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Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

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Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#101

Post by maerF0x0 »

debacle wrote: post #71
ashark wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If various articles I've seen on the topic are to be believed, eggs from pastured hens don't just look and taste different—they're far more nutritious than the rest[1]. I forget which nutrient (and I'm not certain it's even one of the ones listed at that link) but IIRC there's one that's very difficult to come by in the recommended quantities unless you 1) eat lots of insects, or 2) eat eggs and/or meat from birds th…

In general, animals that eat grass and things that eat grass (insects, mostly) will have a much higher amount of Omega 3s than those that eat mostly corn and ground up animal byproducts.

iirc all omega3 in non-plants comes from their diet of plants. Similarly we make Omega3 eggs, by feeding them lots of omega 3. Someday we may have omega3 pepperoni pizza by feeding the cows a GMO corn that makes omega3. The more the consumer demands, the more industry will shift to provide, but sometimes it's a comedy. We wanted pasture chickens w/ omega 3 from grass, we got caged birds w/ flaxseed supplements.

Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#102

Post by ndespres »

Of course an article on our food system is in all of our interests (Soylent customers, perhaps, excepted) but I'm always happy to see an article like this at the top of hn. I feel that this industry is particularly ripe for innovation, and it's where I'm presently working. Though it turns out, feeding and watering all the animals every day takes up all that time I thought I'd have to design new systems to track egg consumption and greenhouse temperatures with my Arduino.

Turns out all that work outside is just as gratifying without the electronic hassles I imagined I'd bring to it.

I sell eggs from chickens which I believe have the best possible life, and I hesitate to use most of the terms listed here, even the most positive ones, because of their lackluster connotations. I know what "free range" means in the minimal application of the spectrum, so where my birds have acres to forage for food, someone else may not be so generous. I don't want us classified under the same umbrella. So I invite all my customers to come and see where their food is grown, in the environment where I believe it should all optimally come from.

And yes, the eggs are healthier, firmer, and last longer (not refrigerated) and vary depending on what the chickens have foraged that day. Not to mention the beautiful rainbow of their shells, which vary depending on the breed.

http://homestead.sevenarrowseast.com/wp-content/uploads/2012...

Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#103

Post by maerF0x0 »

zorpner wrote: post #15
jere wrote: post #5

I've know these for a while and always look for pastured eggs but never find them outside of a farmer's market. >No Hormones... It's like putting a label on a cereal box that says, "No toxic waste." http://xkcd.com/641/

Many farmer's markets in SF have actually banned non-pasture-raised eggs (which, as it turned out, only affected one company based out of Petaluma which markets their eggs under 4-5 different small-sounding brands in the Bay Area): http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/01/pasture-raised-industria...

Where do you recommend to get good pasture raised meat and eggs in SF?

Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#104

Post by dragonwriter »

sdenton4 wrote: post #98
dubfan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * GMOs tend to promote monoculture and pesticide use. That's true for industrialized agriculture in general and not specific to GMOs. Growing GMOs doesn't promote monoculture or pesticide use any more than growing conventional crops do. In fact the same farmers that grow GMOs often grow conventional crops at the same time, or switch from year to year, with very little change in their practices. > * Studies have sho…

Funding for GMO seed development is a hard problem, so the only people really doing it are the monsantos of the world. Which pretty much guarantees that the product is going to be fubar. You can bet that industrial seed research, if it were subjected to any rigorous safety standards, would go much the same way as industrial drug design, with all of the falsified studies you care to count. As it is, it's easier to ban…

> Funding for GMO seed development is a hard problem, so the only people really doing it are the monsantos of the world.

This is emphatically not true, unless you mean it in the trivial sense (where "monsantos" are "any companies funding GMO seed development".)

Its not quite as inaccurate as saying the microsofts of the world are the only people really funding software development, but its the same kind of inaccurate.

Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#105

Post by bevan »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #101
debacle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, animals that eat grass and things that eat grass (insects, mostly) will have a much higher amount of Omega 3s than those that eat mostly corn and ground up animal byproducts.

iirc all omega3 in non-plants comes from their diet of plants. Similarly we make Omega3 eggs, by feeding them lots of omega 3. Someday we may have omega3 pepperoni pizza by feeding the cows a GMO corn that makes omega3. The more the consumer demands, the more industry will shift to provide, but sometimes it's a comedy. We wanted pasture chickens w/ omega 3 from grass, we got caged birds w/ flaxseed supplements.

Or feeding cows what they "naturally" graze on, namely, grass. Grass-fed beef has substantially more omega-3s than the grain-fed beef we eat today.

Even we humans have a ton more omega-6 in our tissues than we did before, largely because of our diets. In 1961, we ate diets of 5.8% omega-6s, and our adipose tissue concentrations of n-6 were 9%. Today, Americans eat around 9% of their energy as n6 fats, and they are 23%+ of our fat tissue!

Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#106

Post by ars »

byoung2 wrote: post #99
archagon wrote: post #21

The description in "The Omnivore's Dilemma" of egg yolks from idyllically pasture-raised chickens is forever stuck in my memory. "Between stops, Art mentioned that Joel’s eggs usually gave him his foot in the door when trying to land a new account. We stopped in at one such prospect, a newly opened restaurant called the Filling Station. Art introduced himself and presented the chef with a brochure and a dozen eggs. T…

I've yet to find an egg like that, though I've heard you can get them if you raise backyard chickens. I've seen very firm yolks in the Philippines, where the farm to store time is hours, not days or weeks like in the US. Eggs aren't refrigerated there like they are here, which I found hard to accept, but it turns out that if you wash the eggs on the farm (as is required in the US), you have to refrigerate them. In th…

Actually you don't need to refrigerate them in the US either.

They'll keep for a few months out of the fridge.

They are kept in the fridge only to keep the yolk firm and hard, it's not necessary to keep them from spoiling.

Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#107

Post by bevan »

The evidence appears to be in about "omega-3 eggs". There are quite a few studies showing the benefits of eating them over conventional eggs:

http://paleoclaims.com/claims/omega-3-eggs-are-healthier-tha...

A quote from one of the studies on that page:

"Three n-3 PUFA-enriched eggs provide approximately the same amount of n-3 PUFA as one meal with fish.""

Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#108

Post by nitrogen »

schmichael wrote: post #41

Backyard chicken farmer here! If you have a bit of yard space and time they make wonderful pets. About as difficult to care for as cats and what they lack in cuddles they make up for in hilarious/idiotic behavior. I doubt it saves me any money, but it's fun and provides lots of "organic pasture-raised" eggs and compost.

Just don't let them near anything you don't want them to defecate on. They will defecate everywhere they go, including on expensive equipment and cars when they sneak into your garage.

Re: Eggs Not Always What They're Cracked Up to Be

#110

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

primroot wrote: post #50
archagon wrote: post #21

The description in "The Omnivore's Dilemma" of egg yolks from idyllically pasture-raised chickens is forever stuck in my memory. "Between stops, Art mentioned that Joel’s eggs usually gave him his foot in the door when trying to land a new account. We stopped in at one such prospect, a newly opened restaurant called the Filling Station. Art introduced himself and presented the chef with a brochure and a dozen eggs. T…

That description seems very accurate to me. My grandmother (in Panama) raises her own chickens, and I even find the taste of the eggs they produce to be somewhat more intense. The eggs are also slightly smaller so they take less time to cook. I think this could also be due to the breed of the chickens. Incidentally the issue of breeds is one I think is too often overlooked. Here if one wants to raise one's own chicke…

Actually, commercial egg producing and meat producing breeds are very different. A modern meat bird will be too heavy for its legs to support in about 9 weeks because they grow so fast. Layer breeds are the opposite: skinny so most of their feed goes into producing eggs and not body mass.

The breeds you buy for hobby egg production tend to more general purpose. You are correct in that they are less feed efficient.

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