There are eggs and then there are eggs-ellent eggs — the kind that are worth getting out of bed on a chilly day good. It comes down to the egg itself; where it came from, which beautiful hen laid it and what she ate, how she lived, as well as who cared for her (or didn't).
Next up: do you even know how to boil an egg? It may sound like you can't cook if you can't boil an egg. But it's harder than it looks, and there are many home cooks out there who can turn around a mean t-bone, but can't get that dipp-able yolk quite right in the morning.
Buy a Good Egg
Pay the extra couple of dollars and buy only free range — organic if you can. If you saw what those caged chooks look like in their dens of hell, you'll steer clear. And if you saw what they ate, how sick the whole process feels and looks, you'd change your habits forever. Buy the best eggs you can afford, and that you can get your hands on.
Egg farming to love: CackleBean
Shannon Bennett loves "CackleBean" eggs. Raised in the Cotswold, England, these eggs are something special. The farmers hatch their own eggs and watch their chicks grow into happy chickens who make exquisite eggs. This is what a day looks like at CackleBean egg farm.
“First thing in the morning as the dawn in breaking, we let the girls and boys out, we check the feeders, drinkers, birds and nest boxes.
“Once all the sheds are checked we then start collecting our lovely eggs (we do pause for a cuppa!). We check for cracks, funny shapes and then we stamp them with our special CB mark, box in our beautiful boxes and deliver fresh from the farm to you...
“At lunchtime we check the sheds again, and then put them to bed as dusk falls, to keep them safe from our Cotswold wildlife. We check their feeders, drinkers and make sure we have no escapees — all tucked in, we say goodnight and see them in the morning,” the farmers explain.
Know Your Egg
Different countries have different rules when it comes to classifying eggs as organic, free range, pasture-raised and the very many other terms. In Australia, Australian Eggs gives a thorough run-through on what to look out for, what terms like "farm fresh" and "hormone free", "RSPCA approved" and "Omega-3 enriched" all mean.