Standard or Free Range Eggs?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Do you mostly buy standard or free range eggs?

In the past I used to buy a bit of both, but now I always buy free range eggs (and organic in everything I possibly can). I can understand why people would go for the cheaper option, currently standard eggs go for around 75p for 6, compared to about £1.50 for 6 on average, here, so that's about double cost. However the conditions that those caged hens are kept in means that I would rather pay more. We are talking about 5 hens to a cage that never come out and then are killed after a year. It's surely going to be better quality for free range too.

Here is a good programme on it, if you can access it and are interested, Jamie's Fowl Dinners:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/j...wl-dinners/4od

[TheFifthElement]

Where are you buying your eggs Neely? At my local Tesco they're £0.86 for 6 locally produced free range eggs. If you're paying £1.50 for 6, you're being ripped off!

I always buy free range eggs, but as to whether they're better quality I doubt it. I remember they did a chicken taste test on Countryfile once. They had a well known chef roast a battery chicken, free range chicken and corn fed chicken and did blind taste tests. Everyone preferred the battery chicken. The chef (I think it was Rick Stein) was mortified.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Where are you buying your eggs Neely? At my local Tesco they're £0.86 for 6 locally produced free range eggs. If you're paying £1.50 for 6, you're being ripped off!

I always buy free range eggs, but as to whether they're better quality I doubt it. I remember they did a chicken taste test on Countryfile once. They had a well known chef roast a battery chicken, free range chicken and corn fed chicken and did blind taste tests. Everyone preferred the battery chicken. The chef (I think it was Rick Stein) was mortified.

Yes, I'm beginning to think that I'm being ripped off at every turn. I get my eggs from Tesco's too and they're charging around £1.50. I also get my eggs from any farm shops when I can, like the other day I got some from the farm at Chatsworth House.

I would have thought though that the quality overall has to be better from free range chicken, both the eggs and the meat. I've seen similar tests when the audience preferred the organic stuff, like in that programme What Goes into Your Basket or on one of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's. (I'm a big fan of old Hugh.)

[kiki1982]

Yes, then you are being ripped off...

In my supermarket (Kaufland), I don't think you can actually get battery eggs, and if you can at all they won't be cheaper, I think more expensive. We namely always buy the cheapest, unless there is an argument for more expensive (i.e. better). We always take 'Bodenhaltung' which means the chickens are kept on the ground and not in cages. I think that they are allowed to walk around, but get their food in a trough or so and can go inside to sleep... Though I can be wrong I think that is free range, isn't it? They cost about 1,25euro, so now 1,30 pounds at best, for 10 eggs...

[Delta40]

Only Free Range Eggs with the RSPCA tick can be considered to be the best eggs in terms of humane treatment of chickens but even then it's a fine line.

best solution: a coop and 2-4 chickens in your own back yard.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes, then you are being ripped off...

In my supermarket (Kaufland), I don't think you can actually get battery eggs, and if you can at all they won't be cheaper, I think more expensive. We namely always buy the cheapest, unless there is an argument for more expensive (i.e. better). We always take 'Bodenhaltung' which means the chickens are kept on the ground and not in cages. I think that they are allowed to walk around, but get their food in a trough or so and can go inside to sleep... Though I can be wrong I think that is free range, isn't it? They cost about 1,25euro, so now 1,30 pounds at best, for 10 eggs...

Yes as long as they have access to outside and are given plenty of room inside then they are free range. The chickens from standard eggs, like in Tesco's, are produced from birds that never leave the cage. They have access to food and water via a conveyor belt. If the birds you describe don't have access to outside then they are like our barn eggs. These have better living conditions, i.e. not trapped in a cage with 5 others, but given space to roam freely inside in less cramped conditions.

When it comes to farming for meat the standard birds in supermarkets, over here at least, particularly from Tesco's, never go outside or see natural light. They are crammed in a big warehouse thousands of birds together, approximately 17 or 18 birds to a square metre. They are given artificial light for 23 and a half hours a day and are bred to continually eat. The cycle of the chickens under these conditions is just 39 days. The unnatural growth means that at the end, their legs can hardly support their own weight so they mostly just sit in their own feces.

The organic chickens are given more space inside, have access to natural light and access to roam freely. The cycle for those chickens are longer, something like 54 days, and they are obviously more expensive to produce. Though the are obviously visibly much better.

There is a half-way measure which some supermarkets/producers are putting in place, which is based upon improving the standard conditions so that they have access to natural light and more space. They also have objects like perches, and hay etc, but don't have access to outside. However the use of the cage birds for eggs method and the factory farming for meat, set to continue. There is even some new European legislation being put in place which would allow them to cram even more birds together. A step backwards, not forwards methinks...

Only Free Range Eggs with the RSPCA tick can be considered to be the best eggs in terms of humane treatment of chickens but even then it's a fine line.

It is a fine line, in some cases such stickers are inaccurate.

best solution: a coop and 2-4 chickens in your own back yard.

Absolutely. Or next best get them from farms yourself where you can seeing running around your feet.

[The Comedian]

I usually alternate between free-range and traditional eggs, mostly due to expense and not wanting to lock myself into always buying the spendier egg.

Just an aside, when I grew up, my family lived next a small ranch. Our families were close, and my father and I would collect chicken eggs at our friend's coop. It was an incredibly fun experience for a young boy. Oh, and the eggs were blue and usually had spots of poop or blood on them, so we'd have to wash them afterwards.

We collected them in ice-cream buckets. Fun times and good eating too!

EDIT: I just did a quick search and I believe the chickens in that coop were of the Araucana breed, which lay a light blue egg, just like I remember.

[Helga]

free range always for me, I feel better because of the treatment behind the standard and they cost almost the same... Also here on the ice the free range are icelandic (at least the company I buy from) and they taste and look different, they are not white but brown and the taste is stronger I think and the yellow thing in the middle is more red.. very yummy

[OrphanPip]

There's reasonable health arguments to prefer free range over factory farmed, there is much less chance of salmonella contamination in free range chickens.

I don't really think there's much difference in taste.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Good point, there are sure health benefits for taking the free range option.

I think the taste is perhaps more evident in the meat, but if you look at the colour of an egg yolk that is free range it is different to that of a caged bird, one of them is bright yellow, the other a more orangey colour.

Anybody interested in chickens and eggs and all of that should check out the Channel 4 link, and also search for the programme Hugh's Chicken Run, available through Channel Four On Demand - I don't know if you can get this outside of the UK though, but it is also available through You Tube. I'm not really a chicken activist, as it might sound, but the programmes are worth watching. I love Hugh in particular, top guy.

[papayahed]

I usually buy the standard eggs. I don't eat eggs often and if I buy anymore then 1/2 dozen at a time I have to throw them out. Sometimes I even have to throw out the carton of six.

I've tried the free range and I knew a guy who gave me eggs, they all tasted the same to me.

[Themis]

I mostly buy free range eggs. Occasionally though, if standard eggs have been delivered more recently and I only use them to bake something, I'll buy those.

[prendrelemick]

If you shop at the Co-op they only sell free range eggs. Also they only use free range eggs in their baked goods.

All battery egg production will be out-lawed in this country in 2012, so your choice will be removed.

As to taste and colour, it is all down to the diet of the chicken, a truly free range hen has a dark yellow/orange yolk, due to the carotene in the grass. (Yes, hens love grass) Their eggs also have a strong taste - delicious once you get used to them.

Feed companies can prvide the farmer with a ration to produce exactly the yolk colour he wants, at a price, the deeper the yellow the more expensive.

[Taliesin]

I remember that when we bought eggs from a neighbour who kept chicken, they did taste much better than the ones bought from the shop.

Alas, I've yet to see a free-range eggs in an Estonian supermarket.

[LitNetIsGreat]

If you shop at the Co-op they only sell free range eggs. Also they only use free range eggs in their baked goods.

All battery egg production will be out-lawed in this country in 2012, so your choice will be removed.

As to taste and colour, it is all down to the diet of the chicken, a truly free range hen has a dark yellow/orange yolk, due to the carotene in the grass. (Yes, hens love grass) Their eggs also have a strong taste - delicious once you get used to them.

Feed companies can provide the farmer with a ration to produce exactly the yolk colour he wants, at a price, the deeper the yellow the more expensive.

Oh, I didn't know that the Co-op did that, that's good. Out of all of the supermarkets the Co-op seems to be at the front of such things, the Tesco the last.

That's right the battery will be outlawed soon. How do you think they will meet the demand for eggs? Will it be achievable to go 100% free range or barn immediately, or will they ship from out of the UK?

I remember that when we bought eggs from a neighbour who kept chicken, they did taste much better than the ones bought from the shop.

Alas, I've yet to see a free-range eggs in an Estonian supermarket.

Yes the "Chatsworth Omelette" I cooked Mrs Neely was the, and I quote, "best omelette I've ever had" that has to be down to more than just my cooking skills and excessive use of herbs! (Though tonights super Lasagne really hit the spot too.)