ELI5, why are egg yokes from outward the U.S. much more orange than in the States?
In: 43
You know how when you eat beets, you poop red? Same idea. It sometimes varies what type of feed they are eating.
Fresh eggs from a local producer will always have darker yokes. Assembly line yokes are what most Americans get. I’m hoping to raise my own when I retire and get my ass out of the city.
Free range chicken egg buyer here, can confirm the eggs I buy are fairly orange but when I buy big chain store white eggs the shells are paper thin and yolks really yellow and runny comparatively.
Production Chickens eat one kind of feed their entire lives. If you were to buy some free range chicken eggs you will find the yolks are deeper in color and richer in flavor. This is because they have access to other things like a variety of bugs and plants
I’ve had chickens running around my yard for over 15 years.
It’s not a matter of US vs non-US; you can get orange and even nearly red yolks in the states. What you’re seeing is the difference between free-range vs grain-fed chickens. The free-range birds forage various grasses and proteins (grubs/insects/etc) and get more beta carotene, which gives the yolks that darker color.
You can see a similar phenomenon in grass-fed vs grain-fed beef, where the fat on pasture-raised beef has a yellowish-orange hue vs the white you normally see with industrially farmed cattle.