Two years ago, I looked into the way that eggs are regulated and sold in Canada. We have a marketing board – the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency – and they’re responsible for managing the national egg supply. For real. And they’ve set up a system the encourages egg producers to have very large farms – the average has at least 10,000 birds. If you want to know more you can click on some of those links.
Most of the hens on these very large farms are housed in battery cages. The SPCA says that 95% of eggs are produced this way. Battery cages are very small, and many hens are placed together in a single cage. They don’t have room to lie down or stretch their wings, and their beaks may be trimmed in a painful procedure in order to keep them from harming one another. After about a year of laying production slows, and in Canada the hens are then sent to slaughter. In some countries they’re subjected to forced molting which involves immersing them in darkness and withholding food.
Because I have concerns about the way that battery hens are treated, I buy most of my eggs at my local farmers market. I can actually trust that the hens are handled humanely. When I buy my eggs at the grocery store I opt for free range eggs, but that isn’t always a guarantee of quality of life for the hens that laid them. I think that the best way to ensure that your food is ethical is to meet the person who produced it.
Blue are from my farmers market, brown are organic and free range from the store, and white are conventional eggs
I run into a problem every year at around this time, though. Easter is coming up, and in order to make really pretty Easter eggs, you need white eggs. The colour of the egg depends on the breed of the chicken that laid it. It does not vary with the way that chickens are treated. But for some reason, organic and free range eggs are pretty much always brown, and eggs from battery hens are pretty much always white. There are exceptions, of course. I recently bought some really pretty bluish hen’s eggs at my farmers market, and I’ve heard that there are stores that carry organic and free range white eggs. But I haven’t seen any of them, myself.
I suspect that the colour difference has to do with marketing. We view food differently based on its colour. Brown eggs somehow seem more natural. White eggs seem cleaner and maybe even a little bit industrial. When white eggs were very popular, choosing brown as your colour when you produced organic and free range eggs set you apart. There could be practical considerations too, I suppose. Some producers carry both conventional and free range eggs, and the colour divide helps ensure that everything ends up in the right carton.
The Easter eggs I dyed last year
Of course, I could colour brown eggs for Easter. I know people who have done that. But they don’t take on colour as well, and you can’t get the same pastel tones. There’s just something about those pinks and yellows and blues that makes me think of spring and Easter and all things hopeful. Once again, the colour of my food affects the way that I view it.
Maybe I should suck it up. Maybe I should accept that if I want ethical Easter eggs, they won’t be as pretty. I can understand that if there’s only one day a year when I actually want white eggs, that egg producers can’t really ramp up production just for me. Chickens produce at a constant rate, and we don’t want to bring a bunch of new hens into the world for a month just so that my Easter eggs can look good.
I’ll come clean and say that right now I have some conventional white eggs in my fridge. I plan to dye them with my kids. My daughter Hannah is really, really excited. She loves that they’re white, and she has grand plans to draw on some with her crayons. And I feel guilty, but apparently not enough to take a stand.
I wonder what you think. How do you choose your eggs? And would you pass up white eggs for Easter for ethical reasons? Please tell me!
Like you Amber, I have a carton of store bought white eggs in my fridge awaiting dye. Normally our eggs come from our friends farm. Normally we go and gather them ourselves. Going to gather the eggs is enjoyable for the my girls and relaxing for me. My friend and I have a chance to sit down and chat while our children run amok on her farm. Hannah usually tries to get a chicken or two to go for a swing with her on the swing set. Once she had a duck hop up on the trampoline with her for a very breif moment. But, brown eggs don’t dye well and my girls can’t fathom not having coloured eggs to search for on Easter morning. This year we are extra lucky because we scored some of the duck eggs from the far. So, there will be a few extra large eggs hidden this year.
I’m in the same exact situation.
I’m about to buy a nasty carton of white eggs AND hyper easter egg color dye (not the natural homemade dyes going around the web.)
Someday it might be different, but for now this is what we’re working with.
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When I buy eggs I only buy organic free range/free run ones. Usually from Rabbit River Farms because I trust the hens are treated well and get to live a normal life.
But then I won an egg dying kit from EkoBear…and realized I needed white eggs. As you said, brown ones wouldn’t work as well.
So I sucked it up for my kids and bought the white eggs. And we will dye them and it will be fun…but I feel bad for those chickens
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Same here, but I get occasional eggs free from my sister’s backyard chickens. She has it worse because she gets the brown and blue eggs all the time from her chickens anyhow. White eggs aren’t just a replacement to what she’d buy elsewhere; they’re an addition to the excess she usually has anyhow. She does it anyhow because the kids want to dye pretty eggs, but she also hides some of the others in their natural colors.
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Normally my eggs are organic brown eggs, except for Easter. I think you might be able to find some white cage free. Enjoy the holiday!
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We buy white eggs. But I don’t think chickens have feelings/emotions/souls, so I’m not really all that concerned about their conditions beyond the health impact of the final product. That sounds so heartless, and I don’t support torturing animals-but only because of the negative impact I believe it has on the human soul to needlessly inflict harm upon another creature. But if chickens being uncomfortable means eggs and chicken can be more widely available at low cost and therefore more accessible to humans without lots of financial resources, I think that’s awesome.
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Huh. You can get organic/free range white eggs at our local store, no problem. I usually just get whatever looks good and least expensive, so I may end up with brown or white.
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The UK consumer (at least 10 years ago) preferred brown eggs so brown eggs (conventional, battery, free range, perchery, barn and so on) is usually all that was on sale in British grocery stores so no dilemma around dying eggs in this household. I avoid white eggs here in Canada because they look odd to me!
BTW My dad would decorate our morning eggs with felt tip colouring pens in his own funky designs.
On a side note, apart from preferring brown, I usually reach for barn, perchery or fee range eggs anyway. I’m all for cheap food but usually, food production is cheap and affordable to many when stocking densities are high so the price the consumer pays in terms of residual medications, extra disease burden, etc in the end product is questionable.
I therefore struggled with the egg question for a while as research has shown non-cage systems actually present increased health challenges vs. caged. However, these infection rates are easily brought down by good management, genetic selection of appropriate chicken strains, appropriate farming design, and so on (the same holds true for the various behavioural problems which can arise with free roaming hens). I agree with the EU’s decision to completely phase out battery cages next year and quote from the LayWel research study compiled 2006;
“Conventional cages do not allow hens to fulfil behaviour priorities, preferences and needs for nesting,
perching, foraging and dustbathing in particular. The severe spatial restriction also leads to disuse
osteoporosis. We believe these disadvantages outweigh the advantages of reduced parasitism, good
hygiene and simpler management. The advantages can be matched by other systems that also enable a
much fuller expression of normal behaviour. A reason for this decision is the fact that every individual
hen is affected for the duration of the laying period by behavioural restriction. Most other advantages
and disadvantages are much less certain and seldom affect all individuals to a similar degree.”
summarised here http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/animalwelfare/HSUS–A%20Comparison%20of%20the%20Welfare%20of%20Hens%20in%20Battery%20Cages%20and%20Alternative%20Systems.pdf
The authors’ conclude that even with a potential for increased (but manageable disease prevalence) the hens feelings/emotions/souls ie. welfare is important; there is no excuse for continuing with caged farming methods of egg production.
BTW, hens do feel pain (http://www.grandin.com/welfare/fear.pain.stress.html) and do exhibit stress. I’m also a firm believer in them possessing souls and yes, I do eat chicken.
PS: egg shell colour is a factor of genetics and strain of chook though i still won’t be getting white free range etc
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Many thanks for this response (and to Amber, of course)! I will certainly visit the links you’ve posted.
I have my own chickens who produce plenty of eggs for me, Easter or not. I love decorating eggs, but I would never buy eggs just for the purpose of decoration when I have so many provided for me here. There are lots of ways to decorate eggs besides dying, so if I didn’t like the results I got on the brown eggs, I’d experiment with different decoration methods rather than compromising on my feelings about factory eggs.
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I had the exact same problem today. White or brown, they taste the same! And yet I couldn’t find any cage free organic eggs that weren’t brown. We’re going to try another store tomorrow. Good luck with your dyeing.
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Thank you for reminding me to pick up eggs and dye them! We buy free range and organic eggs from Whole Foods or Trader Joes (I should find a farmer though this spring since we have so many coming in from Shenandoah and PA). I do remember that the brown eggs don’t dye as nicely; I think that once a year, it is okay to buy the white eggs. I try to live ethically and in moderation too. I don’t think total extremes are good for me or my family.
I remember hearing/seeing somewhere that white eggs are actually bleached or something to make them even whiter. Not the case all the time, as I have seem freshly laid eggs that are white, but I guess grocery store eggs are extra sparkly white?
My mom has 5 hens that produce enough eggs for six of us – her household and mine. She even gives them to co-workers sometimes, which I think is cool. I just happen to get those eggs really, so I can’t take credit, but it does feel nice to know that I am eating something ethical. I held those hens when they were chicks and my mom still hand feeds them and them roam her sizable backyard. “Cage free” hens only have to get a few feet of space apparently. Another awesome thing is that my mom’s eggs taste a million times better and creamier than storebought. I was nervous to try them at first (so backwards! our society) but am now totally hooked.
All of that said, I know how important those details are for little girls and would probably buy the white ones just once if I had no other way to get the dye-able eggs.
Our (chicken) eggs, from farms and stores, are all brown. The first time I saw a white egg was in the US: white shell, and pale yellow yolk. Perhaps our brown eggs are the reason why we eat them, and don’t use them for crafting. Happy Easter!
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We bought a dozen white eggs for decorating. One time a year . . .
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I’m off the hook this year for buying the conventional eggs because I ended up having the busiest week this week and didn’t get around to dying anything for Easter. Usually I also end up buying white eggs because otherwise it is a waste of time and energy and everyone is disappointed by the crappy job brown eggs do with the dyes. Why can’t organic free range farmers buy some white hens for us granola moms who want to dye hen-friendly eggs?
This year I barely remembered to buy some chocolate to hide in the yard. Earth Day was also a write off. Good thing I didn’t have to blog about it. I’d have earned a few dislikes for my bad mothering! (ha ha)
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I wouldn’t buy commercial eggs for Easter, but then again, Easter doesn’t mean much to me. I just published a blog post about how we (as non-Christians raised by Christians) are trying to figure out how to celebrate spring/Easter with our daughter. I hope to make egg-dyeing/coloring a part of our traditions next year, but I hadn’t thought about the brown color of our farmer’s market eggs. I s’pose we’ll just have dull eggs? Or maybe paint them? I guess I have some research to do
It really irritates me how even the expensive, “free range/organic” eggs in our local food co-ops aren’t necessarily trustworthy. Why is it so damn hard to eat ethically? Ugh.
Amber, are you familiar with the Cornocopia Institute? (http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/) –they rate a bunch of different farms/producers for the ethical-ness of their eggs…
I also don’t have much trouble finding fairly ethical white eggs (Phil’s Farm Fresh is sold at our local Whole Foods, and they have received some good accolades for the way they are treated…), so that part has been okay. We did break down and buy the 99 cent Paas coloring kit…sigh.
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