The Size of Eggs Seems Wrong

Recently, when purchasing eggs, I began to wonder about the medium eggs that I was about to purchase. It seemed that they looked more like small eggs rather than medium and they seemed to wobble quite a lot in the carton because of their "small" size. I began to wonder if the egg companies might be placing small eggs into medium cartons and figuring we may never catch on to the deception. There was a simple solution to the problem, test the different cartons. I waited for a time when I actually wanted more eggs than I typically would want and then I purchased a dozen medium, large, and extra large eggs.

I weighed each egg on an electronic scale that measured in ounces, recorded all the results and placed the data into an Excel spreadsheet. I was surprised to see that the eggs in any carton were remarkable the same weight, when compared to each other and that the increase in overall weight of a dozen eggs was also very consistent. In a very general way it looked like as the weight increased you were paying about 1 cent per egg as you move upward in egg sizes.

It seem odd that I should notice such a small difference in egg sizes visually, when the actual difference is so small. My perception of potential label problems was not in line with the actual data. It is possible that what we call "medium" has changed, but the accuracy of what is placed in any carton looks to be very accurate.

It could be that the cartons are in fact all the same size, just colored and labeled differently, and this may add to the perception error. It does appear however, that we don't really save much by purchasing smaller eggs or larger aggs. This would be especially true if you would have cooked two extra large eggs for breakfast, but if you use medium eggs you cook three, then you may actually save by using the extra large eggs and cooking less eggs for that breakfast.

Well, it looks like the egg industry has this one figured out to the ounce.