Best Eggs To Buy Humane [BEST]
If you care about animal welfare, finding out the most humane egg brands is essential. I have done research and reached out to some pasture-raised egg brands to compile this Humane Eggs Directory that you can refer to when looking for kinder, healthier eggs. Some of these awesome companies even collaborated with us and provided a statement about their humane practices.
best eggs to buy humane
Happy Hens eggs come from hens raised in small flocks with lots of room to roam and live a natural life. All eggs at the farm 100 percent pasture-raised and the hens are fed organic food, free of corn and soy. Plus, they are top-rated by Cornucopia Institute as being the #1 organic egg farm in the nation. The farmers have a commitment to bring consumers eggs in the most humane and sustainable way possible from their Southern California pastures. I actually live in San Diego and eat their eggs frequently.
We love Utopihen, not only for their cute name, but their firm sustainability and hen welfare practices. Each of their pasture-raised hens enjoy a vibrant life outdoors with sunshine and 110 square feet per hen of open pasture (exceeding the industry requirement of 108 square feet). The hens enjoy a natural diet of plants and insects, and never receive hormones or antibiotics. The company has both pasture-raised chicken and duck eggs available, and is located in New Holland, Pennsylvania with family farms partners scattered about Central PA..
These eggs that hail from California are pasture-raised, certified humane, and USDA organic. The hens that spend their days clucking and preening and stretching their feathers and legs on the lush green grass. They are free to forage all they want outside and go inside to their nest in the coop to lay eggs. They live a natural life as hens should.
NestFresh gets their nutritious eggs from hens on small family farms across the country. They have a range of Pasture Raised Egg products in addition to their free range offerings. Pasture raised options include non-GMO, organic, and soy-free organic options, appealing to people with many different lifestyle and food preferences. They also have adorable blue and brown heirloom eggs that are pasture-raised as well.
Many supermarkets carry their own house-brand of pasture-raised eggs. Grocery chains get their eggs from various pasture-raised, Certified Humane or American Humane Certified farms across the country. Being house-brand, they typically have a lower price than name brand and are so easy to find. It is amazing to see some supermarkets offering pasture-raised eggs as the norm.
The purpose of this Humane Egg Directory is to allow consumers to make more ethical choices when shopping for groceries. By choosing pasture-raised egg brands, you support a more humane economy where hens can live happy, natural lives rather than torturous lives in cages. Keep a lookout for these brands next time your shopping for eggs.
Vital farms is not ethical. After their hens can no longer lay eggs, they send them off to be slaughtered. Not sure how that is ethical. They are no longer of use to them so its time to have them killed. Sounds like the mainstream egg industry to me and I am sure that the other companies do the same, its not all about how the chickens are treated on the farm, its about the whole process of how they are treated.
So I noticed you have Vital Farms on your list. I understand there is a class action lawsuit against them for the treatment of the hens that are used for eggs. Can you please speak on this? I am stopping my purchase of Vital Farm eggs until I can know for sure. Thanks!
Outside watchdog groups often rank egg companies based on their own criteria of sustainability, nutrition, and humane treatment. Some, like the Cornucopia Institute, investigate unethical practices themselves while others like the Shop Ethical! consumer guide will include egg producers among other consumer products.
Wayne Hsiung, a lawyer and founding organizer for Direct Action Everywhere, an animal rights group, recently traveled to a cage-free egg farm, where he said he encountered cannibal hens, unhealthy, injured chickens and grim living conditions for the animals expected to lay eggs in personal spaces about the size of a standard sheet of paper. Sure, the chickens weren't in cages, but their living conditions were no better than if they were crammed into cages of a similarly puny size, Hsiung wrote in a contributed piece for the Huffington Post.
It's also currently illegal to use hormones in any type of poultry, the Food and Drug Administration reports, so "hormone-free" means absolutely nothing special on your egg carton, as all legally sold eggs are free of added hormones. Even the word "humane" isn't USDA certified, so really any egg producer could print it on their packaging without many consequences.
Of course, if you can visit the farm or site where eggs are laid (such as your own or a neighbor's backyard), you can verify that the chickens are living in appropriate conditions, but for those in urban areas, coordinating a coop visit may not be in the realm of grocery-shopping possibility.
While Certified Humane Free-range and pasture-raised eggs are certainly the most humane, Adele Douglas, who has verified humane standards for the organization, wrote that cage-free eggs may be the best alternative to pasture-raised in some regions where year-round outdoor access for chickens is not possible. There are no actual space requirements for conventional cage-free hens, which is why factory farms can pack them in. Certified Humane mandates that for their humane status, "there must be 1.5 square feet per hen, litter for dust bathing, perches for the birds, and ammonia levels at a maximum of 10ppm, which means the scent is imperceptible."
While people were once told to avoid eating egg yolks due to the cholesterol, new research has shown that eating foods containing cholesterol, like eggs, do not lead to having higher cholesterol. The Mayo Clinic says that healthy people can eat up to seven whole eggs every week without raising their risk of heart disease.
Bottom line: The most humane eggs you'll eat are the ones from chickens allowed to roam and feed on their natural diets. Backyard chickens and free-range farm eggs are the most humane, but if you can't access these two types, Certified Humane cage-free eggs are your next best bet.
Their feed itself must be 100% organic, which means no hormones, antibiotics, arsenic, or byproducts of poultry slaughter. And the eggs are inspected and certified to be pesticide and antibiotic-free.
In 2007, Mother Earth News surveyed 14 flocks of truly pasture raised egg producers and compared it to the USDA nutrition stats for conventional eggs. The survey, found that pasture-raised eggs contained:
Omega-3 enriched eggs contain 39% less arachidonic acid than conventional eggs. This is inflammatory omega-6 fatty acid is over-consumed by most people on a Standard American Diet. Omega-3 eggs also contain 500% more omega-3 than both conventional and organic eggs.
This one is a bit of a head-scratcher. Fertile eggs have become a popular trend, promoted as being more nutritious. But there is no evidence of any nutritional advantages or even of chemical changes unless the egg is incubated at the proper temperature for at least 72 hours.
For more mainstream and consistent egg sources the best eggs to buy are certified by third-party organizations to be organic, pasture-raised, Certified Humane or Animal Welfare Approved, and USDA grade A or AA.
Backyard Eggs and Vital Farms are products from the same company, but the Vital Farms eggs are Certified Organic. The hens are raised in the same way according to similar standards, but all their pasture and feed is organic.
John:Egg yolk color is determined by the amount of xanthophylls included in the feed, Xanthophylls are natural pigments found in nature in only plant and vegetable sources. They are not found in the worms and little bugs.Yellow corn has about 8 mg xanthophylls per pound. Marigold extract is an excellent source and is generally only used for eggs to be used in bakery products and egg noodles.
December 2016, we just bought 2/18 egg cartons of The Happy Egg Co. and are not happy. The store was out of the eggs we normally buy which has rich orange yellows. Happy Eggs were pale yellow. Last time we go for their bull.
Thanks for that info, I get my eggs from healthy tradition s in Wisconsin, they test for glyphosphates (round up) and do not use any soy or corn to feed, which I find VERY IMPORTANT. If the container says vegetarian-fed, the hens are probably fed corn and soy.
I recently started buying vital farms eggs but my package says pasture raised alfresco eggs. What is the difference between this and the backyard eggs? I paid $7.49 in whole foods foe this brand and $6.49 in Shoprite
Hi Joyce,All those varieties are by Vital Farms. The pasture raised alfresco eggs are the same as the backyard eggs. Then Vital Farms also has organic pasture-raised eggs. So the only difference is whether or not the hens are eating all-organic feed or not.
What none of these companies address, however, is where they source their hens from, and what happens to all the baby male chicks that are unwanted because of their inability to produce eggs. Are they buried alive and thrown into grinders fully conscious as so often happens on other factory farms?
I just got back from Europe (Netherlands and Romania) and the cheap eggs ($3-4) I bought were better than anything I could get from typical large retailers in San Jose no matter what the source or cost ($8-10).
I have been noticing this with Happy Eggs as of late as well. As a family of four, we eat about 4 dozen eggs weekly and have noticed that about 3-4 eggs per dozen of the Happy Egg brand are now extremely pale yellow compared to the rest of the eggs. I am not sure what is happening, but it is enough of an instance that we are considering switching to a more expensive/inconvenient but localized source. 041b061a72