J. Kenji López-Alt has a bit in his Food Lab book where he explores the effect of yolk colour on taste. Paraphrasing, the takeaway is that people generally perceive redder/deeper yolks as more flavoursome, but if you remove this factor (with food colouring, say), then people can't tell the difference. He summarises this in a twitter thread: [1]<p>[1]: <a href="https://nitter.net/kenjilopezalt/status/1176542696724320256" rel="nofollow">https://nitter.net/kenjilopezalt/status/1176542696724320256</a>
I got five chickens last year and now have more eggs then I know what to do with (so we give a lot away). Everyone that has them says they are so much better and I have wondered if that is just due to them being able to see the chickens and their home. It is near impossible to hard boil the eggs they lay because the “membrane” (layer between the shell and egg-stuff) is so thick. The yolk is a darker yellow as well. I feed them mid-priced crumbles from tractor supply and give them scraps maybe once per week.
A brand in the UK called Clarence Court started producing a range of eggs (maybe a decade ago?) that have an intensely orange yolk [1] and this became a real differentiator, in some ways an indicator of quality. I know when an egg is Clarence Court in a restaurant for instance (and have confirmed numerous times). They are also delicious eating.<p>The effect is so profound that supermarket own brands have now also started producing similarly richly-orange-yolked eggs.<p>[1] <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAe_TN_WsAAyQ9-.jpg:large" rel="nofollow">https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EAe_TN_WsAAyQ9-.jpg:large</a>
Why do all the images in this article have wrong/fake EXIF?<p>(Well, not all; it looks like that they copied the EXIF of the first image (which has the matching EXIF Image description of "Egg yolk in wooden spoon on eggs. Close up.", together with all the other camera/lens info) to all the other images for some reason. Nothing serious, but weird practice nevertheless.)
What I've Learned did a video on eggs in Japan (where eggs are differentiated depending on feed):<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjrxXC3kGf4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjrxXC3kGf4</a><p>"The #1 Egg consumer is Japan. Here's why. ($70 vs $1 Egg)"
While we’re at it, can we also talk about the use of glyphosate aka RoundUp in our farms? It’s routinely used before and after a harvest in order to accelerate desiccation and allow the farmers to have multiple yields in a single season. Dyeing egg yolks and dying organs from RoundUp what have we become.<p>[1] <a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/2019/05/26/controversial-pesticide-use-sees-dramatic-increase-across-the-midwest/amp/" rel="nofollow">https://investigatemidwest.org/2019/05/26/controversial-pest...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.cornucopia.org/2017/10/glyphosate-use-desiccant-doubles-human-contamination/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cornucopia.org/2017/10/glyphosate-use-desiccant-...</a>
I'm a sucker for premium orange yolk eggs. My partner is sucker for buying eggs from a guy who grows them in his backyard.<p>Sometimes, especially when making creamy scrambled eggs I can almost taste fishy or shellfish flavour (not something I like). We are based in NZ and I've heard people use sea shells as a source of calcium for hens, but I find hard to believe that it could be it.
I have a few ex-battery hens and what I now view as a good egg is one you can crack into a pan of boiling water and it holds together, giving you a perfect poached egg in a couple of minutes. Store bought eggs tend to fall apart in water.
Extra bit of trivia: the article mentions that southern Europe prefers darker orange, and indeed it's not uncommon in Italian to hear the egg be divided in "bianco e rosso" (White and red).<p>In recent years it seems the yellow color has become more common though.
I don't know. I raise chickens. The only difference I've been able to determine between darker and lighter yolks are the age of the eggs. Same food for all the birds. If we don't go through the eggs fast enough, they go from orange to yellow. I'm not saying you can't fake it with additives, but the post must be missing something.
I generally could care less about the color of an egg yolk but there’s one exception: the egg in ramen. It’s not that it tastes particularly better, marinating anything in soy sauce for a couple days will make it taste delicious. It’s often said we eat first with our eyes. I enjoy the contrast of colors. The dark red/orange looks much more appealing than a pale yellow yolk floating in a bowl of soup.
Color is very important for food. My favorite story is the one [1] with wine tasting, where the same white wine was tasted twice by the same people, in one case with tasteless red color added. The taste was reported to be completely different. While it might be contributed to wine tasting being total BS, my favorite part of this study was that its author became a wine maker :-).<p>[1] <a href="https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infamous_study_on_wine_tasting.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infam...</a>
Growing up as a 'white bread' kid in the 60's and 70's, I had never had a farm fresh egg, nor local hand-made bacon.<p>So you can imagine my delight when, exactly 40 years ago today on our honeymoon, we stayed with some friends of my parents on the Maine coast (Brooklin, in Penobscot Bay, on a little inlet called Herrick's Bay -- just visited there again last week) and they provided fresh local eggs and bacon for our breakfasts. It was truly ambrosial!<p>(Of course, being in the first days of our honeymoon, in a romantic little converted boathouse out over the water might also have had something to do with it.)<p>But I can attest that fresh eggs are night and day compared to store bought.<p>(Of course, we're spoiled now, getting our eggs from friends who raise free-range chickens, so fresh eggs are just table stakes.)
When I moved to Germany five years ago, I was stunned at how intensely orange the yolks were compared to the USA. But now I've noticed the color has significantly mellowed out.<p>Glad to know that this does not correlate with a decrease in quality.
Feeding the chickens dyes can make the yolk any color you want, they used to do it as a demo for chicken feed sales by making the yolks all different colors.
I live in South Africa and the yolks of the eggs my wife and I buy are absolutely not nearly white. It may differ by supermarket though, I generally shop at Woolworths which markets itself as having the best quality food, while also charging extra as a result.<p>Otherwise, perhaps it's only something which tends to occur with chickens grown by people for themselves in rural areas?
We get a lot of eggs from our neighbors and other local egg producers who put a lot of effort into raising healthy chickens. In addition to a deep-colored yolk I like to see how tall the yolk sits in the pan. For freshness, you might see thin, white ropes trailing from the yolk called chalazae.
Very interesting. I alternate between purchasing organic eggs and a variety called the Omega-3 egg; the former having a very bright yellow yolk and latter a deeper orange.<p>Was always curious if one is ”better” than the other. Interestingly, the omega variety tastes much better.
This reminds me of something I saw on TV once where a farmer was feeding his chickens lots of spicy red peppers. Made the yolk a deep red and apparently spicy as well.
Just another example of how Organic (clean food) propaganda isn't based in science. I can't tell you how often I hear cooks swear by their redish, darkwe yolk eggs for having some kind of magic properties. Interesting article, good read.
Not too long ago in China, consumers preferred duck eggs with red tinted yolks. Market vendors would crack off the top half of an egg and display its yolk, and consumers thought the redder the better.<p>So, of course, farmers started feeding a carcinogenic dye called Sudan Red directly to the ducks.<p>* <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/english/health/189567.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.china.org.cn/english/health/189567.htm</a>
To save people a pointless click:<p><i>In the end, your egg depends on what the chicken eats, and the chicken depends on what the farmer feeds it. So, don’t worry too much about the colour – just enjoy your egg!</i>