This is the first of many posts I am excited to start writing for you. I am passionate about food quality. If there’s one thing I care about, it’s where my food came from and how it was grown, raised, or treated. If I have the choice, and if I am able, I buy the highest quality food that I possibly can. I’ll explain why throughout this new post series I am calling, Nutritional Musings. I feel the need to get this information out there. It’s important to me to spread the word on how far gone our food industry is in hopes that it will one day change due to consumer (us) demand.

Throughout these posts I’ll be writing about why I choose to eat organic, why I avoid GMOs, why it’s incredibly important to choose meat, butter and dairy that’s grass-fed, why organic dairy is the way to go, and today’s topic, why to buy the eggs on the shelf that are over $7. 

3 Main Reasons Why I Buy Pasture-Raised, Organic Eggs 

1.  Humane Treatment.

I care about how animals, chickens in this case, are treated, where they’re kept and what they’re fed. 

Where Conventional Chickens Are Kept

Chickens are meant to live outdoors, free to roam, free to eat grass, bugs, and berries that fall from trees. This is NOT how the majority of chickens live in the United States. Sadly, most of them live indoors in crowded battery cages stacked on top of each other (a whopping 95% of eggs come from chickens raised this way). Or, if they’re lucky, they are “cage free” and live in a giant warehouse that can house around 20,000 birds in a 400 x 40′ space. Chickens aren’t meant to live this close together and in such large groups. In smaller, more functional groups they establish what’s called “pecking order” which is a chicken’s way of establishing hierarchy. In large groups and close quarters, these chickens end up pecking each other endlessly resulting injury, infection and sometimes death. 

When you buy pasture-raised eggs, you will know you are buying eggs from a chicken that was free to roam outside with other chickens in the sun, grazing on grass and bugs. 

What Conventional Chickens are Fed
Chicken feed consists primarily of corn and soybean meal. This is not high quality feed, especially when the corn and soybeans are genetically modified in the first place. Chickens are also pumped with antibiotics to promote growth to to prevent disease from poor living quarters. In addition to GMO feed and antibiotics, chickens are fed arsenic. Aresenic is added to a chicken’s diet because it reduces infections and makes the meat a pleasant shade of pink. Many other drugs were also found in chicken’s feathers - aka feather meal — a byproduct made of ground-up poultry feathers commonly added to chicken, swine, cattle and fish feed. In this feather meal they found the active ingredients in Benadryl, Xanax, and Tylenol. 

When you buy organic eggs, you’re ensuring the chicken wasn’t fed GMO feed, wasn’t given ANY antibiotics and wasn’t fed feather meal. This also means you won’t be ingesting any of these unhealthy substances every time you eat eggs. 

2. Organic, pastured eggs are more nutrient-dense than conventional eggs. 

Depending on what the hens themselves ate, the nutritional value of eggs can differ greatly. 

In 2007, Mother Earth News magazine tested the nutritional value of pastured eggs from 14 different farms. They were measured in a chemical lab then compared to the USDA standard conventional egg. 

It’s pretty cool to see the differences. Eggs from pastured hens are more nutritious than conventional eggs you may be tempted to buy because they’re cheaper. 

1/3 less cholesterol
2/3 more vitamin A
2x more omega-3 fatty acids
3x more vitamin E
7x more beta carotene

 3. Vote With Your Dollar.

I pay the extra money for the high quality eggs because I care what goes into my body. But, I also REALLY care about how the animal was treated, and I don’t ever want to support a factory farm that mistreats the animals so they can mass-produce food for profit. It’s just not something I want to support. So, I choose to support farms that are compassionate and care about the animals and the quality of food they are producing and I do this by purchasing their products. I <3 Vital Farms. If your local grocery store doesn’t carry this brand, check at a local health foods store or Whole Foods and ask for their pasture-raised eggs. 

 Egg Carton Labels - What to Look For & Why

And the winning labels are..

Certified Humane (Pasture Raised & Free Range) - The Best of the Best

Animal Welfare Approved

Certified Organic 

Look for these next time you’re at the grocery store to ensure you’re buying eggs that came from healthy, happy, well-fed hens.