Originally Posted by nkedel

Exactamundo. OTOH, the choice you have at the supermarket is pretty much between house-brand conventional eggs, name-brand conventional eggs, and name-brand cage-free/organic/etc eggs.

AFAICT, the way to get the best eggs among them is to look at the packed-on date (if it has one, going for the most recent) or the sell-by date if it doesn't (going for the latest.)

As far as I can tell, actual free range eggs are not regularly available at a regular retail store near me, even at Whole Paycheck, nor have I seen eggs at the nearest couple of farmer's markets. I don't doubt farmer's market eggs will be better; as I said, the supermarket eggs were better near where I went to school.



I've had good free range chicken (and some awfully gamey free-range chicken, especially in certain parts of SE Asia -- I'm told but cannot confirm that it's because outside of Halal meat, it's not conventional to bleed the bird fully before butchering) and some free range chicken which was indistinguishable from very cheap conventional. I've also had some very good conventional chicken, which was not marketed as "free range."

So it goes. There's great beef out there and cruddy beef out there, and while grass-fed, corn-finished, or full-on corn-fed/feedlot beef produces a different flavor in each case, all three of those are available in ranges from great to cruddy.