Eggs!

I am a big proponent of buying local farm fresh ("free range") eggs. There are numerous reasons to do so, especially nutritional ones since they have more than twice the omega-3's found in "conventional" eggs and half the cholesterol. Not to mention, the conditions that "regular" eggs come from are frighteningly unsanitary and the things they are fed are disgusting (think chicken cannibalism).

But today I learned something new about eggs. The farmer I bought mine from this morning told me that conventional eggs sit in cold storage on the "farm" where they are collected for up to 21 days, at which point the USDA requires the "Use By" date to be stamped on them at 65 days from that day. So the eggs you buy in the store are generally 86 days old by their "use-by" date! 86 DAYS! Yikes. I have noticed that every time I have to buy store eggs (if I missed the farmer's market that weekend), the "use by" date seems to never be more than 2-3 weeks from the day I purchase the eggs. That means that the store bought eggs you / we are buying are 9 to 10 weeks old already! Yikes! Where have they been for those nine to ten weeks? And why are they so old?

The eggs I bought this morning are exactly three days old and I met the man who gathered them for me, so I feel pretty good about their nutrition and freshness. I paid $4, which some people consider extremely expensive. But the way I look at it is that I am willing to make other small sacrifices in order to spend $2 extra on eggs each week. It really isn't all that much money anyway, even for someone on an all cash food budget each week. Our health is worth it!