Image it: you’re standing within the dairy aisle on the grocery retailer, about to seize a dozen eggs. It must be a simple merchandise to verify off your checklist—however you’re shortly overwhelmed by what looks like 1,000,000 choices. Immediately, it looks like you’re taking a check you didn’t research for as an alternative of selecting up a weekly staple.
I’ve actually been there. If you already know me, you already know I really like eggs, and eat them each time the chance arises (aka virtually every single day, typically greater than as soon as). I need my eggs to style nice, and I care that they had been humanely raised. However even with love and good intentions, I don’t really know which labels imply that I’m getting what I need. So I made a decision to seek out out.
To get began, I talked to Kevin Phelps, VP of Farm Operations for Nellie’s Free Vary, which is a part of the Pete & Gerry’s household of manufacturers. I requested: is there some form of shortcut I can use once I purchase eggs? What are the magic phrases to search for?
“The ‘Licensed Humane’ label paired with the time period “free-range” is the sure-fire option to observe down humanely raised eggs,” Kevin informed me. He defined that, whereas the time period “free-range” is federally regulated, the USDA’s tips will not be detailed sufficient to belief these phrases alone. That’s why a 3rd celebration certifier, just like the “Licensed Humane” label, is the easiest way to know you’re actually getting free-range eggs. “With no robust third celebration certifier…hens may be confined to screened-in porches or cement and nonetheless be thought-about free-range,” he mentioned. He went on to elucidate that all the farmers within the Nellie’s and Pete & Gerry household of manufacturers observe the Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) Licensed Humane Pasture-Raised or Free-Vary requirements—and that they had been really the primary egg producer within the nation to realize that standing, method again in 2003.
Thus far, I acquired it. My subsequent query was about cage-free. Is that no good? Seems, probably not. “Cage-free hens, sometimes housed in massive industrial buildings containing a whole lot of hundreds of hens, stay inside metal aviary programs and don’t go exterior,” Kevin mentioned. “Free-range hens, then again, have “free vary” to maneuver about each inside their barns and open air within the pasture.”
I beloved the sound of that. Much more, I beloved that he referred to the hens as “our women,” and informed me that, as a result of they’re exterior no less than six hours a day at a naked minimal (excepting excessive climate, after all) and might interact in instinctual behaviors like scratching, taking mud baths, and foraging for worms and grubs, they find yourself happier, which in flip produces thicker shells, shiny orange yolks, and viscous whites of their eggs.
Lastly happy that I knew what to do within the egg aisle, I mentioned goodbye to my new farm good friend and went again to the shop. As a fast experiment, I picked up Nellie’s Licensed Humane Free-Vary eggs in addition to one other carton that was labeled solely “cage-free.” I cracked each eggs alongside one another, blended them each into omelets, and certain sufficient: Nellie’s yolks had been brighter, and once they had been able to eat, they’d a richer style.
Nellie’s and Pete & Gerry’s household of manufacturers has greater than 200 household farms throughout 14 states—all sufficiently small for every household to handle the operations on their very own. I feel that may clarify using “our women”: these farmers actually care about their livestock, they usually produce a greater product due to it.
If all this scrumptious, free-range egg speak has you craving an omelet, properly, identical. Listed here are some recipes to get you began—together with a couple of of the non-omelet selection, too.
An fanatic for higher eggs and activists for greater animal welfare requirements throughout all the business, Nellie’s Free Vary, a Licensed B Corp, furthers its mission by contemplating individuals, planet, and revenue in all their choices, main with kindness at each flip.
