Eco-Friendly Food Choices

Many people envision healthy nutritious eggs to be those raised organically or naturally with free-range pastured hens, but have you ever thought about what happens after the eggs are collected? Recently some alert members spotted an article on this very topic and were concerned by what they read. Eggs need to be porous, allowing air to pass through to the inside of the egg so that it can breathe, yet at the same time the egg is protected from bacterial invasion by a natural waxy coating called the bloom. Commercial industry practice is to wash eggs thoroughly. On the surface this appears to be a positive thing, but as they say, the devil is in the details. Unfortunately, this washing removes the bloom, opening the egg to infection. To compensate for this, commercial industry practice is to replace the bloom with a mineral