An egg is an egg is an egg…

Ever wonder what the difference is, between a brown egg and a white egg?

Did someone once tell you that brown eggs are more nutritious than white eggs? They were wrong. There’s no nutritional difference between one egg of a given size and another, regardless of shell colour. Brown chickens produce brown eggs and white chickens produce white eggs.

Now, there are differences between eggs, other than shell colour.

One is the firmness of the white, or albumen. The fresher the egg, the firmer and clearer the white. A thin, watery egg white doesn’t mean the egg is bad. It’s just getting toward the end of its useful life in your kitchen and won’t work as well in your favourite recipes as a fresh one would. Freshness is a very important consideration when you’re making cakes, soufflés, meringues or any other recipe that requires stiffly whipped egg whites.

Anoter difference is the colour of the yolk. Free range eggs tend to have darker coloured yolks than battery-raised eggs. That’s simply a matter of what the chickens that lay them are eating.

Likewise, the colour of chicken ‘white meat’ and surface fat can vary depending on how the chicken was raised. Free range chickens tend to have darker coloured white meat and darker (yellower) coloured soft fat and skin. But that’s a Food Tips installment all on its own!

~ Maggie J.