Brown vs. White Eggs

[SouthernBYChickens]

Other than someone's preference for the color of the shell, are there any pros and/or cons or significant differences in the nutritional value between a white egg and a brown egg if both come from a free range chicken? Thanks for your input!!

 

[Yay Chicks!]

Nope. The color of the shell does not affect the nutritional value of the egg.

 

[cooped up]

Except that { if you're selling} people prefer to get the brown { colored} eggs.

 

[ceeceeholt]

Nope, unless you buy store bought LOL! I actually have a customer that only wants those "sweet brown eggs" they taste so sweet he says! They all look and taste the same to me when they're in the pan!

 

[Baggagolers]

Funny same here. No difference in the eggs, but people that buy them seem to think the brown ones are better. One person tells me the brown ones are the only thing she will use for baking. I just mix them up in the carton and won't sell just one color to someone. They get a mix of brown, white, and green.

 

[ella]

Nutritionally they are the same. Brown eggs cost more because the hens are heavier and need more food to maintain weight/lay eggs. That's just a breed thing.

As for what people say about them...

 

[RBOutdoors]

The only difference I could see in taste would come from one chickens preference for certain foods while free ranging. For instance if one like onion shoots and the other like more bugs then I could see there being a difference. Having said that if you can taste the minute differences in free range diets your palate is much much more refined than most.

 

[MimiChick]

There was an ad that used to run here in the Northeast that said "Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh." That may be where the "myth" about one color egg versus another originated. Totally untrue. But I think there was a time when chicken farms around here switched from Leghorns to RIRs and productions birds, hence more brown eggs. And they needed a way to get everyone to buy brown eggs as opposed to the white they were used to. So the "difference" in taste or nutrition among different colors of eggs was pretty much all an advertising scheme.

 

[Den in Penn]

Now this is the story I was told. Before the 1920s the egg business was mostly small flocks on farms and backyards in towns. The hens most everyone had were brown egg layers. The industrial revolution finally came to the egg business and the large chicken houses started to built in the 20s and 30s. The growers of the day looked for a chicken that could lay economically and they found the leghorn. Now the leghorn lays a white, not what most people were use to so the it had to be marketed to the egg buyer. The line they sold the white eggs on was they were better and cheaper than the brown eggs every one else had. The egg buyer not being familiar with the white egg bought them and thought them and found them if not better at least cheaper. So the next couple of generations grew up not really knowing the brown egg. Till the health food stores started to sell brown eggs marketed as healthy. And that is my understanding of the history if the brown vs white egg wars.

 

[SouthernBYChickens]

Thank you all for replying to my topic of the brown egg vs. the white egg. I have enjoyed reading everyone's input and opinions. Very informative.