SC - Egg shell colours

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hi all from Anne-Marie

on the color of chicken egg shells,
Phlip sez:
>As I have described in another post, the color differences are a genetic
>thing, totally unrelated to the diet of the chicken. What will change,
>depending on diet, is the color of the yolk- a free range chicken's yolk
>tends to be a much darker yellow than a production chicken's.
>
>I suspect the preferences in egg shell color in the US stem from the belief
>that a brown egg is somehow healthier, since that's the color of shell many
>people remember from their visits to farms as kids. The reason that many
>small farmers would have brown eggs is that in the 50's, most people were
>trained to believe that white eggs were better, sorta like wonderful Wonder
>Bread ;-) , and chickens which laid brown eggs were cheaper.

as they said when I was a kid...
"white eggs come from white chickens and brown eggs come from brown
chickens" :)

as to why the white ones are cheaper and more prevalanet, methinks it has
to do with the super engineered commercial egg laying chickens. They're
fairly tough, and do well in cages. They lay large, snowy white eggs of
uniform size and shape (more or less) and are very very heavy layers. More
eggs for lower cost = cheaper eggs for the consumer.

Brown eggs come from brown chickens. They like to walk around. They have
personalities. they lay pretty well, but not as well as the mutant
chickens. Thing is, they live longer, though. Still, fewer eggs for higher
cost = more expensive for the consumer.

White eggs may have been percieved as cleaner and more sanitary at one time
(same reason your milkman wears white, as do kids who show livestock at the
fair in 4H, etc).

For a fancy egg display, though, you could always try and find those
araconda eggs...they come in blue and yellow and green naturally, and have
AMAZING flavor. Dunno how medieval araconda chickens are, though...I know
that the Creamery in the Pike Place Market here in Seattle carries them.

have fun!
- --AM

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