Blog #5

Pasture Raised Eggs

Pasture Raised eggs are from hens that have an open pasture/field to roam and wander about, compared to being locked in a hen house or locked in a cage. They are not necessarily healthier eggs but they do have better chances of having more omega-3 fatty acids. Having access to pastures also means they will naturally gain more vitamin D from being in the sunlight. The reason people are advocating for customers to buy pasture raised or free range eggs, are to fight the factory farms and be more aware of how animals are being treated. The standard for pasture raised hens came from a British soil management company in the 1940s. The space recommended per hen is not based on how comfortable the hens are, but how much space you need when moving the flocks of hens from pasture to pasture. The idea is to make sure that the grass has time to recover  after housing the hens for a certain amount of time. This practice is similar to farming when you give a field a break to make sure the soil recovers. Farmers can beat these regulations quite easily. For example, they can say that their total farm gives 100 square feet per hen, but that is all pastures totaled up, meaning that the hen is rarely given access to that 100 feet. In the end, the food the hen eats is where most of the nutrients comes from, whether GMO or Non-GMO, your decision in the grocery store is only affecting farmers who either care about each of their hens or care about how many eggs they can produce.