The Incredible Edible Egg

I love eggs. Really love them. I think they may be the perfect food (as long as I don't think too hard about what they actually are and what they look like before they're cooked). Anyway, I bought my first dozen brown eggs the other day, which of course raised the question, "what makes them different than white eggs?"

Here's what I came up with - some eggs are white and some eggs are brown. That's really about it. They taste the same (my research supports that) and have the same nutritional stats. At one point, it was thought that brown eggs tasted better. This was probably due to the fact that the chickens that lay brown eggs were fed a variety of things by farmers on small farms, not by huge conglomerations that fed their chickens a very bland and boring diet. But now, huge conglomerations own everything and the chickens that lay brown eggs, the ones who had it so yummy and tasty for a while, get the same gruel as all the other chickens.

Yeah, but why are some brown and some white? White feathered chickens lay white eggs. Red feathered chickens lay brown eggs. Although the more I think about it, the more I realize that still doesn't really answer my question. Why? Why does feather color matter? Maybe that's just more than I really need to know.

Oh, there is one other difference - brown eggs are usually more expensive because the chickens that lay them are usually larger. One of the breeds that lays brown eggs is the Rhode Island Red. I'm pretty sure Foghorn Leghorn was a Rhode Island Red. I think the brown egg people should definitely think about using him to sell their product. I mean advertisers are clamoring to get Dora the Explorer to use this GPS navigation system or have Bob the Builder use those fancy tools. This is the most natural product placement ever - "Every one of our eggs is protected and approved for sale by our head of quality assurance, Foghorn Leghorn." Think about it brown egg people.