What ho Pepys!
As someone who kept chickens and found the eggs to be entirely delicious I often wondered if my perception of how wonderful they were was purely psychological, but it seems that some nice Scientists have been testing the contents of eggs since the early 1970's and comparing them with commercially produced eggs - and guess what? - the free range have consistently out performed the commercial eggs.
I knew very well that they are much more tasty when I was eating them, but it's difficult to be precise about why. It turns out the nutritional value of commercial eggs is lowered due to the conditions in which the birds are kept. Like so many foods we eat these days, the nutritional values are dropping fast and we are just not getting the goodness we could from the food that we are offered in supermarkets.
Another sound reason for buying organic whenever you can.
Check out the facts:
In 1974, the British Journal of Nutrition found that pastured eggs
had 50 % more folic acid and 70 % more vitamin B12 than eggs
from factory farm hens.
In 1988, Artemis Simopoulos, co-author
of The Omega Diet, found pastured eggs in Greece contained 13 times more
omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids than U.S. commercial eggs.
A
1998 study in Animal Feed Science and Technology found that pastured
eggs had higher omega-3s and vitamin E than eggs from caged hens.
A
1999 study by Barb Gorski at Pennsylvania State University found that
eggs from pastured birds had 10 % less fat, 34 % less
cholesterol, 40 % more vitamin A, and four times the omega-3s
compared to the standard USDA data. Her study also tested pastured
chicken meat, and found it to have 21 % less fat, 30 % less
saturated fat and 50 % more vitamin A than the USDA standard.
In
2003, Heather Karsten at Pennsylvania State University compared eggs
from two groups of Hy-Line variety hens, with one kept in standard
crowded factory farm conditions and the other on mixed grass and legume
pasture. The eggs had similar levels of fat and cholesterol, but the
pastured eggs had three times more omega-3s, 220 % more vitamin E
and 62 % more vitamin A than eggs from caged hens.
The
2005 study Mother Earth News conducted of four heritage-breed pastured
flocks in Kansas found that pastured eggs had roughly half the
cholesterol, 50 % more vitamin E, and three times more beta
carotene.
The 2007 reults are on a pdf file which you can find here.
That reminds me - I must get some more chickens!
Tallyho!
Best Wishes - Lord Noel
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