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Chicken Eggs


Rail Paul

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A quick check in the market this morning showed an expanded choice among whole egg products.

Organic Valley Farms, a network of growers, offered 100% organic, free range, no hormones or antibiotics, with recycled plastic cases. The same egg is available in brown for the price of $2.19 (1.84 Euro) for 12. The six pack was availale in a 100% post consumer cardboard container. The USDA 2002 standard is used to define organic content here.

Egg Innovations advertises 100% organic (using the Oregon Tilth definition), cage free, no drugs, antibiotics, or animal by products. Recycled plastic, post consumer carton. Egg Innov offers several variations, including a vegetarian (all natural grains, no animal byproducts) and Omega enhanced (more Omega 3 and more vitamin E) versions. Their certified organic definition also includes a cruelty free designation from the American Humane Association. $2.39 gets you 12

Eggland's Best has the approval of a higher authority, all eggs are certified kosher and marked OU. They offer a cage free, vegetarian, no meat, no meat byproducts, no lard, no fats product. USDA organic definition. Price was 2.79 for 12.

Organic Valley

Egg Innovations

Eggland's Best

Apparently it's easier still to dictate the conversation and in effect, kill the conversation.

rancho gordo

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From my (small) amount of experience, organic doesn't mean much when it comes to eggs. Free range does. It's being able to get all those little bugs, worms, and other forms of live protein that does the trick.

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I think I am not charging enough for my eggs. You can have all you want for $1 a dozen, but I don't deliver.

Mine are free range, but I don't guess they could be certified organic. I buy my feed from the feed store, and I feed all my table scraps to the little cannibals and I am sure that somewhere in there, there must be some pesticides

They are fertile too, but I don't think that makes any difference unless you want to raise some chicks. Or balut.

sparrowgrass
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Where can I get the pasteurized eggs I saw * I THINK* Alton Brown talk about? I tried my Whole Foods out on LI, no luck.

They supposedly do it by introduction of low level heat....causing a slightly cloudy albumen. Which I could really care less about.

Edited by nyfirepatrolchef (log)
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Eggland's Best ... eggs are certified kosher and marked OU. They offer a cage free, vegetarian, no meat, no meat byproducts, no lard, no fats product.

Now you got me :unsure:

I have never in my life heard of eggs being certifiable as kosher. Free range or organic have nothing to do with kashrut. What an animal eats is only relevant insofar as carrion eaters are de facto non-kosher animals, and carnivores are indirectly non-kosher animals by virtue of the cloven hoof/cud-chewing rule. My understanding has been that those regulations apply only to the animal in its natural condition. So a chicken is, by nature, a kosher animal. I don't understand how, if a chicken happens to eat meat (whether through artificial feed or accidentally in a free state), it might thereby become non-kosher. Indeed I am not aware of how a kashrut authority would ever know if a chicken had eaten meat, and in that case they would never be able to certify a chicken as kosher.

And to extend that to an egg laid by a chicken which may have eaten meat seems extraordinary to me. Anyone know more about this ?

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Eggland's Best ... eggs are certified kosher and marked OU. They offer a cage free, vegetarian, no meat, no meat byproducts, no lard, no fats product.

Now you got me :unsure:

I have never in my life heard of eggs being certifiable as kosher. Free range or organic have nothing to do with kashrut. What an animal eats is only relevant insofar as carrion eaters are de facto non-kosher animals, and carnivores are indirectly non-kosher animals by virtue of the cloven hoof/cud-chewing rule. My understanding has been that those regulations apply only to the animal in its natural condition. So a chicken is, by nature, a kosher animal. I don't understand how, if a chicken happens to eat meat (whether through artificial feed or accidentally in a free state), it might thereby become non-kosher. Indeed I am not aware of how a kashrut authority would ever know if a chicken had eaten meat, and in that case they would never be able to certify a chicken as kosher.

And to extend that to an egg laid by a chicken which may have eaten meat seems extraordinary to me. Anyone know more about this ?

I'm not sure about all of it, and certainly no expert, other than having grown up in a kosher home, but if I remember, the most important thing for the egg to be kosher was that the egg had to have been candled, to make sure there were no blood spots. If an egg had a blood spot, it was treif; More thinking/research if anyone cares.

Edited by afoodnut (log)
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Martha Stewart's hens lay colored eggs. They are quite pretty. Matches her pastel depression glass.

I'm not lying.... I swear.

Do they taste  any different?

The color of the eggs depends upon the breed of chicken; I get a lovely pastel rainbow assortment (no Depression glass in my house, alas! :wink: ) from the egg folks at a local farmers' market. As to which breeds lay which color eggs, perhaps sparrowgrass can enlighten us.

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I think fresh is best. Did you know that that carton of eggs that you put back at the grocery because one was broken will be "recycled" -- as in they will take them back to the egg place and put the unbroken eggs in a carton and sell them again? And again, and again, and again as long as a carton comes back with a broken? Just how old are some of these eggs? I have a friend who breaks every egg in a carton with one broken.

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
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I have never in my life heard of eggs being certifiable as kosher. Free range or organic have nothing to do with kashrut. What an animal eats is only relevant insofar as carrion eaters are de facto non-kosher animals, and carnivores are indirectly non-kosher animals by virtue of the cloven hoof/cud-chewing rule. My understanding has been that those regulations apply only to the animal in its natural condition. So a chicken is, by nature, a kosher animal.

They say they have Orthodox Union certification and I saw OU on the box.

I went back to check exactly what the eggland folks say about this. Their fine print mirrors macrosan's and afn's comments. The chickens are fed grain only, no animal fats, and are killed in an appropriate way, supervised by appropriate authorities.

I was intrigued to read on the site that Orthodox Jewish buyers account for about 20% of kosher purchases. Observant Muslims account for another 30%. Within the terms of that description, I'd suspect non-Orthodox Jewish buyers are lumped into the 50% other buyer group. I can't imagine non-Jewish, non-Halal purchasers are 50% of the kosher market.

Apparently it's easier still to dictate the conversation and in effect, kill the conversation.

rancho gordo

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I went back to check exactly what the eggland folks say about this. Their fine print mirrors macrosan's and afn's comments. The chickens are fed grain only, no animal fats, and are killed in an appropriate way, supervised by appropriate authorities.

I find it hard to believe the way a chicken was killed will have much of an effect on its eggs, other than to make it stop laying eggs. I also find it hard to believe that the future fate of a chicken would have any effect on the eggs it lays before it meets its fate. It shouldn't take a talmudic scholar to explain that the future can never be assured.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

My mailbox is full. You may contact me via worldtable.com.

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I find it hard to believe the way a chicken was killed will have much of an effect on its eggs, other than to make it stop laying eggs.

OK Bux, you win my much coveted Quote of the Week Award" with that one :laugh:

The prize this week is two tickets to the UK Glenfiddich Awards on 19th June 2003. They're in the mail. :raz:

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I find it hard to believe the way a chicken was killed will have much of an effect on its eggs, other than to make it stop laying eggs.

OK Bux, you win my much coveted Quote of the Week Award" with that one :laugh:

The prize this week is two tickets to the UK Glenfiddich Awards on 19th June 2003. They're in the mail. :raz:

Don't I at least get a little jpg image of the award to add to all my posts this week.

Following up on my insight into kosher eggs, is it enough to know that the mother was a kosher chicken. Has Talmudic wisdom been revised in light of DNA testing?

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

My mailbox is full. You may contact me via worldtable.com.

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I went back to check exactly what the eggland folks say about this. Their fine print mirrors macrosan's and afn's comments. The chickens are fed grain only, no animal fats, and are killed in an appropriate way, supervised by appropriate authorities.

I find it hard to believe the way a chicken was killed will have much of an effect on its eggs, other than to make it stop laying eggs. I also find it hard to believe that the future fate of a chicken would have any effect on the eggs it lays before it meets its fate. It shouldn't take a talmudic scholar to explain that the future can never be assured.

So I checked with the authority OUwebsite and they say:

V. EGGS:

The eggs or animal by-product of non-kosher birds or fish are not kosher. Caviar, therefore, must come from a kosher fish and this requires reliable supervision. Eggs of kosher fowl which contain a bloodspot must be discarded, and therefore eggs should be checked before use. Commercial egg products also require supervision.

Edited to try to make it look like a quote. Edited by afoodnut (log)
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We've got a few dozen chickens running around here, eating bugs, bread and cheese scraps, and pasture, and laying the most vividly orange-yolked and most deliciously rich-tasting eggs imaginable. Maggotty cow plops make the best chicken feed, IMHO.

Vegetarian checkens? Sheesh! They're not only carnivoires, they're cannibals as well. Dinosaurs in fact. But they sure are fun to watch while waiting for the bread to come out of the oven.

I've been fooling around with creme anglaise ice creams, having great eggs and milk and no cream to spare. So far, the fresh ginger is the fave of the Bobolink family. No, I'm not going back into the ice cream business any time soon: we've really got our dance cards full here!

Jonathan & Nina White, cheesemakers/bakers

mailto:Jonathan@cowsoutside.com

Bobolink Dairy & Bakeyard

Grass-fed raw milk cheese

Wood-fired rustic breads

Located between Warwick, NY & Vernon, NJ

Our Webpage

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So I checked with the OUwebsite and they say:
V. EGGS:

The eggs or animal by-product of non-kosher birds or fish are not kosher. Caviar, therefore, must come from a kosher fish and this requires reliable supervision. Eggs of kosher fowl which contain a bloodspot must be discarded, and therefore eggs should be checked before use. Commercial egg products also require supervision.

Edited to try to make it look like a quote.

But this entirely avoids the issue. Of course, since a vulture is a non-kosher bird, it's eggs are non-kosher. I don't need a team of learned rabbis to tell me that :huh: A chicken is a kosher bird, and so its eggs are de principio kosher. And of course if there are blood-spots, or if someone injected the egg with lard, the egg would no longer be kosher. And of course anything made from an egg must ber supervised to ensure observance of the laws of kashrut.

"What makes a whole chicken egg kosher or otherwise ?" is my question. I think I'll visit the OU site and send them an email :laugh:

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I've been fooling around with creme anglaise ice creams, having great eggs and milk and no cream to spare.  So far, the fresh ginger is the fave of the Bobolink family.  No, I'm not going back into the ice cream business any time soon: we've really got our dance cards full here!

Jonathan -

welcome aboard, and post often!

Paul

Apparently it's easier still to dictate the conversation and in effect, kill the conversation.

rancho gordo

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So I checked with the OUwebsite and they say:
V. EGGS:

The eggs or animal by-product of non-kosher birds or fish are not kosher. Caviar, therefore, must come from a kosher fish and this requires reliable supervision. Eggs of kosher fowl which contain a bloodspot must be discarded, and therefore eggs should be checked before use. Commercial egg products also require supervision.

Edited to try to make it look like a quote.

But this entirely avoids the issue. Of course, since a vulture is a non-kosher bird, it's eggs are non-kosher. I don't need a team of learned rabbis to tell me that :huh: A chicken is a kosher bird, and so its eggs are de principio kosher. And of course if there are blood-spots, or if someone injected the egg with lard, the egg would no longer be kosher. And of course anything made from an egg must ber supervised to ensure observance of the laws of kashrut.

"What makes a whole chicken egg kosher or otherwise ?" is my question. I think I'll visit the OU site and send them an email :laugh:

:laugh: To get to the bottom of this, I suppose we'll have to answer that other question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

If, for an egg to be kosher, it has to come from a kosher chicken, then does the kosher chicken that lays the egg have to have come from a kosher egg? (Must the egg/chicken/egg cycle be unbrokenly kosher? Do we have to go back to the first chicken (or was it the first egg?) :wink:

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Maggotty cow plops make the best chicken feed, IMHO.

It may disturb some people, but there's a lot of truth in that statement.

All kinds of little sqiggling and jumping critters that we'd never think of eating contribute to the best eggs.

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If, for an egg to be kosher, it has to come from a kosher chicken, then does the kosher chicken that lays the egg have to have come from a kosher egg? (Must the egg/chicken/egg cycle be unbrokenly kosher? Do we have to go back to the first chicken (or was it the first egg?)    :wink:

Now that, as we say, is an interesting question :wink:

It's pretty clear in Genesis that the chicken came first, since there are clear references to the making of these birds. "Let the waters bring forth the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth" is more likely a reference to ducks than chickens, but "Be fruitful and multiply ... and let fowl multiply in the earth" made clear the Maker's determination to provide sufficient chickens to maintain supplies of chicken soup for future generations of grandmothers.

Most importantly, Genesis makes not a single mention of eggs, even upon the closest reading of the original Aramaic. So we have to conclude that the chicken did indeed come first, and it seems to me that was a sensible arrangement. For example, if the egg had come first, who would have hatched it ? And surely Adam, given half a chance, would have turned all available eggs into omelettes for breakfast, whereas he probably couldn't run fast enough to catch a chicken. In any case, unless you had seen a nice photograph of a roast chicken breast with garlic and rosemary and saute potatoes in a recipe book, do you honestly think you'd look at a strange creature with scraggy feathers, a beak, and bits of pink skin hanging from it's head, and think "Oh goody, lunch !" ????

Of course, the early chickens weren't Jewish, indeed they weren't even kosher, since neither Jews nor Kashrut had been invented yet. We will need to read later chapters to discover exactly what the details of the Covenant with Abraham contained, and no doubt we will then discover not only who begat whom, but also who became the mother of all Jewish chickens.

Here endeth the first lesson

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Maybe this is the place to ask....i got some eggs from a local guy, and some of the shells are a bit wrinkly.By that i mean, not smooth all over, with some ripple s at the blunt end...what causes that?

and if anyone mentions the ooh arr bird there will be trouble :biggrin:

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"I'm not sure about all of it, and certainly no expert, other than having grown up in a kosher home, but if I remember, the most important thing for the egg to be kosher was that the egg had to have been candled, to make sure there were no blood spots. If an egg had a blood spot, it was treif; More thinking/research if anyone cares. "

I don't know nothin' bout Kosher, but I used to work for USDA as an egg grader, and that is exactly why Eggland eggs are marked Kosher. They are all candled, and blood spot eggs are removed. Of course, all USDA grade A eggs are candled for blood and meat spots, but Eggland has less tolerance for spots.

A USDA grader does spot checks of eggs graded by plant employees, looking for defects they missed. It has been a while, but I think 1 blood spot per 4 dozen eggs sampled is ok for Grade A, but Eggland's have to be spot free. If blood/meat spots are found, the eggs are run thru the candler again, or repacked as plain grade A. (A meat spot is a tiny brown speck, a bit of reproductive tract that sluffed off into the egg. Won't hurt ya. Neither will the blood.)

Wrinkled eggs--because the egg was wrinkled while it was still rubbery or broken and mended "in transit"--while still in the reproductive tract of the hen. Those of you who buy Grade A eggs miss the odd-sized and shaped eggs I see straight from the hen house. Occasionally, an egg will be laid without a shell--just the inner membrane.

Egg colors--Aurucana and Americauna hens lay blue/green eggs. I have a variety of brown egg layers, and my eggs range from almost white, to pinkish to almost milk chocolate.

Damn, sparrow knows her eggs, don't she?

sparrowgrass
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I just saw Grade AA eggs in the supermarket. Are they better or not as good as Grade A. They were less expensive than Grade A. Is this like double A and triple A batteries?

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

My mailbox is full. You may contact me via worldtable.com.

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Maggotty cow plops make the best chicken feed, IMHO.

And then you feed the chicken shit to the pigs!

PJ

Uh. . . where does the pig shit go?

"Epater les bourgeois."

--Lester Bangs via Bruce Sterling

(Dori Bangs)

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