Whether you believe the chicken came first or the other way around, making sense of those egg-carton labels can be daunting indeed.
Choosing a dozen eggs at the grocery store these days is as complicated as picking a health insurance plan. There are so many labels, with so many different options. Who knows what they all mean?
“All-Natural.” That one sounds nice, like the soft, warm scrambled eggs Grandma made you on a snowy winter morning.
“Organic”? Swallow this one with a big dose of culinary correctness.
“Cage-Free,” “Free Range” or “Free-Roaming”? I hear a George Carlin riff coming on.
“Certified Humane.” A good thing that somehow sounds a little Orwellian.
Lots of consumers want their eggs sunny-side up these days, meaning served without guilt. They want to be able to enjoy their omelets without worrying about clogging their arteries or being haunted by images of suffering hens popping out eggs faster than earmarks in a bailout.
Labels on egg cartons are there to help you sort out the differences between brands, both nutritionally and in terms of animal welfare. But sometimes, things that are supposed to help consumers get taken over by marketers, and without careful scrutiny, they can become meaningless.
Take “All-Natural.” That label doesn’t really mean anything. It may mean the chickens didn’t get antibiotics, but it definitely doesn’t mean they were given organic feed. Mostly, that label is there to make you feel good about paying a dollar more for your dozen eggs.
And what about those eggs that are enriched with omega-3 fatty acids? Are they worth the extra money, or does the omega-3 simply cancel out the cholesterol in the egg?
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
First, let’s tackle those animal welfare claims.
“Organic” has more to do with what the chickens are fed than how they are treated, according to Paul Shapiro, senior director of the factory farming campaign at the Humane Society of the United States.
Organic does mean the birds are cage-free, which allows them to engage in natural behaviors such as nesting, perching and dust bathing. But they might still have their beaks cut, a practice that producers use to keep birds from aggressively pecking each other and pulling out each others’ feathers.
So, if organic and cage-free birds are allowed to walk around, what does free range mean?
Like organic and cage-free, free-range chickens are not confined to the small battery cages that have become so controversial that California – one of the country’s largest egg-producing states – banned them last November. Generally, free-range birds are supposed to have some access to the outdoors, while cage-free birds generally do not.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean free-range birds ever actually put a toe outside the barn. The amount of time they spend outside and the amount of space they are allowed to wander around in can vary widely.
So, while free-range birds have more space than caged hens, we’re still not talking the Ritz and room service.
New voluntary guidelines followed by the majority off egg producers – look for the “United Egg Producers Certified” label – call for space of 67 to 86 square inches per bird, according to the UEP’s Web site,
www.uepcertified.com.
The least amount of space provided to free-range birds is about 216 square inches per bird, Shapiro said.
“Many consumers think of something that is far different than the reality,” he said. “So free-range means that the birds are at least not confined in cages, they are able to walk around, to lay their eggs in nests, to spread their wings.
“But it does not mean that they’re living on Old McDonald’s Farm.”
Still, Shapiro sees any movement away from battery cages as a move in the right direction.
So does Adele Douglass, executive director of Humane Farm Animal Care, the organization responsible for the “Certified Humane Raised & Handled” label on New England-based brands such as Nellie’s, Pete & Gerry’s and Born Free.
Douglass compares chickens in battery cages to humans taking a really, really, really long airplane ride. “We eat animals,” Douglass said. “We know that they’re going to be raised for food. That doesn’t mean you want them to have a life like a human being sitting in an airline seat their entire life. You want them, for however long they live, to be able to scratch and move and turn around and do whatever they do.”
STRICTLY SPEAKING …
If animal-welfare practices are important to you, the strictest standards are afforded by the “Animal Welfare Approved” label. But these eggs are only available at the moment directly from the farmer or at farmers’ markets, not supermarkets.
Next strictest, according to animal-welfare and consumer groups, is the “Certified Humane” label given by Douglass’ organization.
When the Certified Humane label first started being applied in 2003, it covered 143,000 farm animals. By 2008, that number had skyrocketed to 22.6 million.
Those statistics reflect growing consumer demand for eggs from cage-free birds.
“We’ve seen a real dramatic shift in the industry in the past few years,” Shapiro said. “If you look about four years ago, only 2 percent of the egg industry was cage-free in the United States, whereas today it’s about 6 percent.”
Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C., says he buys cage-free eggs, then throws out half the yolks. But he wouldn’t be caught dead with those eggs that have added omega-3 fatty acids. “First, putting a little omega-3 fatty acids in a food that’s loaded with cholesterol, it doesn’t make sense,” Jacobson said. “If you want to avoid heart disease, stick to Egg Beaters.”
But what about the person who eats eggs only occasionally and doesn’t want to give them up, not even the yolks?
Jacobson said it’s ultimately up to the consumer to decide whether the omega-3 eggs are worth the money, but he and other nutrition experts pointed out that most of the designer eggs don’t contain the best kind of omega-3s.
Most omega-3-enriched eggs contain the kind of omega-3 that’s found in flax seed. But the kind of omega-3 that scientists have found is really good for us is the kind that contains long-chain fatty acids known as DHA and EPA.
“Those provide the most benefit for the heart,” said Holly Bresnahan, a dietician at Maine Medical Center. “Those are things like fish and fish oils.”
Marine algae, too. Gold Circle Farms, a California-based brand, produces eggs containing DHA and EPA by feeding their hens feed laced with marine algae, but they are the rare exception. Most farms give their chickens feed containing flax seed in order to label their eggs as omega-3-enriched. “We get plenty of the omega-3 fatty acid in flax seed from other foods,” Jacobson said. “A little bit of it, maybe 5 or 10 percent, is converted (in our bodies) into EPA and DHA, but it just isn’t much. It’s one of those health food myths that companies capitalize on.”
Bresnahan thinks there could be some benefit to eating the omega-3-enriched eggs if people can afford them and they don’t start making omelets every day.
Eggs are “a great source of protein and a good food source,” she said, but consumers need to keep the cholesterol and fat content in mind.
Others don’t see the point.
“I take fish-oil capsules,” said Mary Ellen Camire, a professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Maine. “To me, that’s just the most efficient way. The problem I’ve heard is people buy these expensive eggs, and then they make an egg-white omelet.”
The omega-3’s are in the yolks, so throwing them away is like pouring money down the drain. “Americans just don’t get enough omega-3’s, so any contribution is a good one,” Camire said. “But with people having to watch where they put their dollars for food, buy the regular eggs and get fatty fish or fish-oil capsules.”
Staff Writer
Meredith Goad
791-6332
Portland Press Herald: It’s a Scrambled Egg Scene
Posted: March 11, 2009 by Certified Humane
Choosing a dozen eggs at the grocery store these days is as complicated as picking a health insurance plan. There are so many labels, with so many different options. Who knows what they all mean?
“Organic”? Swallow this one with a big dose of culinary correctness.
“Certified Humane.” A good thing that somehow sounds a little Orwellian.
Labels on egg cartons are there to help you sort out the differences between brands, both nutritionally and in terms of animal welfare. But sometimes, things that are supposed to help consumers get taken over by marketers, and without careful scrutiny, they can become meaningless.
And what about those eggs that are enriched with omega-3 fatty acids? Are they worth the extra money, or does the omega-3 simply cancel out the cholesterol in the egg?
First, let’s tackle those animal welfare claims.
Like organic and cage-free, free-range chickens are not confined to the small battery cages that have become so controversial that California – one of the country’s largest egg-producing states – banned them last November. Generally, free-range birds are supposed to have some access to the outdoors, while cage-free birds generally do not.
So, while free-range birds have more space than caged hens, we’re still not talking the Ritz and room service.
The least amount of space provided to free-range birds is about 216 square inches per bird, Shapiro said.
“But it does not mean that they’re living on Old McDonald’s Farm.”
Still, Shapiro sees any movement away from battery cages as a move in the right direction.
Douglass compares chickens in battery cages to humans taking a really, really, really long airplane ride. “We eat animals,” Douglass said. “We know that they’re going to be raised for food. That doesn’t mean you want them to have a life like a human being sitting in an airline seat their entire life. You want them, for however long they live, to be able to scratch and move and turn around and do whatever they do.”
Next strictest, according to animal-welfare and consumer groups, is the “Certified Humane” label given by Douglass’ organization.
Those statistics reflect growing consumer demand for eggs from cage-free birds.
Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C., says he buys cage-free eggs, then throws out half the yolks. But he wouldn’t be caught dead with those eggs that have added omega-3 fatty acids. “First, putting a little omega-3 fatty acids in a food that’s loaded with cholesterol, it doesn’t make sense,” Jacobson said. “If you want to avoid heart disease, stick to Egg Beaters.”
Jacobson said it’s ultimately up to the consumer to decide whether the omega-3 eggs are worth the money, but he and other nutrition experts pointed out that most of the designer eggs don’t contain the best kind of omega-3s.
“Those provide the most benefit for the heart,” said Holly Bresnahan, a dietician at Maine Medical Center. “Those are things like fish and fish oils.”
Bresnahan thinks there could be some benefit to eating the omega-3-enriched eggs if people can afford them and they don’t start making omelets every day.
Others don’t see the point.
The omega-3’s are in the yolks, so throwing them away is like pouring money down the drain. “Americans just don’t get enough omega-3’s, so any contribution is a good one,” Camire said. “But with people having to watch where they put their dollars for food, buy the regular eggs and get fatty fish or fish-oil capsules.”
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