The $6 Eggs-periment

Hypothesis: Eggs from grass-fed organic chickens taste much better than eggs from grain-fed organic chickens.

My book club chose In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan for our May discussion. We all hated it. The tone was condescending at best, pedantic at worst. (Sort of like that last sentence...) All of his recommendations are impossible to implement unless the reader lives near a farm and has the ability to spend vast sums of money on micro-organic food.

However, I did decide to try one of his ideas: eat eggs laid by chickens that were fed grass instead of feed. He reports that the yolks are orange rather than yellow, and that the eggs taste better. I scoured the organic section of my grocery store, but no luck. All the cartons boasted that the chickens ate vegetarian feed. Pollan said that feeding chickens grain does not count.

Then last weekend, Dr. P and I passed by a farmer's market. The first vendor's sign said that they used only organic feed. Strike. The second (and only other egg vendor) had no sign.

"What do you feed your chickens?" I asked.

He pointed to a bowl of mixed greens. "Whatever we don't sell here, we feed the birds."

I didn't know if lettuce counted as grass, but decided to try the eggs anyway. They were $6 for a dozen. I gritted my teeth as I shelled it out.

"Damn, those better be the best eggs ever," Dr. P muttered.

The next day, we set up our eggs-periment. Dr. P made two of the eggs-pensive eggs for each of us, sunny side up. Then, since we are scientists, she made one of the organic grain-fed eggs in the same manner as a control. We dug in.

"Well, I taste no difference," I sighed.

"Me neither. That's good then, since you won't be tempted to buy $6 eggs again."

I've subsequently used scrambled eight more of the eggs. Interestingly, I think they do taste better, although I didn't make a control scrambled egg. Even so, I don't think the green-fed eggs are so much better than the other organic eggs that I will bankrupt myself buying them.

Conclusion: Bullshit.