Carton Trust Issues

I've been meaning to find out what the labels on egg cartons really mean for a while now. Could we trust that labels like "cage free" and "free range" mean we're eating eggs from humanely raised chickens? I finally got around to doing the research and as it turns out, not so much.

Conventionally raised chickens are kept in battery cages packed so closely together that they cannot spread their wings. Industrial chicken farms cut off the hens' beaks so they can't peck each other to death. Not only is this painful but chickens get most of their information about the world through their beaks. It's brutal and so we're committed to avoiding conventionally produced eggs.

When we lived in KC our supermarket carried eggs produced on a local Amish farm. The carton had a description of the chickens' living conditions on the side. They also included a strip of paper in each carton with a story or poem about what was going on at the farm that month. It was great. When we moved to Sacramento, I started buying cage free eggs at Trader Joe's. I won't be doing that anymore.

Eggs labeled "cage free" come from chickens kept in huge windowless sheds by the thousands. They aren't kept in cages but that still doesn't mean they have enough room to live like chickens, nesting and dusting themselves in dirt. They have no access to sunlight and are fed an entirely unnatural diet. "Free range" chickens live in basically the same conditions but they have access to the outdoors. This usually means a small door that virtually none of them use.

Fortunately, there's an egg vendor at our farmer's market. We buy a flat of 30 pasture-raised eggs for $4 which lasts for about 6 weeks. We were paying $2.89 a dozen for our Trader Joe's eggs so this is definitely a happy ending for us. However, if you don't have access to a local egg producer and you want to avoid conventional egg production, the only option is to buy certified organic eggs. Organic hens nest, roam, and eat a natural, antibiotic-free diet. But they're expensive, around $4 a dozen. Depending on how many eggs you eat that can be a pretty serious deterrent. On the other hand, organic eggs are better for you. They ahve

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

than conventionally produced eggs. So, you're still getting a nice bang for your buck. And so are the chickens.



*Carton labeling information from this article on Culinate by Kelly Myers.
*Organic egg nutrition comparison from Mother Earth News which sites the following studies:

• 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.