Organic Eggs or Free-Range? Which One is Better?

You're in Whole Food, or whatever organic store you frequent, and you come across eggs. You see there are two types: Organic, and Free-range. By this time you have become used to the two terms being used synonymously that you do not know which one to pick. Since you heard the word organic being used much more, you will probably believe that is the better choice, as I did at first. If that is your decision, you choose wrong.

Though the two terms are generally synonymous with meat and other products, eggs, as usual, are the exception here. Eating organically is better for your body with any product you choose to consume, and that is no different here. So why would free range be better in this case?

Organic eggs are raised organically. There is no hormones, no starving of the chickens to make them lay more eggs (a common technique used by factories on their chickens, as starving them yields more product), however, there is still a form of cruelty used in this type of farming. (according to the show "Stuff Happens," hosted by Bill Nye on the Planet Green channel)

Organic eggs come from chickens that are forced to remain in pens and are not allowed anymore than a few feet. Though they are fed better than factory chickens, they are still treated nearly the same. Usually buying organic helps to ease the hundreds of years of cruelty placed upon animals, but here it does not apply.

What about the free-range? The title doesn't imply organic raising, so how can they be better?

Though it may not say it, or only briefly mentions this on the side with really tiny, almost impossible to read letters, free-range eggs are also organic. They are still laid by chickens without the hormones, without the starving techniques, but there is a key difference here. The cruelty level.

Unlike organic chickens, which are still used as a commodity to an extent, free-range chickens have free-range of their movement. While there are times they are in pens, of course, this time is quite limited, and gives them the best life a chicken can have with roaming about freely.

So when you go to choose your eggs again, pick the right choice. Both are about the same, or exactly the same, price, so go for the one that does not sponsor animal cruelty, and help us erase what we have done to animal kind for so many years.

Sources:

The difference between organic and free range supplied by the show "Stuff Happens" by Bill Nye.