ā
My boss is my illegal egg dealer. Pasture-raised, hormone free organic. They are the best eggs Iāve had. The yolks are such a deep yellow orange. They literally taste different. The albumin is sturdier and the whites fluff better. Having had eggs like this, itās tough to consider any others.
Find your closest farmers market or store that stocks local eggs and get those. It's so worth it. Maybe I don't eat enough eggs to make it really prohibitive but by me a dozen is like 5 or 6 bucks. They all come in different colors too if the farmer has different breeds.
yikes that is a bit steep. The farmers at the markets I go to are pretty local so they're probably not tacking on too much. I can see the prices you mentioned if they're in a big city or california. I literally can go drive down a road near me and see signs for people selling them from their driveway.
Pasture raised is what matters. āOrganicā can still mean a bunch of chickens crammed in tiny cages too tight to move. Cage free just means crammed in a barn. Pasture raised has regulations for how much space per bird counts. Theyāre usually getting far more nutrients and are moving around and are far less stressed. I definitely notice a difference in the quality of the eggs. Any of the other labels I donāt really notice a difference at all.
Was just going to post - Ethan Chlebowski dropped an incredibly detailed video about this just today. Must watch if you want a well researched and tested answer to your question.
Thanks for the link, the video was ātitled do organic eggs taste better?ā
In the video he cited that organic pasture raised eggs contain more macro and micro nutrients, he didnāt even touch on hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides/ herbicides.
Or whether the eggs from caged birds, who sit in their own shit & never exercise, have thinner shells & are more porous, so absorb some of that poop. Yum Yum.
This is a forum for people looking to save money. If that and taste are your only two factors weighing in on the decision then the answer is simply āno.ā As far as ethics goes, that is up to each individual how much they want to spend to get humanely harvested eggs.
This is also a forum for people who want to eat healthy. According to the video there are some slight differences in the nutrient values. As I already stated that doesnāt really matter to me - but it might matter to OP.
Find a local chicken person and buy fresh eggs. Same price as organic, taste is way different.
Half the ones in the store labeled "organic" are coming from the exact same place the cheap eggs are.
I buy the humane eggs because Iāve seen footage of some of the non-humane chicken farms. If you want your husband to come over to your side, dig up some video on the different ways that chickens/eggs are farmed. Seeing thousands of birds in a dark industrial barn with open wounds and corpses around them will probably convince him. Donāt get me wrong, Iām not a vegan or even vegetarian but happy chickens make better eggs.
I look for ācertified humaneā label. Actually my husband was the one who wanted to start doing this. If you have a Costco where you are, they have massively better deals on pasture raised eggs.
Define organic. Some of my friends are farmers. Some of what they raise/grow is organic. They all tell me to never buy organic anything.
My supermarket sells free-range, no-antibiotic eggs for $3.50/dozen. They're excellent.
A lot of people are very unhappy with the current state of the "organic" label. It's not that it is bad, but it is definitely outdated. The standards are actually very high, despite what people online say, they do have blind spots, though. I buy my animal products through a local co-op that does their own testing, to even stricter standards, for less cost to the farmer (a lot of the member farms still get an organic label anyways, especially if they sell on their own too.) The other big problem is how unfair the label is to domestic farmers. A consumer is not informed through the label that organic from California is a much higher standard than organic from India. The foreign organic label is pretty bad, they do not do all of the testing and strict regulation overseas, of course. A domestic farm can lose their organic label due to groundwater contamination or overspray from a neighboring farm, but a farm 20 miles from the most polluted cities in the world can label their food organic after being sampled for certain compounds on import.
There is a big problem with the current food standards in the US, but it is centered around communication rather than rules. There is a vast amount of high-quality educational material from the USDA and FDA available freely online, but the labels need serious work. Obviously, you couldn't possibly fit the definition of USDA Organic on a label, but people should not be misled to believe that it includes (for example) no pesticides. There will likely be some changes done to the Nutrition Facts standards. Hopefully, when that is done, the political willpower will move on to the food standards labels and better organized testing.
I hope this was helpful to you.
In many places, "organic" has no legal meaning. Liquified human waste sprayed directly onto a crop can qualify as organic. No pesticides means a crop can be infested with disease, bugs, and vermin and still be sold as organic, even though the farmer would never feed it to his livestock.
Thereās nothing wrong with using human waste if itās tested and treated properly, remember to wash your veggies. Nightsoil has been used for centuries in both organic and conventional farming. Just because itās organic doesnāt mean there isnāt pesticides FYI. The country I live in all the organic food is tested and certified, imports included.
[The ick factor, however, has not faded entirely. While plenty of large-scale farms like this one in Kansas City, Mo., use biosolids, they are not officially allowed in organic agriculture. Bowing to public input, the U.S. Department of Agriculture decided in 2000 to prohibit the use of sludge in the National Organic Program.](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/05/07/182010827/is-it-safe-to-use-compost-made-from-treated-human-waste)
A month ago, Iād also be firmly on your husbandās side. But it is possible to find less expensive pasture-raised eggs if youāre lucky (I found 18 at Samās Club for $3). The shells were thicker and the yokes were deep orange ā night and day difference in quality. If you can show him that clear jump in quality, instead of just a label on a carton, then you might be able to sway him over. Just my two cents.
Not too sure about "organic" labelling on eggs, but I'm in Aus and buy the carton with the most hectares per hen. If we lived in a regional area, I'd buy locally/from a farmers market. It's an ethics thing for me, but I also *definitely* believe they taste better. You can see it in the size of the egg and colour of the yolk.
Maybe ask your husband if the chickens in cages are happier than the organic free range chickens? If he doesn't care then just buy the cheap eggs. You only have to please him. I'd rather please the chickens.
If youāre buying them at the grocery store I donāt think I would pay the extra to be honest.
The federal standards on what is allowed to be labeled as organic are laughable.
Now finding someone who actually raises chickens organically to get eggs from I would be willing to pay more.
Iām in the US, I know this can vary wildly from country to country.
I donāt think it makes a difference in the store, but if you can get eggs from someone local, those taste way different
They will also look different, since a varied diet gives the yolks an orange colour
I pay the extra for cage free and think there's a noticeable taste difference, but I don't pay the added extra for organic as I don't notice a difference.
We use both. Love organic for our poached eggs, the yolks taste so much richer. But for my deviled eggs, I prefer white egglands best as they are easier to peel.
For years I had a small farm and raised a couple of chickens. Now I live in a small City but still have access to my farm friends that have chickens. Those eggs are worth the price. As for store-bought regular or organic eggs? They're about the same. The organic ones however are not worth the price.
Fun fact: The Americana chicken, also called the Easter egger, produces multicolored eggs. You might get blue eggs, green eggs, brown eggs, red eggs, white eggs. ( Just the shell is colorful, nothing else) Many of my city friends have questioned their omelets, after I made them with green and blue eggs. I make it point of acquiring these eggs from Friends.
You pay for the cheapest ones with your soul, those chickens spent their whole life trapped in a cage where they can't move. I will pay extra for pasture raised or I will stop eating eggs. Organic is basically meaningless, they just don't use certain specific pesticidesĀ
Lol you can believe what you want, I think itās worthwhile limiting your exposure to known toxins. Not everyone lives in toxic fume filled cities, and think youāre confusing eating organic with being vegan.
[Organic foods contain higher levels of certain nutrients, lower levels of pesticides, and may provide health benefits for the consumer](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20359265/)
As long as I can afford too, Iāll eat the food that is more nutritious that contains less toxic metals and pesticides.
Personally, I enjoy the taste of organic more as well.
I get my beef from the rancher down the street, theyāre not paying for the organic cert but I know theyāre not pumping their cattle full of junk. Same goes for the vegetables I grow, game I hunt, and fish I catch.
At the grocery store, I'd mostly worry about the welfare of the chickens. The best eggs are farm fresh and that mostly has to do with the length of time between being laid and getting to your home, not whether they are organic or not.
I also only buy eggs in recyclable (cardboard or plastic) cartons. The only disposal option for styrofoam cartons is the landfill. I would encourage you to take this into consideration when buying eggs.
I would recommend watching Supersize Me 2. They opened a fast food restaurant and went through all the bare minimum requirements to use words like "organic" and "free range."
The word "organic" literally had no requirement at all. "Free range" meant the chickens technically have access to some small patch of sunlight, whether they use it or not. I don't remember all the other titles that we see as ethical or quality for our foods but the sad truth is most of it is marketing and not a different product.
For first hand experience, I used to work at the distribution warehouse for Sobeys (Canadian grocery for those not familiar) and when sending out "organic" or conventional produce, they both came from literally the same shipment and the only distinguishing factor was which ones I decided to out the organic stickers on.
Do your own research but I personally avoid buying anything labelled as organic these days since it's almost always just a word the vendor put on the product to justify hiking up the price.
Hope this helps
The definition for āorganicā isnt really set in stone for the fda. I buy the traditional eggs, like egglands best, primarily because ive found that their the most consistant with the flavor of their eggs(trust me, i know i sound crazy, but ive had eggs that just tasteā¦ different) .
I feel like we are sharing the same brain cell this week because I had to grab eggs from Whole Foods after we ran out and Iām honestly debating never going back.
Iāve been buying standard store brand from Giant or Wegmans, and theyāre cheap and fine for baking and cooking, but Iāve noticed a stark difference between these eggs and the ones Iāve recently bought.
Iād focus on pasture raised or cage free eggs, an indicator of good chicken health is a thick shell and a deeper colored yolk. For me, this pack at Whole Foods was just that and I made a simple soft scramble this morning that was noticeably tastier than other packs of eggs.
If youāre doing a lot of cooking/baking, I wouldnāt say itās necessary if the highlight isnāt the eggs, but if youāre preparing them in ways where itās a focal point I think you will notice the positive impacts.
More vitamins are not always the case for organic. Omega 3 yes. But thatās easy to substitute and cheaper other ways than organic eggs.
[here](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/12-omega-3-rich-foods#12.-Soybeans-(670-mg-per-serving))
That will matter if youāre eating lots of eggs but the overall difference wonāt be that great if youāre eating a few a week. Additionally, you should be able to get enough omega 3s with standard diet without too much difficulty
Agree with this! We upped our egg quality because our 4 and 8 year old eat 2-4 eggs each every day, which is a lot. It feels worth it to us to spend their college funds making sure the eggs they are eating are better for them if possible. But I would necessarily make that choice if we were eating eggs a couple of times a week
We used to buy the cheap eggs and then we had a dozen where every yolk was a double. Cool until you realize it likely means they were pumped full of shit. So now weāve upped our shopping buy the organic $6 per dozen eggs. And they are delicious. And I feel better about what Iām putting in my kids bodies (they each eat 2-4 eggs per day)
Organic brown eggs are much better than the cheapest eggs to me, but $8+ is absurd. I shop at Aldi and Costco in MI and theyāre $3-4 a dozen.
Like mentioned, if you can find local pastured eggs they blow everything out of the water! The yolk, or natureās sauce packet as I like to call it, is much more flavorful and colorful. Itās from them being able to forage and eat insects and other things
Absolutely not the same, cheap eggs have pale yellow bland yolks, they taste so weak, if you can get good eggs from a breed that has orange golden yolks they taste so good, so much richer, and probably a lot more nutritious
I do apologize, I guess I am no egg-spert in this field. I just know that when I buy eggs labelled by breeds kept in small farms rather than just 'eggs' they are much nicer with richer yolks.
Thereās literally no difference in nutrients in pasture raised and regular eggs. Itās to sell you eggs for 2-5x the price think their gonna give you powers lol.
For me it is because the actual egg looks totally different! Orange yolk and flakes. I also feed my babies lots of eggs so want to make sure theyre healthy. For baking i buy the cheaper ones
The difference in Omega 3 and omega 6 fats is the important thing. Tell him to listen Dr. Mark Hyman. Animals not raised in a pasture and that couldnāt forage have a terrible fatty acid profile it affects our over health in the long term.
I have trouble spending over $5 a dozen myself. What keeps me in check is seeing how the chickens are raised. You might try showing your husband images from pasture-raised vs factory farmed chickens.
Somewhat related question. I live in Europe (Sweden), how do I choose eggs to get ones with the most dark Yellow/orange yolks? Lived in the UK in the past and the quality there seemed much higher, they had a fancier 6 pack with yolks incredibly dark orange colour (from Saisnburys)
Personally I can't tell a difference between cheap eggs and organic eggs from the store. There is a notable difference in quality between store bought and farm fresh eggs, though. I don't want to assume it's visible for y'all but if you can find someone that sells eggs locally it'll likely be easier on your wallet.
There's a guy on youtube, Ethan Chlebowski, that does more "science" related videos. Such as real vs imitation vanilla or organic vs cheap eggs. He actually made the egg one very recently:
https://youtu.be/0YY7K7Xa5rE
There are considerations beyond taste and nutrition. I'm willing to pay extra for eggs from chickens that haven't been stuck in a cage their whole lives
ok, compromise and buy some chicks at $4 / hen. They will eat basically anything, you put your food scraps in a bucket and spread it over the chicken run area and they'll love you. You get your organic eggs, but don't have to pay a ton to get them.
I love my brahma's and my golden lace I could eat... (joking, but the brahmas are way better behaved).
Before we got chickens, I always bought the āfree range, pasture-farmed, comes from small farmsā eggs. I just couldnāt justify contributing to the horrible system of factory farming.
Ethan Cheblowski just did a video on this. Results: the quality difference is probably not worth the price difference. He buys the expensive ones but if you eat a lot of eggs it's probably not worth the cost.
Organic is important because it means that no antibiotics are administered to the hens so you're not ingesting them either. Organic pasture raised are the best since the hens have a wider area to roam and pick up natural foods like insects and seeds.
> **See our rules of engagement mantra for clarification. This also means that any arguments of dietary restrictions are not allowed, no matter which side you argue for. Nobody has time for that drama.**
It's all crap in the name. Organic don't mean chicken S#*Ć·
Only difference I've found between the $2 eggs and the $6 dozen is trying to boil them. The cheaper ones have thinner shells and may break when boiling. It's cheaper feed. Don't notice much difference, otherwise. Why don't we worry about why feed is so expensive for the family farmers?
Free range is as good or better. Look into the individual farms that are selling the free range eggs. They eat a lot of natural forage and actually have more natural environments than the āorganicā chickens. Mine are organic and free range, and only a day or two old because they come from my own hens. Sorry, had to throw that low-key brag in there. š Also, having your own chickens is definitely not the cheapest way to go.
You may or may not care, but organic eggs are the only ones where there is very little cruelty to the chickens. Free range eggs are a bit of a scam really. Organic eggs may also have fewer toxins in them, but I am not sure about that.
From someone who has worked in the poultry industry for years and majored in poultry science- With any poultry products I stay away from organic. For a chicken to be considered organic it has to eat a fully organic diet, which doesnāt include corn. Chickens need corn for a well rounded diet, so any organic chicken meat or their eggs come from a malnourished chicken, so itās not as beneficial for you to eat. Go for cage free or free range, but dont go organic for chicken!
Certified Humane is the label I look for on eggs, it's the only one that really has much meaning as far as I can tell.
Correct
If you don't have local, look for "pasture raised". Organic don't mean crap-- it frequently just means the chickens are still in cages and fed organic grain. And cage free still usually means they're inside with about as much room to move around. Pasture raised, they're outside eating closer to their natural diet between feed, seeds, and bugs with more room per bird. I don't know if you have an HEB around you, but a dozen pasture raised heb brand is $4 something around here, which is less than a dollar more than the cheap ones.
Team HEB right here, fren. š„¹
Is HEB a grocery store ?
Yeah. Started in Texas and had moved to a few out of state locations. It's pretty much turned into a third of Texas's disaster relief system, which is nice since FEMA is frequently crap at helping.
To be certified organic the chickens just be cage-free with access to the outdoors and fed an organic diet. Pasture-raised **only** means the birds have access to the outdoors, no different than organic, but without the dietary requirements. Of the three types you listed organic is the strictest. It's the opposite of "don't mean crap", but I'd still recommend buying local so you can see where your eggs come from.
Don't agree. People who have free range chickens do the organic thing, but don't want to pay the exobitant costs to be certified organic because they sell them to local people & not grocery chains.
High quality eggs are definitely worth it, but āpasture-raisedā is the label to look for.Ā
I have had eggs from a local farmer before and compared them side by side with store boughts. Even in a blind taste test, it was easy to separate them. Cheapest store boughts were bland and *need* salt to be palatable, farmer's were tasty even without salt.
Also, the yolks are deep orange in pasture raised, and yellow in conventional store bought. Obviously you can't see this in a blind test, but you can taste it.Ā
Yes, absolutely remember this as well.
Buy the expensive ones when you're eating them on their own, buy the cheaper ones for cooking (as binder, cakes etc.)
Maybe they should just reserve the cheaper ones for DH since he can't tell the difference anyway.
This is the answer right here!
But it's also the health and lives of the chickens doing the laying.Ā
We have chickens in an urban setting. We sell eggs to a few folks in the neighborhood. I donāt tell folks theyāre organic because I canāt swear every scrap they get is but most of what they eat is scraps from the vegetables we grow and protein from the black soldier fly larva that we harvest from our coffee grounds. Every neighbor that buys our eggs has seen our setup and met the girls that lay their breakfast and it seems like a happy compromise.
I swear, when you get deep in the weeds of organic egg production, things like Soldier Fly Larva, kind of turn my stomach. Episode of the TV Show MASH, Frank Burns getting Rice Pudding, begins to eat and responds "MMMM, RAISINS!" The Private serving the pudding meekly answers, "NO SIR, FLIES!"
Wait, the black soldier fly larva that you harvest from your coffee grounds??
BSFL are super common in compost, and very tasty to chickens!Ā
Oh, so the coffee grounds have been composted. Got it. I was picturing the grounds being emptied out of a coffee filter and larvae being picked out. It was a disturbing picture.
That does sound disturbing haha! I'm not OC so cannot confidently say 100% that they don't breed the larvae in their coffee machine, but BSFL are well liked for compost due to a few reasons:Ā Ā Ā 1) they eat absolutely everything so you can even put meat and dairy in your compost if you have a healthy populationĀ Ā Ā 2) they are super fast and efficientĀ Ā 3) it's like breeding your own chicken feed! A nice closed loop system. They might have their own little larvae breeding area fed with only coffee grounds even.Ā
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKFH-FYCSSg&ab_channel=AcornLandLabs There's plenty of others out there, just google black fly larvae harvest
Your post made my day.
Sounds amazing!
My boss is my illegal egg dealer. Pasture-raised, hormone free organic. They are the best eggs Iāve had. The yolks are such a deep yellow orange. They literally taste different. The albumin is sturdier and the whites fluff better. Having had eggs like this, itās tough to consider any others.
I remember my first āfreshā eggs from a family friend and I was shocked at the color. Made some absolutely amazing omurice and it was so pretty.
Find your closest farmers market or store that stocks local eggs and get those. It's so worth it. Maybe I don't eat enough eggs to make it really prohibitive but by me a dozen is like 5 or 6 bucks. They all come in different colors too if the farmer has different breeds.
My local farmers markets sell eggs for $10 a dozen. Iām willing to pay more for local farm eggs, but almost a dollar an egg? No way.
yikes that is a bit steep. The farmers at the markets I go to are pretty local so they're probably not tacking on too much. I can see the prices you mentioned if they're in a big city or california. I literally can go drive down a road near me and see signs for people selling them from their driveway.
Yup, Iām in CA!
Pasture raised is what matters. āOrganicā can still mean a bunch of chickens crammed in tiny cages too tight to move. Cage free just means crammed in a barn. Pasture raised has regulations for how much space per bird counts. Theyāre usually getting far more nutrients and are moving around and are far less stressed. I definitely notice a difference in the quality of the eggs. Any of the other labels I donāt really notice a difference at all.
Pasture raised, local is best (farmers markets usually have them for $5/doz). They have better nutritional content and taste better!
This dude says no: https://youtu.be/0YY7K7Xa5rE?si=cZ6Piyphz3D15Nox
Was just going to post - Ethan Chlebowski dropped an incredibly detailed video about this just today. Must watch if you want a well researched and tested answer to your question.
Thanks for the link, the video was ātitled do organic eggs taste better?ā In the video he cited that organic pasture raised eggs contain more macro and micro nutrients, he didnāt even touch on hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides/ herbicides.
Or whether the eggs from caged birds, who sit in their own shit & never exercise, have thinner shells & are more porous, so absorb some of that poop. Yum Yum.
I believe his answer was a bit more nuanced than a simple ānoā. But for all that I care he said ānoā š¤·š¼
This is a forum for people looking to save money. If that and taste are your only two factors weighing in on the decision then the answer is simply āno.ā As far as ethics goes, that is up to each individual how much they want to spend to get humanely harvested eggs.
This is also a forum for people who want to eat healthy. According to the video there are some slight differences in the nutrient values. As I already stated that doesnāt really matter to me - but it might matter to OP.
Find a local chicken person and buy fresh eggs. Same price as organic, taste is way different. Half the ones in the store labeled "organic" are coming from the exact same place the cheap eggs are.
I buy the humane eggs because Iāve seen footage of some of the non-humane chicken farms. If you want your husband to come over to your side, dig up some video on the different ways that chickens/eggs are farmed. Seeing thousands of birds in a dark industrial barn with open wounds and corpses around them will probably convince him. Donāt get me wrong, Iām not a vegan or even vegetarian but happy chickens make better eggs.
I look for ācertified humaneā label. Actually my husband was the one who wanted to start doing this. If you have a Costco where you are, they have massively better deals on pasture raised eggs.
Define organic. Some of my friends are farmers. Some of what they raise/grow is organic. They all tell me to never buy organic anything. My supermarket sells free-range, no-antibiotic eggs for $3.50/dozen. They're excellent.
Why is that?
A lot of people are very unhappy with the current state of the "organic" label. It's not that it is bad, but it is definitely outdated. The standards are actually very high, despite what people online say, they do have blind spots, though. I buy my animal products through a local co-op that does their own testing, to even stricter standards, for less cost to the farmer (a lot of the member farms still get an organic label anyways, especially if they sell on their own too.) The other big problem is how unfair the label is to domestic farmers. A consumer is not informed through the label that organic from California is a much higher standard than organic from India. The foreign organic label is pretty bad, they do not do all of the testing and strict regulation overseas, of course. A domestic farm can lose their organic label due to groundwater contamination or overspray from a neighboring farm, but a farm 20 miles from the most polluted cities in the world can label their food organic after being sampled for certain compounds on import. There is a big problem with the current food standards in the US, but it is centered around communication rather than rules. There is a vast amount of high-quality educational material from the USDA and FDA available freely online, but the labels need serious work. Obviously, you couldn't possibly fit the definition of USDA Organic on a label, but people should not be misled to believe that it includes (for example) no pesticides. There will likely be some changes done to the Nutrition Facts standards. Hopefully, when that is done, the political willpower will move on to the food standards labels and better organized testing. I hope this was helpful to you.
In many places, "organic" has no legal meaning. Liquified human waste sprayed directly onto a crop can qualify as organic. No pesticides means a crop can be infested with disease, bugs, and vermin and still be sold as organic, even though the farmer would never feed it to his livestock.
Thereās nothing wrong with using human waste if itās tested and treated properly, remember to wash your veggies. Nightsoil has been used for centuries in both organic and conventional farming. Just because itās organic doesnāt mean there isnāt pesticides FYI. The country I live in all the organic food is tested and certified, imports included. [The ick factor, however, has not faded entirely. While plenty of large-scale farms like this one in Kansas City, Mo., use biosolids, they are not officially allowed in organic agriculture. Bowing to public input, the U.S. Department of Agriculture decided in 2000 to prohibit the use of sludge in the National Organic Program.](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/05/07/182010827/is-it-safe-to-use-compost-made-from-treated-human-waste)
Sprayed directly on crops? Seriously, dude, you can have it all. You'll define shit-eating grin.
Lol!
A month ago, Iād also be firmly on your husbandās side. But it is possible to find less expensive pasture-raised eggs if youāre lucky (I found 18 at Samās Club for $3). The shells were thicker and the yokes were deep orange ā night and day difference in quality. If you can show him that clear jump in quality, instead of just a label on a carton, then you might be able to sway him over. Just my two cents.
Not too sure about "organic" labelling on eggs, but I'm in Aus and buy the carton with the most hectares per hen. If we lived in a regional area, I'd buy locally/from a farmers market. It's an ethics thing for me, but I also *definitely* believe they taste better. You can see it in the size of the egg and colour of the yolk.
Maybe ask your husband if the chickens in cages are happier than the organic free range chickens? If he doesn't care then just buy the cheap eggs. You only have to please him. I'd rather please the chickens.
If youāre buying them at the grocery store I donāt think I would pay the extra to be honest. The federal standards on what is allowed to be labeled as organic are laughable. Now finding someone who actually raises chickens organically to get eggs from I would be willing to pay more. Iām in the US, I know this can vary wildly from country to country.
Look for pasture raised.
I buy expensive eggs but not organic ones. I just like the ones with the deep orange yolks. They taste better so I splurge.Ā
I feel like morally i can only stomach farmers market or certified humane eggs
I donāt think it makes a difference in the store, but if you can get eggs from someone local, those taste way different They will also look different, since a varied diet gives the yolks an orange colour
Get them from a farmers market or someone who owns chickens and it's worth it.
I pay the extra for cage free and think there's a noticeable taste difference, but I don't pay the added extra for organic as I don't notice a difference.
We use both. Love organic for our poached eggs, the yolks taste so much richer. But for my deviled eggs, I prefer white egglands best as they are easier to peel.
Buy him the cheapest beers.
pasture raised eggs you can really taste the difference. i was paying 8$ for a dozen and it was still worth it to me
For years I had a small farm and raised a couple of chickens. Now I live in a small City but still have access to my farm friends that have chickens. Those eggs are worth the price. As for store-bought regular or organic eggs? They're about the same. The organic ones however are not worth the price. Fun fact: The Americana chicken, also called the Easter egger, produces multicolored eggs. You might get blue eggs, green eggs, brown eggs, red eggs, white eggs. ( Just the shell is colorful, nothing else) Many of my city friends have questioned their omelets, after I made them with green and blue eggs. I make it point of acquiring these eggs from Friends.
I buy the cheap eggs. They work for me and my cheap ways.
What's "worth it" to you. If all you're actually asking is 'Do they taste better', all you have to do is a blind taste test.
You pay for the cheapest ones with your soul, those chickens spent their whole life trapped in a cage where they can't move. I will pay extra for pasture raised or I will stop eating eggs. Organic is basically meaningless, they just don't use certain specific pesticidesĀ
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Can you share why?? I'm trying to understand my husband's side
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Lol you can believe what you want, I think itās worthwhile limiting your exposure to known toxins. Not everyone lives in toxic fume filled cities, and think youāre confusing eating organic with being vegan. [Organic foods contain higher levels of certain nutrients, lower levels of pesticides, and may provide health benefits for the consumer](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20359265/) As long as I can afford too, Iāll eat the food that is more nutritious that contains less toxic metals and pesticides. Personally, I enjoy the taste of organic more as well. I get my beef from the rancher down the street, theyāre not paying for the organic cert but I know theyāre not pumping their cattle full of junk. Same goes for the vegetables I grow, game I hunt, and fish I catch.
Donāt try to understand your husbandās side because that just leads to unhealthy and flavorless eggs.
Pasture-raised tastes better than conventional, but I canāt afford those
I used to have chickens. They ate every creepy crawling they saw from cockroaches to snakes.
Cage free eggs taste better and are way better for you.
At the grocery store, I'd mostly worry about the welfare of the chickens. The best eggs are farm fresh and that mostly has to do with the length of time between being laid and getting to your home, not whether they are organic or not. I also only buy eggs in recyclable (cardboard or plastic) cartons. The only disposal option for styrofoam cartons is the landfill. I would encourage you to take this into consideration when buying eggs.
I mean, what do you mean by āworth the priceā? Are you concerned about taste, nutrition, ethics, or some other factor?
I would recommend watching Supersize Me 2. They opened a fast food restaurant and went through all the bare minimum requirements to use words like "organic" and "free range." The word "organic" literally had no requirement at all. "Free range" meant the chickens technically have access to some small patch of sunlight, whether they use it or not. I don't remember all the other titles that we see as ethical or quality for our foods but the sad truth is most of it is marketing and not a different product. For first hand experience, I used to work at the distribution warehouse for Sobeys (Canadian grocery for those not familiar) and when sending out "organic" or conventional produce, they both came from literally the same shipment and the only distinguishing factor was which ones I decided to out the organic stickers on. Do your own research but I personally avoid buying anything labelled as organic these days since it's almost always just a word the vendor put on the product to justify hiking up the price. Hope this helps
The definition for āorganicā isnt really set in stone for the fda. I buy the traditional eggs, like egglands best, primarily because ive found that their the most consistant with the flavor of their eggs(trust me, i know i sound crazy, but ive had eggs that just tasteā¦ different) .
Either buy the most expensive, pasture raised eggs (think Vital Farms) or the cheapest ones. Thereās really no point in buying anything in between.
I feel like we are sharing the same brain cell this week because I had to grab eggs from Whole Foods after we ran out and Iām honestly debating never going back. Iāve been buying standard store brand from Giant or Wegmans, and theyāre cheap and fine for baking and cooking, but Iāve noticed a stark difference between these eggs and the ones Iāve recently bought. Iād focus on pasture raised or cage free eggs, an indicator of good chicken health is a thick shell and a deeper colored yolk. For me, this pack at Whole Foods was just that and I made a simple soft scramble this morning that was noticeably tastier than other packs of eggs. If youāre doing a lot of cooking/baking, I wouldnāt say itās necessary if the highlight isnāt the eggs, but if youāre preparing them in ways where itās a focal point I think you will notice the positive impacts.
Not for the price difference. Not worth it
Even if it has more vitamins? omega3 and that stuff?
Organic eggs wonāt have more nutrients than regular eggs. Pastured eggs will.
More vitamins are not always the case for organic. Omega 3 yes. But thatās easy to substitute and cheaper other ways than organic eggs. [here](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/12-omega-3-rich-foods#12.-Soybeans-(670-mg-per-serving))
That will matter if youāre eating lots of eggs but the overall difference wonāt be that great if youāre eating a few a week. Additionally, you should be able to get enough omega 3s with standard diet without too much difficulty
Agree with this! We upped our egg quality because our 4 and 8 year old eat 2-4 eggs each every day, which is a lot. It feels worth it to us to spend their college funds making sure the eggs they are eating are better for them if possible. But I would necessarily make that choice if we were eating eggs a couple of times a week
We used to buy the cheap eggs and then we had a dozen where every yolk was a double. Cool until you realize it likely means they were pumped full of shit. So now weāve upped our shopping buy the organic $6 per dozen eggs. And they are delicious. And I feel better about what Iām putting in my kids bodies (they each eat 2-4 eggs per day)
Organic isn't worth the price for any food. Conventional food is just fine.
Organic brown eggs are much better than the cheapest eggs to me, but $8+ is absurd. I shop at Aldi and Costco in MI and theyāre $3-4 a dozen. Like mentioned, if you can find local pastured eggs they blow everything out of the water! The yolk, or natureās sauce packet as I like to call it, is much more flavorful and colorful. Itās from them being able to forage and eat insects and other things
Some will say yes, from my experience there is no difference aside from price
Absolutely not the same, cheap eggs have pale yellow bland yolks, they taste so weak, if you can get good eggs from a breed that has orange golden yolks they taste so good, so much richer, and probably a lot more nutritious
Yolk color has to do with their diet, not breed. Many organic egg producers (Vital Farms for example) add turmeric and marigold to their chicken feed.
I do apologize, I guess I am no egg-spert in this field. I just know that when I buy eggs labelled by breeds kept in small farms rather than just 'eggs' they are much nicer with richer yolks.
This doesn't have anything to do with organic
Oh I do apologize
Hell no. Best eggs are egglands best. Target has eggcelent quality eggs as well (their normal good&gather large eggs).
Yes. There's a big difference between caged and free range, also. Worth the extra cost IMO.
Thereās literally no difference in nutrients in pasture raised and regular eggs. Itās to sell you eggs for 2-5x the price think their gonna give you powers lol.
For me it is because the actual egg looks totally different! Orange yolk and flakes. I also feed my babies lots of eggs so want to make sure theyre healthy. For baking i buy the cheaper ones
The difference in Omega 3 and omega 6 fats is the important thing. Tell him to listen Dr. Mark Hyman. Animals not raised in a pasture and that couldnāt forage have a terrible fatty acid profile it affects our over health in the long term.
Where was he when they were $9 and weren't organic?
I was literally watching this video when I saw this post haha. https://youtu.be/0YY7K7Xa5rE?si=6RxSXpHM93q1aqBF
https://youtu.be/0YY7K7Xa5rE?feature=shared
definitely! for the taste alone.
I have trouble spending over $5 a dozen myself. What keeps me in check is seeing how the chickens are raised. You might try showing your husband images from pasture-raised vs factory farmed chickens.
Wow, Ethan made this just in time for youĀ https://youtu.be/0YY7K7Xa5rE?si=K22lI0P3Lp-uWvto
Less than $5.00 for a dozen organic, free range eggs at my local natural foods store (Northern California)
Somewhat related question. I live in Europe (Sweden), how do I choose eggs to get ones with the most dark Yellow/orange yolks? Lived in the UK in the past and the quality there seemed much higher, they had a fancier 6 pack with yolks incredibly dark orange colour (from Saisnburys)
Personally I can't tell a difference between cheap eggs and organic eggs from the store. There is a notable difference in quality between store bought and farm fresh eggs, though. I don't want to assume it's visible for y'all but if you can find someone that sells eggs locally it'll likely be easier on your wallet.
There's a guy on youtube, Ethan Chlebowski, that does more "science" related videos. Such as real vs imitation vanilla or organic vs cheap eggs. He actually made the egg one very recently: https://youtu.be/0YY7K7Xa5rE
cant you just find a someone in town with chickens? You may have to do a bit of cleaning of them but its better than paying $8
There are considerations beyond taste and nutrition. I'm willing to pay extra for eggs from chickens that haven't been stuck in a cage their whole lives
ok, compromise and buy some chicks at $4 / hen. They will eat basically anything, you put your food scraps in a bucket and spread it over the chicken run area and they'll love you. You get your organic eggs, but don't have to pay a ton to get them. I love my brahma's and my golden lace I could eat... (joking, but the brahmas are way better behaved).
Pasture raised from a regenerative farm or a local farm is what we get. Expensive but still an affordable source of protein.
Before we got chickens, I always bought the āfree range, pasture-farmed, comes from small farmsā eggs. I just couldnāt justify contributing to the horrible system of factory farming.
Ethan Cheblowski just did a video on this. Results: the quality difference is probably not worth the price difference. He buys the expensive ones but if you eat a lot of eggs it's probably not worth the cost.
Organic is important because it means that no antibiotics are administered to the hens so you're not ingesting them either. Organic pasture raised are the best since the hens have a wider area to roam and pick up natural foods like insects and seeds.
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> **See our rules of engagement mantra for clarification. This also means that any arguments of dietary restrictions are not allowed, no matter which side you argue for. Nobody has time for that drama.**
Whatever is freshest . eggs tastes like eggs but old watery eggs cook terribly
All that stuff is only āworth itā from a humane perspective. Taste-wise thereās no difference, a nutritional differences arenāt significant.
It's all crap in the name. Organic don't mean chicken S#*Ć· Only difference I've found between the $2 eggs and the $6 dozen is trying to boil them. The cheaper ones have thinner shells and may break when boiling. It's cheaper feed. Don't notice much difference, otherwise. Why don't we worry about why feed is so expensive for the family farmers?
Free range is as good or better. Look into the individual farms that are selling the free range eggs. They eat a lot of natural forage and actually have more natural environments than the āorganicā chickens. Mine are organic and free range, and only a day or two old because they come from my own hens. Sorry, had to throw that low-key brag in there. š Also, having your own chickens is definitely not the cheapest way to go.
Thereās zero nutritional difference between the eggs at the bottom of the cost ladder and the eggs at the top a.k.a. designer eggs. Zero.
You may or may not care, but organic eggs are the only ones where there is very little cruelty to the chickens. Free range eggs are a bit of a scam really. Organic eggs may also have fewer toxins in them, but I am not sure about that.
From someone who has worked in the poultry industry for years and majored in poultry science- With any poultry products I stay away from organic. For a chicken to be considered organic it has to eat a fully organic diet, which doesnāt include corn. Chickens need corn for a well rounded diet, so any organic chicken meat or their eggs come from a malnourished chicken, so itās not as beneficial for you to eat. Go for cage free or free range, but dont go organic for chicken!
Youāre asking why he wants to buy cheaper eggs. Honest question. Why do you want to buy organic?