Food with Integrity – Eggs

Nature’s Fare is committed to selling only eggs from free-range and/or organic hens. Nature’s Fare does not purchase or sell any Battery Cage Eggs.

Battery Cage Eggs

The vast majority of egg-laying hens are confined in battery cages. On average, each hen is afforded only 67 square inches – less than a single sheet of letter paper on which to live her entire life. Caged hens suffer from the denial of many natural behaviourss such as nesting, perching, dustbathing, and endure high levels of stress and frustration.

Cage-Free Eggs

Cage-free systems offer hens a slightly higher level of animal welfare than a battery-cage system. Most cage-free hens live in very large flocks of many thousands of hens who never go outside. However, these hens are able to walk, spread their wings, and lay their eggs in nests. Cage-free egg producers must also provide perching and dust-bathing areas for the birds as well. These hens are spared several cruelties inherent in the battery-cage system, but it would be a mistake to consider cage-free facilities to be “cruelty-free”:

-Cage free farms typically buy their hens from the same hatcheries as battery-cage farms. Theses hatcheries kill male chicks upon hatching – more than 200 million each year in the United States alone

-Most cage-free hens have their beaks burned off, a painful mutilation

-Hens are typically slaughtered at less than two years old, far less than half their normal lifetime. They are often transported long distances to slaughter plants without food or water, and are often starved by producers in an attempt to force the bird to molt.

Free-Range

Free-range egg layers are housed in sheds with slotted floors or litter, but in addition to roaming freely within their sheds they have access to outdoor areas with vegetation when weather permits and thus live a far more natural lifestyle. They are often provided with nest boxes in which to lay their eggs.

Nature’s Fare – Nature’s Finest Organic Eggs

Nature’s Fare purchases Certified Organic Eggs from SPCA-certified Rabbit River Farms to use in our Nature’s Finest brand and in our Apple Organic Bistros.

These chickens range free on organic pasture and are fed certified organic feed. The feed is GMO-free, all vegetarian, and does not contain any animal byproduct.

The Nutrition!

Recent studies on 14 flocks across the United States found that eggs produced by free-range hens are more nutritious than those produced by battery-cage hens. Free-range eggs had up to:

-1/3 less cholesterol

-1/4 less saturated fat

-2/3 times more Vitamin A

-2 times more omega-3 fatty acids

-3 times more Vitamin E

-7 times more beta carotene