{"id":9004111223101594,"date":"2016-06-17T19:19:35","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T19:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.healthcoachinstitute.com\/?p=1131"},"modified":"2022-03-03T21:30:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T21:30:24","slug":"what-the-cluck-are-pastured-eggs-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthcoachinstitute.com\/articles\/what-the-cluck-are-pastured-eggs-really\/","title":{"rendered":"What the cluck are pastured eggs, really?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What comes first, the chicken or the egg?<\/h2>\n

Well, in the commercial egg industry, the answer is easy: the egg comes first. And the chicken, ah, it\u2019s just a means to the egg.<\/p>\n

What this means for us as consumers is that we need to do our homework if we want to eat healthy eggs from healthy chickens and not just blindly trust the egg carton label.<\/p>\n

That\u2019d be a big mistake. The reason being that there actually isn\u2019t much regulation in the egg industry so chicken farmers can pretty much get away with murder, and they do.<\/p>\n

So here at Health Coach Institute, we want to break it down for you so that the next time you\u2019re pushing your shopping cart, through the grocery store aisle, past the dozens and dozens of eggs, you are INFORMED.<\/p>\n

When it comes to deciphering labels, you, the consumer, have to take charge of your health because no one else is going to do it for you.<\/p>\n

Know that just because it says \u201ccage free,\u201d it doesn\u2019t mean the chickens are frolicking in the sunshine on prairie grass. C\u2019mon, we know better than to think that\u2019s true by now. There are tons of articles and documentaries about CAFO\u2019s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and abused and battered hens in factory farm battery cages.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s up to us to become educated and informed consumers and to read between the label lines and to know what the various terms actually mean in reality.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a shocking illustration on Vital Farms\u2019 website that says:
\n\u201cHow much space does a happy hen need?\u201d It shows a diagram of the amount of space hens in different categories are allocated.<\/p>\n

It is shocking.<\/p>\n

According to Vital Farms:
\n\u2013Caged\u00a0<\/b>hens live their entire lives in a 67 square inch cage in a crowded factory.
\n\u2013Cage-free<\/b>\u00a0hens live their entire lives in a 1 square foot range in a crowded factory.
\n-Free-range<\/b>\u00a0hens live their entire lives in a 2 square foot range in a crowded factory.
\n\u2013Pasture raised<\/b>\u00a0hens live their lives in a 108 square foot range outdoors on grass.<\/p>\n

Do the math. Don\u2019t let the marketing lingo on the box fool you. Educate yourself to make the healthiest choice for your body and your brain.<\/p>\n

Ok, so imagine yourself in that aisle of eggs at the store and you are overwhelmed with dozens of terms and varying prices. You probably know that conventional eggs are the cheapest, and also the least healthy for you, so you avoid those. You\u2019ve probably heard by now that pastured eggs are all the rage but they\u2019re only for people with a lotta money \u2018cos let\u2019s face it they can cost over $8 a dozen.<\/p>\n

So, what do you do? You probably go for something in the middle, right? The free-range or organic eggs. Those are good, ethical terms right?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

Just because it says free-range doesn\u2019t mean the hens roam free in the great outdoors. Far from it. And just because it says organic, it doesn\u2019t mean the hens eat any natural diet or ever even go outdoors.<\/p>\n

Understanding Egg Grades<\/h2>\n

So we\u2019ve broken it down for you so you can spend less time at the supermarket wondering what\u2019s what and more time frying, baking or boiling them pastured eggs!<\/p>\n