The Best Organic Eggs Scorecard. Rate Your Eggs!

[amethyst]

I have used this organic eggs scorecard from the Cornucopia Institute. It has proven to be very helpful in locating good quality organic eggs (if you live in the USA). They are very strict in their ranking standards and I have found this list to be very reliable as to the quality of my eggs. I used to get my free range eggs from a local person where I live, but I have found eggs listed in this scorecard to be even better quality, just going by the color. The best quality eggs are bright orange compared to your average pale yellow in subpar eggs.

Hope you find this list as helpful as I have :)

Organic Egg Scorecard - The Cornucopia Institute

* Btw, happy hens make better eggs!

 

[lollipop]

I have used this organic eggs scorecard from the Cornucopia Institute. It has proven to be very helpful in locating good quality organic eggs (if you live in the USA). They are very strict in their ranking standards and I have found this list to be very reliable as to the quality of my eggs. I used to get my free range eggs from a local person where I live, but I have found eggs listed in this scorecard to be even better quality, just going by the color. The best quality eggs are bright orange compared to your average pale yellow in subpar eggs.

Hope you find this list as helpful as I have :)

Organic Egg Scorecard - The Cornucopia Institute

* Btw, happy hens make better eggs!

Great share @amethyst! Thank you ＼(^o^)／

 

[achillea]

One of the items that we have become concerned with is the space each chicken has to live with. Some of the better farms have at least 103 square feet of outdoor space for each chicken. Then there is the matter of soy free feed. Many egg farmers say they use organic soy which is GMO free. We are not sure that is possible as soy is so tarnished. If you know otherwise please inform us. At this point we buy soy free organic eggs from Blue Sky.

 

[charlie]

Nice!

 

[amethyst]

Great share @amethyst! Thank you ＼(^o^)／

My pleasure, Lisa :) Enjoy!

 

[amethyst]

One of the items that we have become concerned with is the space each chicken has to live with. Some of the better farms have at least 103 square feet of outdoor space for each chicken. Then there is the matter of soy free feed. Many egg farmers say they use organic soy which is GMO free. We are not sure that is possible as soy is so tarnished. If you know otherwise please inform us. At this point we buy soy free organic eggs from Blue Sky.

Your Blue Sky is on the list If you read the link, the different farms go in to detail about how each farm is run, how the "girls" are raised, and how much land they have to run around on.......the best ones let their hens run around on large areas of land, keep them in spacious hen houses and so forth. I love to see happy chickens running around eating bugs and things. They're so cute Fyi: I've bought Vital Farms eggs on the list, and they are really good. Bright orangey yellow in color. It only got a 4 egg rating but I think they are great tasting. They sell that brand at Whole Foods.

 

[Birdie]

These days we get the organic eggs at Costco. We used to get them from various farms and a friend who's son raised chickens. But after a couple of years, the son began to add fish oils to the feed. So sad. We could smell it in the eggs. Hated to stop using his eggs. It wasn't a situation where we could chat about it. I think a lot of people are adding omega 3 to the feed now. Not just a store bought egg problem.

 

[Lilac]

That scorecard jibes with my experience. I have generally been buying Vital Farms Alfresco eggs (four-egg rating), at $7.50 a dozen. I tried Pete & Gerry's (three-egg rating) recently as they are a little cheaper, about $6 a dozen. Three-egg rating seems about right.

Someone on this board described their home-raised eggs as having deep orange, thick yolks. That was the standard I was looking for, along with using the info on the packaging.

I remember some cheapo 99-cent eggs my mother bought in the past year or two being hideously pale and watery, even though they were fresh.

 

[Birdie]

Here's an interesting comment on egg yolk color from Paleohacks:

A rich insect diet will naturally change the color of the yolk to dark orange. In our egg-laying flock that range our property our top foragers, the most intense insect hunters, lay the darkest-orange-yolk eggs. I did an N=1 experiment, where N was my flock. For several weeks I fed them each thin strips of raw grass-fed beef liver (strips the size of worms). This was based on the thought that insects are a rich source of iron. I made sure each hen got approx. the same amount of liver every day. And yes, after a few weeks all their yolks got even darker than they were before, even substantially darkening the yolks from birds that are my weakest foragers.

I've also heard that the yolk color can vary with the breed of hen.

 

[Birdie]

there's another comment. This one from a yahoo group:

My wife used to work for a company that supplied the colour that was added to SOME chicken food to make the yolks go darker. The farmers were happy to pay for the colour because so many customers think it denotes an egg that is somehow 'better'. The farmer is happy because he sells more eggs at a higher price and the customer is happy because they think they've bought something better ....

 

[Birdie]

I look for eggs that are heavy. The longer they sit around, the more air seeps into them, making them lighter. I always feel better about an egg with a good compact yolk, not a flat one. And a good thick white on it. I tend to throw away the runny white part. Have to be careful since my husband is thrifty. If he were to witness any egg white disposal he'd be offended. But, I have it in my mind that the white is estrogenic, so no qualms there.

 

[Birdie]

We have a chicken farm we pass on the way to town. They were eating pumpkin pieces today.

 

[Dan W]

It's out-of-date, but I want to spam my pastured egg page, I think some of the links are a useful supplement to the Cornucopia list.

I found the same as the others who have mentioned Vital Farms: they seem indistinguishable from high quality backyard-chicken eggs I've compared them with.

 

[omnivoracious]

These days we get the organic eggs at Costco. We used to get them from various farms and a friend who's son raised chickens. But after a couple of years, the son began to add fish oils to the feed. So sad. We could smell it in the eggs. Hated to stop using his eggs. It wasn't a situation where we could chat about it. I think a lot of people are adding omega 3 to the feed now. Not just a store bought egg problem.

Yeah, in a pinch we will use Horizon milk since it is so widely available. The one minor annoyance is it can be tough to find milk that hasn't had any DHA added. Everyone seems to be going gaga over the importance of DHA so stores that carry Horizon sometimes only carry the DHA "enhanced" version. If it is truly doing what it is purportedly beneficial for I unfortunately can't say I recognize it in my daily interactions with people.

As far as our preferred eggs go we use Vital Farms. Kinda hits the biggest section of the Venn diagram as far as being pastured but also widely available through Whole Foods and even some of the larger chains. My hope is with eggs finally being vindicated as being totally healthy is that this segment of the egg market will continue to grow and we'll have more choices.

 

[Birdie]

Yeah, in a pinch we will use Horizon milk since it is so widely available. The one minor annoyance is it can be tough to find milk that hasn't had any DHA added. Everyone seems to be going gaga over the importance of DHA so stores that carry Horizon sometimes only carry the DHA "enhanced" version. If it is truly doing what it is purportedly beneficial for I unfortunately can't say I recognize it in my daily interactions with people.

As far as our preferred eggs go we use Vital Farms. Kinda hits the biggest section of the Venn diagram as far as being pastured but also widely available through Whole Foods and even some of the larger chains. My hope is with eggs finally being vindicated as being totally healthy is that this segment of the egg market will continue to grow and we'll have more choices.

Good info. Yeah, I dread that DHA addition to the milk. ..... And haha!!

 

[Birdie]

On the lookout for Vital Farms. Thanks @Dan Wich. Ever grateful for your investigations.

 

[lollipop]

Even better than Vital Farms is Jeremiah Cunningham's Organic, Pastured, Soy Free Eggs. Higher rated then even Vital Farms:

 

[NathanK]

Even better than Vital Farms is Jeremiah Cunningham's Organic, Pastured, Soy Free Eggs. Higher rated then even Vital Farms:


View attachment 6155

I clicked on this thread just to post this. These are my favorite and theyre local

 

[sladerunner69]

Eggs seem to have quite abit of usnaturated fat, even the pasture-raised variety have about 3 grams unsaturated fat per large egg.

 

[lollipop]

I clicked on this thread just to post this. These are my favorite and theyre local