The Incredible Edible Egg: Reading Between the Labels
By Saintless. Filed in Local First, Uncategorized, environment |
“Cage free”, “Free Range”, “All Natural”, “No Antibiotics or Hormones Administered”, “Omega-3 of 225mg in Each Egg”, “Vegetarian Fed”, “Organic Vegetarian Feed”, “75 mcg of Folic Acid”
What do all of those mean, what are the differences from one label to the next, and why should you care? Well, to sum it up, here are things to look for on your egg cartons:
- Free Range
- Omega-3
- Organic Vegetarian Feed
Eat Well Guide goes into the specifics about which egg labels are BS, and which are the ones to look for.
Although these types of labels seem to be gaining ground due to consumers’ increasing demand for natural, safe and healthy food products, the labeling frenzy may at times confound rather than help the customer in making purchasing decisions.
And if you’re wondering why you should care, check out Sustainable Table, or watch The Meatrix:
The above post is Ezra Klein’s fault, if anyone cares. He’s got a good blog up today about why more people will be caring in the near future.
One last thing….later this week, a new restaurant is opening in Sugar House, called Au Naturel. If you’re anywhere near, you’ll want to check it out. Hopefully, I’ll be interviewing the owner soon, and can bring you all the delicious facts!
Monday, September 29th 2008 at 4:43 pm
Interesting post by Klein. I’ve been an environmental vegetarian for nearly 14 years now, but I still ate milk and egg products. I’ve been feeling really squeamish about eggs for the last year and a half, though, so I’ve been avoiding them. Looks like just in time. Now the challenge will be to eat stuff produced locally, which will mean I’ll have to give up veggie junk food like veggie burgers and hot dogs and learn to eat primarily vegetables. Good thing I had a head start getting used to it.