What a Few Magic Words on Your Egg Carton Mean for Your Omelets

Picture it: you’re standing in the dairy aisle at the grocery store, about to grab a dozen eggs. It should be an easy item to check off your list—but you’re quickly overwhelmed by what feels like a million options. Suddenly, it seems like you’re taking a test you didn’t study for instead of picking up a weekly staple.

I’ve certainly been there. If you know me, you know I love eggs, and eat them whenever the opportunity arises (aka almost every day, sometimes more than once). I want my eggs to taste great, and I care that they were humanely raised. But even with love and good intentions, I don’t actually know which labels mean that I’m getting what I want. So I decided to find out.

To get started, I talked to Kevin Phelps, VP of Farm Operations for Nellie’s Free Range, which is part of the Pete & Gerry’s family of brands. I asked: is there some kind of shortcut I can use when I buy eggs? What are the magic words to look for?

“The ‘Certified Humane’ label paired with the term “free-range” is the sure-fire way to track down humanely raised eggs,” Kevin told me. He explained that, while the term “free-range” is federally regulated, the USDA’s guidelines are not detailed enough to trust those words alone. That’s why a third party certifier, like the “Certified Humane” label, is the best way to know you’re really getting free-range eggs. “Without a strong third party certifier…hens can be confined to screened-in porches or cement and still be considered free-range,” he said. He went on to explain that all of the farmers in the Nellie’s and Pete & Gerry family of brands follow the Humane Farm Animal Care (HFAC) Certified Humane Pasture-Raised or Free-Range standards—and that they were actually the first egg producer in the country to attain that status, way back in 2003.

So far, I got it. My next question was about cage-free. Is that no good? Turns out, not really. “Cage-free hens, typically housed in large industrial structures containing hundreds of thousands of hens, live inside steel aviary systems and do not go outside,” Kevin said. “Free-range hens, on the other hand, have “free range” to move about both inside their barns and outdoors in the pasture.”

I loved the sound of that. Even more, I loved that he referred to the hens as “our girls,” and told me that, because they’re outside at least six hours a day at a bare minimum (excepting extreme weather, of course) and can engage in instinctual behaviors like scratching, taking dust baths, and foraging for worms and grubs, they end up happier, which in turn produces thicker shells, bright orange yolks, and viscous whites in their eggs.

Finally satisfied that I knew what to do in the egg aisle, I said goodbye to my new farm friend and went back to the store. As a quick experiment, I picked up Nellie’s Certified Humane Free-Range eggs as well as another carton that was labeled only “cage-free.” I cracked both eggs alongside each other, mixed them both into omelets, and sure enough: Nellie’s yolks were brighter, and when they were ready to eat, they had a richer taste.

Nellie’s and Pete & Gerry’s family of brands has more than 200 family farms across 14 states—all small enough for each family to manage the operations on their own. I think that might explain the use of “our girls”: these farmers really care about their livestock, and they produce a better product because of it.

If all this delicious, free-range egg talk has you craving an omelet, well, same. Here are some recipes to get you started—including a few of the non-omelet variety, too.

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