Difference between: white eggs and brown eggs

I’ve been doing the Difference Between posts on Wednesdays, but I had limited access to my computer yesterday. So! Happy Thursday, with a look at white eggs and brown eggs.

Eggs are a very popular food because they are rich in many nutrients, and there are so many different ways to prepare them. What is the difference, if any, between white and brown eggs? Can they be used interchangeably in the many varieties of ways there are to prepare eggs?

First, let us take a look at nutritional difference: There seems to be an underlying assumption that brown eggs are more nutritious than white eggs – is this true?

Not really. Every source I found maintained that white and brown eggs do not differ in nutritional value. The only possible difference I could find was on FitDay.com: brown eggs may have a higher content of omega 3s than white eggs. However, they further specify that “the difference is so tiny that it is really insignificant when measured.”

Simply put, the difference between white eggs and brown eggs does not lie in their nutritional contents, but instead the breed of chicken from which they came from.

Red or brown feathered hens lay brown eggs (such as Rhode Island Reds), and white eggs are produced by chickens with white colored feathers, such as the White Leghorn. According to EgglandsBest.com, the brown color in brown eggs is a natural pigment placed by the hen on the shell surface during the final stages of egg formation.

Side note: Rhode Island Reds almost look like roosters to me.

Furthermore, the color of the egg’s shell has very little to do with the quality of the egg or the flavor. Therefore, white and brown eggs can always be used interchangeably in recipes, unless the shell is part of the final presentation, as with hard boiled eggs.

TheHungryMouse.com specifies that size is much more important than color when it comes to cooking eggs, for the obvious reason that larger eggs have more “egg” to them – check out this website for an exact breakdown of different sized eggs and their subsequent weights.

Of course, the larger the bird, the larger the egg, too – whenever I hear of large eggs I think of ostrich eggs I saw used for omelettes on a cooking show.

Although white and brown eggs don’t really differ in size, they can differ in price because of the size of the birds. Diffen.com points out that brown eggs can cost more because the chickens that lay them are larger breeds, and therefore, eat more food. There can be exceptions to this (if you know of one, please let me know).

On a final note, as the size, color, and price of the egg all depend upon the bird it came from, so is true with the nutrition. The nutritional value of an egg derives from what the bird ate. The color of the yolk also is determined by the bird’s diet, with yolks ranging from a very pale yellow to an almost orange.

In conclusion, if you are eating eggs for their nutritional value, go ahead and eat white or brown eggs. If you really need to know how nutritious one is over the other, you just may have to visit the farm they came from!