We go through a lot of eggs in our family.  From breakfast to baking they’re in our diet every day, so when I started paying attention to what was in our food it was really important to me to choose the right ones.  The problem was when I stopped blindly reaching for the cheapest egg carton and opened my eyes to all the different ones available I became kind of paralyzed by all the choices.  Natural, Organic, Free Range, Cage Free,Vegetarian Fed,  No Hormones, No Antibiotics, Pastured, Certified Humane, etc.  the choices can be overwhelming!  To help unscramble the options (:-)) I’ve done some research to figure out what exactly these terms mean and what’s important when buying eggs.  It comes down to 3 things:

1.  The diet the chickens were fed.

2. How the chickens were raised.

3. How fresh the eggs are.

How do these translate to the terms on packages? For an easy cheat sheet here’s what you should look for in order of importance. Continue reading