Okay but there actually is a pretty significant difference between eggs at the store vs buying them from someone who has chickens.
There was actually an egg shortage a while ago, but lots of people who were raising chickens couldn’t sell their eggs because, and I quote, “they were too rich in flavor and texture, so people didn’t like them”.
It was hilarious and sad that high quality eggs was just something no one ever tasted before, so they couldn’t suddenly get used to the flavor.
It’d be like if you drank skim milk your whole life only to find out regular “whole” milk is actually supposed to be creamy lol
This happened to me. My mother raises hens so when there were big egg shortages, we got some from her. The yolks were so rich that their color was practically orange and they would stain anything they got on. I’ve never had eggs so delicious and flavorful, plus anything I baked with them came out so rich and delicious. They really were almost overpowering and a little disconcerting to get used to. I’m amazed how bad even the best store bought eggs are now.
In the country they dine on fresh eggs from the hen-house, fresh tomatoes from the garden, fresh venison and foraged mushrooms. The food they eat is usually better tasting and better quality than the food billionaires eat.
I’m from the country and while your words are nice they’re not factual in the least.
do you think i could get a billionaire to buy me a lil cottage on their property where i could grow chickens and share them with him
I grew up in the country, while all of that did happen… it wasn’t like every meal was that. Eggs depended on how many eggs the dozen or so chickens laid recently, most chickens don’t lay industrial quantities… tomatoes only in mid/late summer when the garden is fruiting. deer only after deer season, even with my dad and I tagging out each year that isn’t enough deer for every meal to be deer meat (venison lol we don’t call it that). We mushroom hunted (foraging lol) every once in a while but again, wild pecker-heads aren’t prevalent enough for any population to eat regularly
100%. If you break a store egg and a farm egg next to each other, especially in the spring when the chickens start having access to insects again, the farm egg is almost cartoonishly orange next to the store egg.
I had a farmer I got eggs from for years and years. I was so lucky. 50 cents a dozen from 2003-2017. I eat a lot of eggs too. My family goes through two 30 packs a week.
He told me about a month before he stopped. “I done got old, can’t do it anymore. I keep falling and if I break my hip they might as well take me out back and give me a mercy bullet.”
I asked everyone under the sun. No one I found after that was consistent. I thought I found someone a few times, they disappeared after a few months. I gave up and started buying my eggs from the store.
All things must pass. Damn though, that one hurt to lose.
During my quest to find a new source for eggs though, I found someone with duck eggs. I figured, “Ahh, an egg is an egg, right?” Wrong. Duck eggs are not very tasty. They’re fine as an additive to a cake or something, but no way will I ever eat them again. Gah.
Duck eggs are delicious. Taste is often subjective.
Have you ever thought of raising your own chickens?
What’s really weird is that eggs are remarkably similar even when raised on entirely different diets or conditions. While farm raised eggs and organic or free range eggs are slightly better, the difference is much more minimal than I think most people think.
I went on a whole deep dive with that topic a while back and the result of that research was pretty much just that eggs themselves are pretty good for you but it matters a lot less which eggs you buy and more than you eat more of them.
All research points to your conclusion, and the downvoters and further comments don’t know shit. The feed affects the color almost entirely with extremely minor differences in everything else.
I highly recommend learning about chicken husbandry before you make this claim. There are decades of research across numerous countries talking about chicken feed and egg quality. Some farmers know by egg flavor alone if their chickens need supplements and which ones. Chickens can get really weird diseases if they aren’t taken care of properly and this absolutely affects their eggs. I think what you’re noticing is that the eggs you buy as a consumer are about the same for you personally, but that doesn’t mean you can then turn around and claim that “eggs are remarkably similar even when raised on entirely different diets or conditions” and be actually correct.
Wait, would that result in yellower chicken?
Joke aside, healthier chicken?
I don’t know, to be honest. I think they taste better, but I know it could be purely psychological… They’re my chickens, after all. I do think the shells are sturdier (not sure if it’s thickness or composition) when they have more bugs to eat. I don’t know about any claims regarding nutritional differences, but the eggs themselves do have some noticeable and measurable differences.
There’s a market down the street from me. They bring in Amish eggs every week and I always buy them there. The yolks are so bright and the eggs are delicious. Costs maybe 1.5x what regular eggs cost but they’re so worth it
Pretty cool that the price premium is only that! That’s more or less what you pay for regular free-range eggs, isn’t it?
I got this from a classic boomer dad of a girlfriend, about chicken meat. He said free range chicken was “more gamy” and he preferred uh…. Chickens raised in tiny cages who can’t move around, apparently. Ok psycho.
It’s what they eat that affects the eggs themselves, and what type of chicken. Plus we treat our eggs which is why they are such a salmonella risk and have to be refrigerated.
From what i understand just a diet more rich in beta carotene will produce a richer looking yolk. Seems like the chicken’s lifestyle would have other effects, too. And yeah, in the US eggs come throughly washed, which removes a layer on the outside that would otherwise keep them fresh at room temp. I think the salmonella thing is more related to the sanitary conditions of the farm - I.e. whether the chickens are infected with salmonella. Farms have cleaned up in that respect over the past couple decades and it’s much less prevalent than it was at one time.
Barnevelder
Eyy, that’s near my home town! Barneveld (the town) is basically Chicken/Egg central, as we have companies that build the machines that wash and package our eggs. We also have Haantje Pik which is a sticky cinnamon-bun-like pastry. It’s delicious!
That’s the thing, he had amazing powers of ignorance and apathy. Sure he’d prefer the most abusive methods of making foie gras too.
Just because it came out of someone’s back yard, doesn’t mean it’s high quality. So many chickens get table scraps and little else. Not everyone is suited to keeping pets, let alone livestock.
– But it generally does in developed countries as the majority of people going through the effort of keeping chickens in that environment are into keeping chickens. You might get some shitty setups, but the norm is decent quality feed and far less stress than large scale commercial setups.
It’s more of a hobby than a “get rich” scheme.
That’s cool, but neither of us have any data, and I’m telling you my experience has witnessed the norm is shitty setups feeding table scraps to half starved hens.
