Finding farm fresh eggs

This Week In The HSI Forum

As the old economic maxim states: “Demand goes up, price goes down.” Of course, in the real world, just the opposite usually happens. And that’s made clear with the first posting in an HSI Forum thread titled “EGGS!”

A member named Roz notes the rising cost of eggs, saying that a TV news report blames the generally higher prices of eggs and beef on the recent demand for high-protein, low-carbohydrate foods.

But a member named J.W. is feeling the pinch in another way; he’s having trouble finding farm-fresh eggs, so he sometimes has to buy them at the grocery store. He writes: “They had some that were advertised as organic and the eggs were supposed to have a lot of Omega 3 oil in them. When I cracked one open to make my eggnog I noticed how pale the yoke was unlike my farm fresh eggs.”

A member named Clara knows why J.W.’s yolks were pale. She says that when chickens are able to run around outdoors, picking and eating grasses and bugs, the yolks tend to be “super dark.” She adds, “I have read that the eggs are rich in omega 3 (without the use of flax oil) because the chickens eat insects. Now, I never did know that insects were full of omega 3 oils, but I guess one gets surprised daily.”

And Roz responds to Clara with this quip: “Maybe we should beat the chickens to the insects and grasses, instead of eating the eggs. LOL!”

A member named Joyce who lives in the UK knows something about egg yolks and says, “I keep free range hens and the yolks are darker in the summer when the hens have plenty of grass. If theyhave access to seaweed the yolks can be almost blood coloured.”

Meanwhile, for those who may not be able to get to a local farm to buy eggs, a member named Lance has these suggestions for buying eggs at the grocery store: “Look for cage free, organic, range fed eggs. An egg is considered organic if the chicken was only fed organic food, therefore, will not have bioaccumulated high levels of pesticides from the grains (mostly bioengineered corn) fed to typical chickens. Range fed eggs have an omega 6:3
ratio of 1.5 to one, whereas ‘supermarket eggs’ have a ratio of 20 to one!”

As I’ve told you in previous e-Alerts, William Campbell
Douglass, M.D., considers a farm-fresh egg to be a “perfect
food” – loaded with a wide variety of nutrients. In the April
2003 issue of his Real Health Newsletter, Dr. Douglass offers some advice about what to look for when buying eggs: “The ones claiming to be organic are generally the most expensive. They may or may not be of the same quality as the ones you buy directly from the farmer, but there’s an easy way to tell if you’re getting what you paid for. The color of the higher quality yolk will be a bright orange, and the yolk itself will be firm and round. Cheaper, lower-quality eggs will have paler yellow yolks that are flat and easily broken.”

And to keep the EGGS! thread appropriately festive, Roz shares her recipe for homemade eggnog: “Raw egg, rum flavoring, milk, whipped cream, sweetner, whipped together, with a bit of nutmeg on top. Delish!”

For anyone who may have only recently heard the news that eggs are not the heart-stopping poison that the mainstream warned us about for so many years, the EGGS! thread is a good place to begin reading up on the goodness of eggs.

Other topics being discussed on the HSI Forum this week include:

Wheat free recipes
Shingles
Flu shot
Air ionizers
Sinus infections
Vitamin E for the heart

To join in with these or any of the many other conversations
about nutrition and health care, just log on to our web site at
www.hsionline.com.

Are you ready for some football? The Ravens sure were on Sunday when they stormed into Cleveland and trounced the Browns 35-0.

And once again Jamal Lewis provided the fireworks with two
touchdowns and more than 200 yards rushing for the day. Now, they head back home this week, hosting a much-anticipated match-up against the Pittsburgh Steelers. This could be one for the ages. The Ravens always have a hard time against the Steelers – they lost the final game of 2002 with a last-second heartbreak. But the Ravens have a bit of extra inspiration this time Not only does a victory Sunday secure a Ravens playoff berth, but it’s the last time the team will ever play for Art Modell as their owner. And they love that man. Look up motivation in the dictionary and you’ll see a listing for this game. This week the Ravens have to prove that they can walk the walk.