The difference between homemade and store eggs. egg dilemma

Many housewives are concerned about what natural (village) chicken eggs should be like, how they differ from store-bought ones, and whether they have any special benefits. This is the question that will be raised in this article.

It should be noted that anyone who breeds chickens on their own can easily determine where the natural egg is and where the factory one is. A city dweller will have to take note of a few nuances that you need to remember when buying.

Important nuance

Village eggs are not sold in stores. This is due to the fact that retail chains prefer to work with large manufacturers who can offer a huge amount of goods at any time of the year. Village chickens are able to rush well only in the warm season. In winter, to get the usual number of eggs, you will have to feed the birds with special food. This will affect the quality of the product.

What is the difference from stores?

What is the difference between country eggs and store eggs? First of all, all the eggs in the tray will be different. This is due to the fact that chickens, living in an aviary, carry the product where they want. No one keeps them in a cage and does not give special food so that the eggs are approximately the same. Often the eggs are soiled in litter, they may have a chip from a pebble. Some hens carry a white product, some a brown one. As for the size, young birds will be carried by adults - a size more familiar to the buyer.

Village eggs are almost always fertilized, this is due to the fact that everyone in the household has a rooster. Don't be afraid to eat them. Such eggs have more nutrients and do not adversely affect human health. The store product is not fruitful. In production, such eggs are eliminated.

Natural eggs will not have a stamp. When buying, you should not focus on the color of the yolk. In factory conditions, they have long learned to tint its shade with the help of special food. In natural eggs, the yolk is often darker, but not always. This figure depends on the time of year when it was demolished.

The shell is rough to the touch, unlike the store product. The latter is smooth. The smell is also different. In rustic eggs, it is saturated. The taste, of course, is also different, homemade eggs are better in this regard.

Egg shelf life

It is also important how long the product can be stored. The shelf life of village eggs is about a month when raw, if stored in the refrigerator. Hard-boiled - up to two weeks, soft-boiled - up to 2 days. Cracked boiled can be stored for 4 days, peeled - 3 days. Broken raw - no more than 2 days. If Easter eggs, then it all depends on how they were processed. If a natural dye is used, for example, onion peel or beets, then they can be stored for up to 15 days. When processed with any chemicals - no more than 2 days. If a thermal film is pasted, then the product must be eaten within 4 days.

Benefit

In fact, there are many rumors about the benefits of village eggs. They have a lot of useful substances, restore the immune system, which deteriorates under the influence of environmental factors.

Consider the specific benefits of a natural product. If you eat it regularly, you can prevent the development of eye problems. In particular, we are talking about sclerotic processes. An example of such a disease is a cataract. Those people who constantly eat village eggs have an excellent condition of capillaries and optic nerves.

The shell of a natural product is also useful. It contains calcium, potassium and other substances that have a positive effect on human health. Experts advise not to throw away the shell, but to crush it and use it. If you mix the crumbs with lemon juice, then such a mixture will restore the necessary amount of minerals in the body.

The beneficial properties of natural eggs are explained by the fact that birds are fed only with high-quality feed to the full. Their food is balanced, the birds are kept in clean and comfortable conditions. There is no such thing in the factory, since the main task in production is to use less funds and get more product. Domestic chickens are cared for and eggs are collected daily.

How to choose eggs?

In order to get all the nutrients from eggs, you need to constantly use them, while buying only natural ones. When choosing, it is recommended to pay attention to the size. The smaller it is, the more useful the egg will be. This is due to the fact that young hens that lay small eggs do not have any diseases. To make sure that the bird was healthy when the egg was laid, you need to pay attention to its appearance. If the spout of the egg is sharp, and it weighs no more than 55 g and no less than 50 g, then the chicken was young and not sick.

conclusions

The article describes how homemade eggs differ from factory ones. It is important when buying to take into account all the nuances in order to know exactly which product is being purchased. There is nothing wrong with eating store-bought eggs, they do not harm the body. However, they have few nutrients and a weak taste.

It is necessary to reiterate briefly the special points that have already been mentioned above.

natural eggs:

fragrant and tasty;
in a large tray, everything will have a different color, shape, size, some may be damaged or dirty;
cost more than factory
harder to buy
rough to the touch.

When buying, you must definitely know the seller, otherwise there is no guarantee that he did not purchase the store's eggs. It should be borne in mind that a chicken can lay no more than 25-30 eggs per month. Therefore, if a farmer has only 10 layers, and he constantly offers a huge amount of product, then you need to think: does he buy it in the store?

Eggs are a unique product. They are very healthy, tasty, easy to prepare and cheap. In terms of nutritional value, they can compete with meat and milk (1 egg will replace 40 g of meat or a glass of milk), and in terms of ease of preparation, there are simply no equal eggs.

Yes, and there will be no problems with buying eggs - in any store, cute packages with the image of happy chickens are laid out on the shelves - take it - I don’t want it.

But the mass of negative information about the methods of raising chickens on poultry farms, low-grade feed, daily antibiotics, etc. does not at all encourage buying testicles in a store. Of course, I want a real homemade testicle, really laid, walking in the wild and pecking at fresh grass.

It is best if you find a familiar grandmother in the village and constantly take food from her. You can even get to know her chickens in person if you like. But if this is not feasible, go to the market. Everything is there, and even more village eggs.

Checking the appearance

First, look at the eggs sold in general. Since unscrupulous sellers, especially in spontaneous markets, can “shove” store eggs, passing them off as homemade, pay attention to the appearance: almost all homemade eggs are different in color and size. It may be insignificant, but they differ from each other.
They can be dirty (of course, with what). This is certainly not very cool, but it can be almost a 100% guarantee of their "home origin".
The freshness of eggs can be determined by the type of shell. It should be matte. If the shell is glossy, the egg is not very fresh. At the same time, the color of the shell does not affect either the quality or the taste characteristics.
Try to “enlighten” the egg in the sun or bring it to the light: if the egg is fresh, it shines through evenly, dense protein and dense yolk are visible, there are no spots. Of course, not every day pleases with a bright sun, and not every egg can be “enlightened”, but it’s worth a try.

Checking by touch

Try to "weigh" the egg in your hand: heavy as a pebble - fresh (4-6 days), palpable by weight - from a week to 10 days, light, almost weightless - more than 18-20 days (dries out).
Shake the egg near your ear - if the yolk “gurgles” and rolls, the egg has been lying for a long time, which means it could have deteriorated.

After the purchase

"Salt Expertise"

For a more accurate check of the quality of eggs (already purchased, of course), make a strong saline solution: 50 g of salt per half liter of water, and dip the egg there. Fresh will sink, stale will float, because during long-term storage a layer of air forms under the shell, which pushes the egg to the surface of the water. Immediately throw out what has popped up, and if possible, bring it back to the seller and demand a refund.

"Surgical intervention"

You can verify the freshness of the egg (or vice versa) by examining its contents. Break the egg into a saucer and look at the yolk: a stale egg will have a large, not convex and cloudy yolk.

In addition, speaking of quality: a domestic egg has a bright yellow yolk, and the more fresh grass the chicken ate, the richer the color.

In the shop

If you buy eggs from a store, you can check the quality of the eggs in the same way, except that they are always (or almost always) clean and the same in appearance. But on the other hand, there is a label here, having studied which, you can learn a lot about the product you are buying.

If you are lucky and the letter “D” appears on the package, know that these are dietary eggs, i.e. guaranteed fresh. After all, the shelf life of dietary eggs is up to 7 days. But most likely in the supermarket there is a marking "C" - table eggs. Their shelf life is 25 days.

In addition to the marking on the packaging, the category is indicated. The difference in eggs of different categories in their mass: selective - 65g or more, 1st - 55-64g, 2nd category - up to 55g, 3rd - up to 45g. There is also a higher category (marking "B") for eggs over 75 g, but I have not seen this ...

Heat treatment

To make sure you egg safety, expose them to a long heat treatment, regardless of whether you bought eggs in a store or in the market. Eggs need to be boiled to a “cool” state - at least 7 minutes, and preferably 15 minutes, because. during this time, a possible salmonellosis virus will be “killed” (it is known that every 7,000th egg is infected with salmonella). You should also fry the scrambled eggs for at least 7 minutes so that the yolk is completely fried and becomes hard. If you need raw eggs, take better quail eggs - they never get sick with salmonellosis.

Storage

Egg shelf life in the refrigerator - up to three months. At room temperature - up to 25 days.

Purchased eggs should not be washed, even if they are slightly dirty, as this reduces their shelf life to 3-5 days. It is better to wash the egg before you cook it.

Chicken eggs have been part of the human diet for centuries. This valuable product is rich in amino acids necessary for the body, contains vitamins D, A, E, B, choline, biotin, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, phosphorus and many other useful substances. Eggs are absorbed by the human body almost completely. They have a limited shelf life, which depends on the conditions under which they are stored. It is very important to choose fresh eggs when buying.

Of course, homemade eggs and store-bought eggs differ in their taste. The diet of a country chicken is very different from that of caged hens, which are fed special diets geared towards a specific goal: gaining weight or producing eggs.

Eggs from poultry farms are sold in the store, their prices are usually lower than those of domestic ones. When buying on the market, it is important to be able to correctly determine what they offer to buy.

How to determine if an egg is homemade or store-bought?

The color of the yolk does not always tell which egg, domestic or from a poultry farm, it depends on the diet of the chicken. Intense yellow-orange yolks are found in country chickens fed on grain, grass and worms, and poultry farm birds fed specially formulated food with color additives.

The color of the shell cannot be a selection criterion either, just white eggs are found in white laying hens, and brown in birds with a darker color. Although there are options here too. Looking at all the offered eggs together, you can see that homemade ones differ from each other in the shade of the shell: there are brownish, creamy, slightly coffee. In the store, everyone is the same - either white or brownish.

It is useful to pay attention to the size. In the "home" chicken coop different ages, juveniles lay smaller eggs. The shape is also different: in some layers they are elongated, in others they are almost round. At poultry farms in one poultry house, hens of the same age, eggs before being sent to trading network calibrate: special machines sort by size. Products in trays are almost the same in color and size.

On the eggs in the store you can see the markings, various letters. So, in particular, according to the shelf life, eggs are divided into dietary ones, they are denoted by the letter "D" and canteens, which are marked with the letter "C". Diet food should be stored no more than seven days before the day of sale, and canteens - no more than 25 days. In order not to buy an expired product, you need to know the criteria for choosing fresh chicken eggs.

Which eggs are healthier?

Village (read - "natural", "correct", "delicious") eggs are not sold in retail chains. This is due to the fact that stores prefer to cooperate with large manufacturers with constant volumes and stable quality. Of course, the word "quality" in this case is used rather in a figurative sense. The peasant farmstead cannot offer large volumes and the same calibers of testicles. A village egg is a seasonal product, hens lay tolerably in the warm season, and in winter, for normal “wear”, the chicken needs to be fed with special feed, which will negatively affect the quality of the product. It is clear that not a single normal head of the farmstead will do this, because. the primary consumers of their own products are their own children, and even the worst villain will not poison their own children.

In poultry farms, chickens are in cages and not free-range, but, on the other hand, they receive a balanced diet, they are kept under strict hygiene conditions, vaccinated against salmonellosis and other diseases dangerous to humans. Chickens receive special additives that stimulate growth and productivity, antibiotics that protect against diseases. The diet and composition of supplements is kept in strict confidence. Therefore, many people have questions caused by distrust of manufacturers.

As mentioned above, village eggs are always different. The reasons are obvious: the hens carry them "freely", i.e. they do not sit in cages and do not receive feed mixtures specially prepared by livestock specialists. A hen can lay one egg in the hayloft, another in the corner of the barn, a third in her barn, a fourth in the grass. The egg may be chipped from a pebble, may be stained with droppings. Pullets carry small testicles, adult hens - the size familiar to the buyer. To the touch, the shell of rustic eggs is rougher than the almost “polished” smooth shell of store eggs.

True village eggs are almost always fertilized. This, of course, is because a rooster lives with the hens. And you should not be afraid of this at all, because. only such eggs can be eaten without fear for one's health. Only a fertilized egg has the correct hormonal background and does not adversely affect human health. Shop eggs are not fertilized, they are carried by "cyborgs" who sit in cages, which are uniformly fed, to which the rooster is not allowed. You can check whether an egg is fertilized using a special device - an ovoscope, but it is difficult for a person without experience to do this. One has only to understand that you cannot buy eggs on a farm where there is no rooster.

Do not focus on the color of the yolk. Remember that the dark orange color of the yolk in domestic testicles is a myth. Of course, the yolk of domestic eggs is darker, but not always, its color varies from season to season, in winter the yolks are lighter than in summer. And poultry farms in mass production have learned to “tint” the yolks in the testicles, adding special elements to the feed. So color today is not an indicator.

The biggest difference is probably the smell. The aroma of homemade testicles is rich, which cannot be said about store-bought eggs, devoid of the smell of will and health.

Taste. You can’t write about it, whoever tried it will understand. Needless to say, homemade, village eggs (as well as dishes from them) are much tastier than store-bought ones.

So, remember: homemade village eggs are tasty and fragrant, never the same in the tray. They are rougher to the touch. They are always more expensive than store bought. They are always harder to buy. But the pleasure from them is always an order of magnitude greater. And most importantly, you need to know the seller, because if you can’t determine the origin of the eggs yourself, you can only rely on his reputation.

Based on materials from http://1000sekretov.net and http://sabaneev.livejournal.com

Every housewife wants to feed not only tasty, but also healthy food. Since we are talking about a chicken egg, the question arises - is it so important to buy a homemade (farm) egg, which will cost more than a store-bought one, or is there still a small difference in benefits? Today we are publishing a letter from our chicken egg supplier Olga Veselova:

Greetings, my esteemed buyers of high-quality and useful products!One of the biggest and most common misconceptions-prejudices made me write this appeal:

AN EGG FROM DOMESTIC HENS HAS A BRIGHTLY COLORED YOLK, AND A FACTORY EGG IS A LIGHT YOLK.

So this is a big misconception. I will try to dispel this myth.

I'll start with a little background.

We were forced to move to the village and start a subsidiary farm due to health problems in children. Allergy to almost all products led to a decrease in immunity, and this, in turn, to asthma, dysbacteriosis, and endless colds. As a result, one child was suffocating, the other was constantly in scabs. Having traveled to almost all the hospitals in the city, N-ska, and finally exhausted from the useless waste of money on medicines and immunomodulators, my husband and I decided to simply switch to a healthy natural diet. A miracle happened, but ... not immediately. My son's skin began to clear up in a year, and my daughter's asthma went away, after about 1.5 g. Miracle or not? Don't know. But we have made our choice.

So, about the egg:

From domestic hens in winter and early spring, the yolk in the egg is lighter than in summer. Factory-made at any time of the year, it can be of any color (in stores it is called “rustic” - the yolk is acid-orange there).

What gives the yolk its color? Carotenoids are coloring pigments. They have nothing to do with the amount of vitamins in the product. A lot of carotenoids - a bright color, a little - dull. But an egg is not just carotenoids! COLOR DOES NOT GUARANTEE QUALITY COMPOSITION!

Now it is not a secret (type in a search engine, for example, “the whole truth about food”) that chemical carotenoids are used in poultry farms: Lucantins, Carophiles, etc. - yes, the yolk becomes just red-orange - but they do not perform a vitamin function. Factory chickens also receive artificial vitamins - in powders. CHICENS IN THE POULTRY FARM NEVER SEE THE SUN AND GREEN IN THEIR SHORT LIFE. Industrial compound feed and industrial laying hens are the cheapest way to feed the population. The goal of agricultural holdings is to produce as many products as possible at a lower cost.

In our farm, chickens live to bring a healthy and high-quality egg. Their life is radically different from the life (if you can call it that) factory chickens.

Our chickens live in a spacious barn - they have the ability to move, they do not sit in cages. Walking next to the barn. All the warm time they are there. In winter, chickens like to walk in not very frosty, sunny and calm weather - being charged with solar energy and getting vitamin D.

Our chickens are ladies. They have a gentleman (and not one). As in any herd, a strict hierarchy reigns there, love and fights happen. It probably sounds funny, but chickens also have clearly visible emotions, taste preferences. Young and cocky cockerels affectionately take care of their clucking ladies. The hens then lay a fertilized egg. And if some chicken awakens the instinct of motherhood, then we will definitely separate it into a secluded corner and let the miracle of the birth of chickens take place.

All the children from our street come to watch their mother - a crocodile.

What is a fertilized egg?

In Finland, a fertilized egg is called a "walking chicken egg" and it costs 1.5-2 times more than an unfertilized one. Why? Think! After all, a chicken's egg is a female egg. This is only half of the hormones, vitamins and energy. During fertilization, the female male merges, energy is released - this is the beginning of life. In terms of energy, it is a capsule with energy, it is yin and yang. The composition of hormones in a fertilized egg is optimized. There are some assumptions of scientists about the reasons for the growth in the number of people with non-traditional orientation. And hormonal imbalances in nutrition are one of the reasons. In sports, professional trainers know about this, and they especially advise boys to feed it with a full-fledged egg.

Well, and, the last. In our farm live not only chickens, but also goats, cows, pigs. Whey, milk residues, overcooked cottage cheese - all this goes into the feed. From our large garden, every day the chickens get grated carrots, beets, and cabbages, they peck whole heads. We buy grain in the fall, then we crush it at our grain grinder, we buy cake, meat and bone meal, and small fish at the market.

We keep the whole farm for ourselves and the children, we sell some of the surplus to buy animal feed. Never, even in my thoughts, did it appear to add some kind of filth to the feed in order to increase the amount of something. Everything that grows, is milked, carried in our farm, lives in good conditions. We do not share products for ourselves - for sale. Pigs grow up in the same cage, chickens rush to the same nests, and the cow is milked in the same bucket.

Now look at the qualitative composition of our eggs: the shell is strong, hard. The structure of the protein is dense, transparent, when you break it, it does not spread, it lies in a pea. The yolk is large, uniform, the color corresponds to the norm. The air chamber is small, located at the blunt end of the egg.

The room where the chickens are kept is examined, the chickens are tested every 3 months, the egg is submitted to the laboratory for a full set of tests once a month, only after that we receive a research protocol and a veterinary certificate with the right to sell.

I can tell a lot more interesting things about home products. Call, come - I will be glad to communicate!

Sincerely, Veselova O.S.

Both homemade and store-bought eggs are a natural product. They differ only in the diet and conditions of keeping their producers - chickens. But the question of choosing a quality product is always relevant.

Of course, homemade eggs and store-bought eggs differ in their taste. The diet of a country chicken is very different from that of caged hens, which are fed special diets geared towards a specific goal: gaining weight or producing eggs.

How to determine if an egg is homemade or store-bought?

The color of the shell cannot be a selection criterion either, just white eggs are found in white laying hens, and brown in birds with a darker color. Although there are options here too.

The best way out of the situation is to find a conscientious hostess who you can trust and buy eggs only from her. Define by appearance, homemade or store-bought eggs, you can with some experience. Looking at all the offered eggs together, you can see that homemade ones differ from each other in the shade of the shell: there are brownish, creamy, slightly coffee. In the store, everyone is the same - either white or brownish.

But even here you can make a mistake - unscrupulous sellers add cheaper ones from the poultry farm to their product, and they select different colors from different batches.

It is useful to pay attention to the size. The hostesses in the chicken coop have birds of different ages, the young ones lay smaller eggs. The shape is also different: in some layers they are elongated, in others they are almost round. At poultry farms in one poultry house, chickens of the same age, eggs are calibrated before being sent to the distribution network: special machines are sorted by size. Products in trays are almost the same in color and size.

On the eggs in the store you can see the markings, various letters. So, in particular, according to the shelf life, eggs are divided into dietary ones, they are denoted by the letter "D" and canteens, which are marked with the letter "C". Diet food should be stored no more than seven days before the day of sale, and canteens - no more than 25 days. But if they are not sold within one week in the store, then it is highly doubtful that someone will relabel them. Most likely, they will just be sold later. In order not to buy an expired product, you need to know the criteria for choosing fresh chicken eggs.

Are homemade eggs always healthier than store-bought ones?

Chemical analysis shows that eggs from a poultry farm, like homemade ones, are rich in proteins, amino acids, vitamins and other useful substances.

Of course, in poultry farms, chickens are in cages and not free-range, but, on the other hand, they receive a balanced diet, they are kept under strict hygiene conditions, vaccinated against salmonellosis and other diseases dangerous to humans.

No one is protected from diseases carried by birds, but it is easier to control this at a special enterprise, and not at an unfamiliar grandmother in the yard.

Chickens receive special additives that stimulate growth and productivity, antibiotics that protect against diseases. The diet and composition of supplements is kept in strict confidence. Therefore, many people have questions caused by distrust of manufacturers.

In any case, the choice is up to the buyer.