Quote:
Not exactly.
There are three types of eggs available:
1 - Eggs from the Caged birds shown at
Rose Acre Farms in Iowa, the overcrowded caged birds with floppy combs, ratty feathers, and that have been debeaked. These eggs are sold wholesale to your grocery stores and this particular farm houses up to 1.5 million hens, in their 6 barns. (~3$ per Modern Marvels - these may be less or even more in your individual markets)
2 - Eggs from the 'Cage Free' / 'Free Range' type shown at both Rose Acre Farms and Peteluma Farms in Northern Ca, who live in a large barn, are still debeaked, but are allowed to roost and dust bathe. These birds do not venture outside as the following category does. These eggs are sold wholesale to your grocery stores and the farms hold around 60,000 hens. (5$ per Modern Marvels - again, these may be less or even more in your individual markets)
3 - and Eggs from the Pastured type as shown at
Eatwell Farms in Dixon, CA.
These were the 8$ eggs -
and the ones most comparable to the ones we ourselves produce. These birds go outside in the sun, eat grass and bugs, frolic and live happy lives. These can be wholesale if a big enough company, but are usually smaller productions that *can* supply local grocery stores. Eatwell says they have 20,000 hens but I believe only sell through their local CSA.
'Cage-free' as written on egg cartons in the stores come from the second category. There are NO government regulations on the terms 'cage free' and 'free range' for eggs - although they do exist (with poor stipulations in my mind) for chicken meat.
When Francine Bradley, Poultry Specialist from UC Davis said:
In terms of nutritional value, there is no nutritional difference, so the egg laid by a hen who is maintained in a cage is going to be the same as the nutritional value from an egg laid by a hen that was on the ground.
She is comparing category 1, the caged birds, to category 2, the 'free range/cage free' birds. These birds both consume the same type of feed, in the same type of environment, although category 2 is much better off. This is further reinforced as the footage in the episode cuts from the caged birds at Rose Acre to the 'cage free' barn birds (again at Rose Acre or Peteluma Farms) and not the pastured birds shown at Eatwell Farms who are scratching in the grass. (Not to mention that Eatwell feds theirs on actual grains in addition to natural foraging, whereas both Rose Acre and Peteluma freed powdered all purpose 'vegeterian' mixes.)
It's easy to assume that large scale producers of 'cage free' eggs are claiming they have better eggs than actual pastured or backyard eggs, but you have to look at their exact wording. They know they can't compare with the lovely golden yolks we get - taste or nutrition wise. So they stick with being *better* than the caged birds in category 1 and prey on the same philosophical reasons that Francine Bradley mentioned:
I know people who pay several dollars more a dozen for the eggs because they don't want to buy eggs from hens who were kept in cages; that's a philosophical decision, and they have the ability to pay more for it, and I think that great.
*Google is awesome - 'Modern Marvels Transctipt Eggs' gives up this page: http://www.livedash.com/transcript/modern_marvels-(eggs)/71/HISTP/Thursday_January_21_2010/141364/ and a few more google searches for the actual places mentioned gives the rest of the links and quotes.
