Here’s your public service announcement about eggs.
The USDA will tell you that all eggs are created equal, just as all vegetables, whether organic or not, are equal. Somehow the output from a chicken doesn’t depend on the inputs in the USDA’s world, which is frankly a ridiculous assumption. It’s like a chicken is a little computer program that always puts out the perfect solution, regardless of how much garbage you fed into the program. Too bad it’s not reality.
I was passed two articles from Mother Earth News regarding the nutrition of truly pastured eggs versus the eggs the USDA uses for its tests. Care to see what the results were?
1/3 less cholesterol
1/4 less saturated fat
2/3 more vitamin A
2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
3 times more vitamin E
7 times more beta carotene
4 to 6 times as much vitamin D
But how exactly did they get these results?These amazing results come from 14 flocks around the country that range freely on pasture or are housed in moveable pens that are rotated frequently to maximize access to fresh pasture and protect the birds from predators. We had six eggs from each of the 14 pastured flocks tested by an accredited laboratory in Portland, Ore.
So we have an egg that is altogether more nutritious when the animal is raised in a more natural environment and allowed to eat its natural diet. Imagine that! Too bad the USDA and the Egg Board are unwilling to admit it.
Mike and I talk a lot about reframing our mindset and I think this is another key time for that. I pointed out before that it’s not that a diet based on real foods prevents disease, rather it doesn’t cause disease like the diet of most people. A pastured egg from a chicken eating something very close to the primal version of a chicken diet is our baseline, not the conventional egg. It’s not that pastured eggs are packed with more vitamins. It’s that conventional eggs have less nutrition. It’s all about context.
From Modern Forager.