The Incredible Edible Egg
Do you shop for eggs at the store? Are they white or brown?
How about green or blue? No? Yuck? Well before you pass judgement, read below.
When we look at all the eggs for sale, most are white. Did you know however, that most of the chickens in the world lay brown eggs? All around the world, heavy breeds of laying hens, produce one brown shelled egg per day. Birds like Barnavelders and Rhode Island Reds, generally have red or brown feathers, and have a red ear lobe, and lay brown eggs.
The Leghorn is a breed of chicken originating in Tuscany, Italy. These birds are white feathered and have white ear lobes. They produce white eggs. Italian farmers first started exporting these chicken to America in the early 1800’s from the port site of Livorno. (Italian for Leghorn). The breed went from America all the way back to Briton around 1870. White leghorns are now commonly used as layer chickens in many countries of the world simply because they lay white eggs, which are popular.
However, three is no greater nutritional value from a white egg than a brown egg.
In fact, those are not the only colors of chicken laid eggs. Did you know that Araucana Chickens from Chile lay a blue shelled egg? Some chickens also lay green and even speckled eggs!
The interesting thing about all these different eggs, from all these different chickens, all around the world, is if you cook them sunny-side up, over-easy, scrambled, hard-boiled, or in an omelet, they all taste basically the same, and have basically the same nutritional value. A valuable life lesson can be learned from the story these eggs tell.
People, like eggs, come from many different parts of the world, in many different colors, and in many different sizes. At the Critter barn, we welcome everyone to visit, volunteer, and work at the farm. We know from working with our animals, that we may all be a little different from one another, and like eggs, we have our own unique shells, but inside, we are all the same.
Thanks to the Egg for that valuable life lesson.
Come visit us at the farm soon.
- Critter Barn Staff