My Expense for Eggs

I just… I just wanted to buy eggs.

Staring into the cooler, I evaluated my options. I always look at food for way too long before selecting. Shelf stockers approach and ask if they can help. I say “no” and continue scrutinizing nearly identical products like my life depends on my choice. This is because it does.

There were eight egg options. Ordered by price and according to the package labels, this was Trader Joe’s selection:

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No egg had it all. My extra large appetite wanted the extra large eggs. My whole-wheat-over-bleached-white inclinations said, “Fill the cart with brown eggs and smash all the white ones!” I reached for the organic, just in case anyone was watching, but then realized the organic eggs weren’t explicitly “100% vegetarian fed.” I wasn’t a vegetarian, but I thought my egg-producing chickens should be. Then the real riddle emerged: a cage-free chicken is not free-range, and a free-range chicken is not cage-free. I imagined a beautiful, open, green field covered in caged chickens.

Okay, I did not just want to buy eggs. I wanted nutritious eggs, and I wanted eggs from humane chicken farms. Most of all, I wanted honest eggs. Those big differences lay in a small price gap, just $3.25, or ¢27 per egg. To understand the seemingly endless egg options and beat the package labels at their own game, I researched. My phone battery flattened as I cracked the truth behind the sphere of egg labels.

Brown eggs are no more nutritious than white. There is simply a difference of chickens – ones with white ear lobes lay white eggs and ones with red ear lobes lay brown eggs. Why did brown, but not white, egg carton labels contain a color designation? Perhaps the egg industry knew that consumers like me falsely associated brown eggs with higher nutrition.

The “all natural” label, as I suspected, meant nothing. There are no regulations for this label, rendering “all natural” a meaningless stamp. Setting aside the possibility of scientifically altering eggs in the future, eggs are inherently a product of nature. All eggs, labeled or not, are “all natural.” Should consumers know the frivolity of this label, or should we prohibit producers from using deceiving labels? Narrowing down my egg selection, I ignored the “all natural” label.

Similarly, “100% vegetarian fed” was a marketing distraction from higher quality, humane eggs. These birds receive vegetarian feed, which is certainly preferred to chickens eating chicken carcasses as is sometimes the case, and egg producers thus charge more than for non-vegetarian chicken eggs. While the organic eggs were not directly labeled as “100% vegetarian fed,” this diet requirement is inherent in the organic label, or at least is inherent when consumers are educated. There are added benefits, and price increases for that matter, for organic eggs over non-organic, “100% vegetarian fed” eggs.

Unlike eggs from simply vegetarian chickens, organic eggs are certified to be from chickens farmed humanely and free of antibiotics, pesticides, and genetically modified foods. These chickens are cage-free and have at least some access to the outdoors, though how much varies. Organic egg producers are arguably monitored more than most, though again the extent to which is potentially insufficient. Still, choosing that organic label, I was ensured eggs from vegetarian and chemical-free chickens that were not inhumanely overcrowded in cages.

The organic eggs were the two most expensive options, and both were advertised as high in omega-3 fatty acids. This label apparently meant that these hens’ feed contained more flax seed meal than industry’s norm. According to advertising, the result is the most nutritious egg on the shelf. My online search suggested that the “omega-3” label lacks adequate regulation to really give it meaning. Regardless, at this juncture I knew I was buying organic, and so also buying omega-3 eggs.

I held a dozen eggs in each hand – both organic and super omega-3-y, and neither distracting me with “natural” or “vegetarian” claims. One dozen was brown and one white, but that didn’t matter. It had been nearly twenty minutes, and my stomach growled for the extra large eggs. I learned, however, that organic also meant cage-free, so the $4.19 large eggs rolled towards victory. They were a grand slam: cage-free and free-range!

But what, exactly, was the difference between cage-free and free-range? The simple answer was that “free-range” is probably better. Ideally, “free-range” implies that un-caged chickens forage for food over a field all day long and, most importantly, have outdoor access like chickens should. The USDA does not, unfortunately, certify this label, so again the regulation of “free-range” egg production is at best inconsistent if not non-existent. Still, “free-range,” if defined as the USDA does for other poultry products, is preferable to just “cage-free.” “Cage-free” chickens generally do not have access to the outdoors, and the living conditions of their barns can vary immensely. Again, producers stamp this label without regulation.

I chose the $4.19 large, brown, free-range, organic, omega-3 eggs. They were the best option of the bunch, but I wondered if they were the best option possible. There were clearly big problems in egg labeling and egg production that render consumers like me confused and dissatisfied. I chose some labels over others not because they assured a more nutritious and humanely farmed egg, but because they were more likely more nutritious and humane than the rest. I paid an extra few dollars for hope, not certainty. My life – my health and my happiness – depends on what I eat. Not one of the eight egg choices for what should be a unique product guaranteed nutrition or ethically sound food. Indeed, I bought eggs. I just don’t know exactly what I paid for them.