It seems climate change has come for those healthier-choice whole-wheat brown eggs we felt guilty not buying or something. As has knowledge, because researching the topic brought us the stunning news that brown eggs aren’t better at all. The news being the Independent reporting that “Sainsbury’s will stop selling brown eggs and exclusively stock white-shell eggs under its own-brand label as part of its commitment to achieving net zero.” Sainsbury’s being, don’t you know, the second-largest supermarket chain in Britain. And the research being brown eggs are um well what exactly are they anyway? We’ll get to it below but here’s a plot spoiler: (a) they are eggs (b) they are brown (c) they are not planet-destroyers.
Now we all know brown is better on the table than white, right? Like wholesome nutritious brown bread versus some white paste extruded by a machine, brown eggs come from chickens free-ranged on brown something whereas white eggs other chicken something or other. Right? Not really.
Evidently the truth hidden from we urban-dwellers who get our meat from a nice clean shop not a dirty old cow, is that basically white eggs come from white chickens and brown eggs come from brown chickens. (But no, in case you’re extremely urban chocolate milk doesn’t come from brown cows.) As for green eggs, well, they come from Dr. Seuss. Or because someone cross-bred a brown-egg hen with a blue-egg hen.
Blue-egg hens being, it seems, Ameraucanas, Araucanas and the delightfully-named Cream Legbars. And there are also Easter Eggers.
We could go on. Including that no, white eggs are not bleached. And in Europe they tend not to wash eggs and thus don’t have to refrigerate them whereas in North America through advanced science we wash off the protection then use energy to keep them from decaying. We are very smart.
So smart that some of us use the same deenriched flour to make brown bread by adding molasses or even dye. Caveat emptor. Brown bread is not necessarily healthier. Sometimes it’s just a marketing trick. Though at least it can be whereas brown eggs are just eggs.
Also caveat imperium because the Independent also reports that:
“Ministers have set out the UK’s next step on the journey to net zero by 2050 as part of the country’s latest ‘carbon budget’. The government has signed up to a legal target to cut the UK’s planet-heating emissions by 87 per cent by 2040, Ed Miliband has confirmed, in line with official advice from the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC). The group has said that meeting the target will require households to install heat pumps instead of new boilers, switch to electric cars and eat less meat and dairy, but families could save hundreds of pounds a year by mid century in the shift away from fossil fuels.”
If you believe the latter you might well also believe chocolate eggs are laid by rabbits. But that thing about eating less meat and dairy suggests that the government’s eggs will be invisible. Or come from a bug.
Meanwhile we could also mention that green chicken eggs are blue inside because brown eggs are only brown on the outside. And that the really key indicator for egg colour is the “ear spot” not the feathers. You could spend a lifetime on chickens and eggs.
What you would not find even if you did, of course, is that they are destroying the planet. Because they’re not. Imagine living on a planet as fragile as an egg. Something would have destroyed it long ago. And even then it wouldn’t have been other eggs.
According to that Independent story, “A carbon assessment carried out by SAC Consulting for Sainsbury’s found that white eggs have a 12.7 per cent smaller carbon footprint compared to brown eggs.” Point seven, no less. And it does actually seem to be true that white-egg hens are smaller, eat less and do less “feather pecking” which evidently if you’re a chicken your mom should have told you not to. Thus:
“A Sainbury’s spokesperson said: ‘White eggs have the same delicious taste and nutritional benefits as their brown counterparts but result in lower carbon emissions and better welfare outcomes for the hens that lay them.’”
And while white eggs are very slightly smaller, it is only very slightly. Not as slight as the impact of this virtue-signaling, however. It seems:
“The shift aims to help Sainsbury’s meet its net-zero targets by 2035 for its own operations and by 2050 across all suppliers.”
However two other major British chains, Morrisons and Waitrose, are at least to this point sticking to their browns. Something called Secret Manchester (pro tip: if you are trying to remain secret don’t be a publication) explains that:
“Morrisons said it remains committed to stocking brown eggs within its own-brand range, emphasising that shoppers should have the freedom to choose between varieties. The supermarket added that while customers are increasingly looking to shop more sustainably, flexibility remains important. Waitrose echoed a similar stance but highlighted its ongoing efforts to balance sustainability with high animal welfare standards. A spokesperson said the retailer believes it can ‘achieve high welfare and reduce environmental impact at the same time,’ without removing brown eggs from shelves.”
Indeed. Which brings us to the surely relevant point that of all the things to worry about with regard to how eggs are produced commercially, including in those hideous massive hen-factories with the red contact lenses and debeaking (we are not making it up but wish we were) that suggest something unnatural is going on, as does the watery consistency and conspicuous lack of delicious taste among many mass-produced eggs of all hues, the notion that instead of you frying the eggs the eggs will fry the planet is neurotic.
How now brown egg of carbon death?
