Eggs - Store bought, colors, and nutrition

Store Bought Eggs

Eggs in grocery stores are mass produced.  The chickens that lay green eggs are more rare and therefore are not the "mass production" type of birds.  That's why you won't find green eggs in grocery stores.  There are also birds that will lay pink eggs, no really PINK, and they are even more rare than the green layers.

When buying eggs from a grocery store, the brown eggs are no different than the white eggs.  They both have the same nutritional content when bought from the grocery store (mass produced eggs).  To sum up my research, back in the day, white eggs were mass produced by the cheaper birds that were fed cheap food.  Brown eggs were raised by farmers and families and had a more diverse diet of weeds and bugs and this would enhance the eggs (flavor and nutritional content.)  

Mass producers realized that people wanted brown eggs, so they got brown chickens and started mass producing them.  However, they're fed the same cheap food as the white layers, so their eggs come out with the same nutritional value and bland mass-produced flavor - but with a higher price tag. 

The moral of the story - store bought eggs are going to have the same nutritional value and flavor regardless of their color or price.  Eggs from birds that are fed a better diet - outside of a facility - are going to have a better flavor and a better nutritional content.

In fact , research has shown that home raised chicken eggs have these features (compared to store bought/mass produced eggs):

• 1/3 less cholesterol• 1/4 less saturated fat• 2/3 more vitamin A• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids• 3 times more vitamin E• 7 times more beta carotene

Why Green Eggs?

Personally, I wanted green eggs because it's different and funny and because when I had chickens on my dad's land as a teenager, half of them laid green eggs.  I have read in a variety of places that green eggs are slightly different nutritionally, specifically that they have lower cholesterol levels.  

Regardless of "green eggs" being healthier - it's clear that home grown chickens - with access to sunlight, exercise, bugs, and a diverse diet - produce much healthier (and better tasting) eggs.

In case you wanted a few more interesting facts:

• In 1974, the British Journal of Nutrition found that pastured eggs had 50 percent more folic acid and 70 percent more vitamin B12 than eggs from factory farm hens.
• In 1988, Artemis Simopoulos, co-author of The Omega Diet, found pastured eggs in Greece contained 13 times more omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids than U.S. commercial eggs.
• A 1998 study in Animal Feed Science and Technology found that pastured eggs had higher omega-3s and vitamin E than eggs from caged hens.
• A 1999 study by Barb Gorski at Pennsylvania State University found that eggs from pastured birds had 10 percent less fat, 34 percent less cholesterol, 40 percent more vitamin A, and four times the omega-3s compared to the standard USDA data. Her study also tested pastured chicken meat, and found it to have 21 percent less fat, 30 percent less saturated fat and 50 percent more vitamin A than the USDA standard.
• In 2003, Heather Karsten at Pennsylvania State University compared eggs from two groups of Hy-Line variety hens, with one kept in standard crowded factory farm conditions and the other on mixed grass and legume pasture. The eggs had similar levels of fat and cholesterol, but the pastured eggs had three times more omega-3s, 220 percent more vitamin E and 62 percent more vitamin A than eggs from caged hens.
• The 2005 study Mother Earth News conducted of four heritage-breed pastured flocks in Kansas found that pastured eggs had roughly half the cholesterol, 50 percent more vitamin E, and three times more beta carotene.
• The 2007 results from 14 producers are shown here.

Here is just one of the sources I've looked at:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-10-01/Tests-Reveal-Healthier-Eggs.aspx