In visiting many Amish farms I'll see freshly laid-eggs collecting in the hen house and then just sort of sitting out in the kitchen. See this sign for fresh eggs for a $1 a dozen. Wow, sign me up!:) This sign was at an Amish home outside of Berne, Indiana. Yet, in the grocery store, refrigeration of eggs is as common as finding Lucky Charms in the cereal aisle. Why is that? NPR's The Salt answers that question.
Meanwhile, this is a photo of two eggs that I cracked open yesterday for my breakfast. One is a just-laid farm-fresh egg, the other came from my local supermarket. Interesting the "other" egg was from a package labeled as organic and cage free, so it is supposedly one of the more "upscale eggs." Can you guess which is which?
If you guessed the deep, bright orange egg on the left as being the farm-fresh, just-laid egg, you'd be correct. So often mass production of food adds color (orange food coloring to our mac and cheese, chemical sprays to apples to make them waxy and red, etc), but with the egg nature does what we can't. A free-range chicken eating insects and grain as it roams freely and healthily produces this gorgeous, deep orange egg. But it isn't just the color, the taste is incredible. My taste buds are not the most sensitive, but I can absolutely tell the difference between a fresh egg and a store-bought egg.
Maybe Rosanna will weigh in next week?
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