Have your egg and eat it too

You can just tell that free range eggs are healthier than store bought eggs – the whites are firmer and have more substance, the yolks have a deeper orangey-yellow color, and the taste, well there actually is an egg taste that you don't get with store eggs.

Some people ask me if I'm worried about cholesterol because of the amount of eggs we eat in our household. Nope, I'm not worried a bit and my reasoning is two-fold:

1. How can a natural uncontaminated food be bad for you?

2. And think of all those farmers from years ago who ate eggs every day of their lives and didn't have high cholesterol issues.

To be honest, I'm more afraid of a Big Mac's effect on my health than I am of our chickens' eggs, but other than a “gut feel” about this, I didn't really have anything to back up my claims.

Until now.

In a recent issue of Mother Earth News – Wiser Living Series (the magazine for all of us "Little House on the Prairie" wannabes) they published this beautiful little gem about what's nutritionally inside of a free-ranged egg.

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Eggs from hens raised where they can eat seeds, grass, and bugs are far more nutritious than eggs from confined hens in factory farms. Mother Earth News research shows that eggs from hens raised on pasture have:

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene
• 4 to 6 times more vitamin D

Details of the research are available at www.MotherEarthNews.com/Eggs

So now I can rest assured that I'm actually doing a good thing by giving my family lots of our eggs. Thanks to Mother Earth News, not only can I have my eggs but I can feel good about eating them too.

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Read more about our chickens and eggs on my blog: Simple Thrift

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