A guide to navigating the grocery store and understanding the ingredients in your food.

Navigating the grocery store is never an easy task. In a world of information overload and nutrition labels as confusing as reading Latin, it can be hard to know where your food comes from and how it’s made. I’ve decided to do a series of posts to help make navigating the grocery store an easier task. Here is the first post in my guide to navigating the grocery store and understanding the ingredients in your food (and what they mean).

We begin with eggs.

What to know when buying eggs!

Food labeling is unfortunately confusing and often deceptive. What’s the difference between cage free, free-range and pasture raised?

Caged: Hens are confined to cages (~67 square inch space per hen). These hens don’t go outside  and are fed a corn or soy diet. More than 90% of eggs in the U.S. come from hens kept in cages.

Cage-Free: These hens have more space than caged but are still confined to barns, meaning no outdoor exposure, and consume a corn or soy diet. This label does not require hens to have natural light or airflow and often means the birds are still cramped in small spaces.

Free-Range: Hens given less than 2 square feet each. While they have more space than caged and cage-free hens, they still spend limited time outdoors. Some may have a window to the outdoors but never go out and thus continue to eat a corn- or soy-based diet. Moreover, free-range does not mean organic. They may still eat a feed that is GMO and grown with chemical pesticides or herbicides, which are not allowed in foods with an organic label.

Pasture-Raised: Hens that are given at least 108 square feet each. They consume some feed but also lots of grass, bugs, worms, etc. they find in the dirt. They tend to be let out of the barns early in the morning and called back in before nightfall. According to a 2003 Penn State study, pasture-raised hens produce healthier eggs: one pasture-raised egg contains 2x more omega-3 fatty acids, 3x more vitamin D, 4x more vitamin E and 7x more beta-carotene than eggs from hens raised on traditional feed. This makes pasture-raised eggs a better source of antioxidant, free-radical fighting vitamin E and beta-carotene, immune boosting vitamin D, and brain, heart, and eye health boosting omega 3s!

 What is the difference between white and brown eggs?

They come from different kinds of chickens but are nutritionally equatable.

What is the difference between grade AA, and A?

If you crack a raw egg into a pan, you’ll notice the white spreads out in two different ways: there is a thinner outer white and a thicker white, closer to the yolk or center. Grade AA means that there is a higher percentage of thick white to thin white. Grade A means there is less than or equal thick white to thin white.

How fresh is my egg? Another sign of egg freshness is the air sac: when you hard boil an egg, you notice an “air sac”where the white on one end is not flush to the shell- the size of this air sac is a sign of the freshness of the egg. Fresher eggs will have a small air sac.

References:

Title image from Spruce Eats

Organic valley.coop, a great source of dairy products and eggs, and certified humane.org, a great source of information and a label to look for to ensure you’re buying humanely-raised, sustainably produced foods.