Do you prefer brown or white eggs, fertilized or unfertilized, "natural"/"organic", real eggs or egg substitutes?

"Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh!"

What was that TV jingle again? "Brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are fresh"? Not sure if there's any truth to it - is there?

I have bought Egg Beaters in the past, but I eat eggs so rarely that I don't worry about them as a source of bad cholesterol in my diet.

Jody: according to someone who used to farm chickens (for eggs), the colour of the shells have little to do with whether or not they are 'local'. If I remember correctly, the breed of hen and what it is fed determines the shell colour.

i'm not interested in egg substitutes. i buy whichever eggs are freshest, regardless of color or "naturalness".

around here (montana), the brown eggs are invariably not as fresh as the white ones.

Eggs must be real and "large". All else is irrelevant.

brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh! I stick with organic...at least I know what kills me in that stuff.

Well, the rumour to which I subscribe is that white eggs are laid by leghorn chickens, who are notoriously bad-tempered, while brown eggs are laid by a much more laid-back breed (whose name escapes me). And that the brown-egg chickens are more common in the NE US.

Why do I keep picturing crowds of zombies walking around saying over and over in a dreary monotone "brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh..."?

Its all about cost

methinks romkey is something of a domestic fetishist!

sam - could be. I've been thinking about kitchens a lot lately, anyway

Yeah, I could tell this was a romkey survey. It's well written, comprehensive and about food/kitchen stuff.

The most important factor is how fresh the eggs are. When I buy eggs from the supermarket, I buy either 'large' or 'extra large', and I look for the freshest batch. Sometimes that will be the expensive varieties (such as organic, free-range or 'barn' eggs), other times it will be the standard or budget boxes. Either way, the freshness makes more difference to the quality than anything else, I've found.

[Picking up on previous comments] Coming from a farming background, I can confirm that the colour of the shell is mostly determined by the breed of hen. The most common factory-farmed breeds produce brown eggs, so white eggs are more likely to come from smaller, specialist producers.

I look for US eggs. (I don't care to use eggs from China especially after the whole chicken flu fiasco.)

I prefer *fresh* eggs.

I use eggs in recipes other than just eggs,
so it doesn't matter what kind of eggs.

I prefer my eggs unfertilized, but they are not always easy to find. I often have to opt for whatever is cheapest.

cheap cheap cheap

what about " normal eggs "?

Wicksy: what's normal?

I like fresh eggs. When I had chickens we had blue shelled eggs. Fresh eggs from free-range chickens rock! I expect it's because the birds got to eat bugs and worms as well as chickenfood that made them so good.

In New england, the breeds of chickens that can live here easily, the ones that are most hardy, lay brown eggs. So, although the color technically has nothing to do with freshness, it does indicate that they're local, and ..well local eggs don't have to be shipped as far, so they're more likely to be fresh.

free range ova....

I prefer fresh eggs.

Never tried fertilized, but I would like to try brown shelled and free range eggs. Quail eggs are the bomb.

at Fortnum & Mason's in London you can get duck eggs and quail eggs and eggs from specific varieties of chickens, and probably other kinds of eggs that I can't remember now

I grew up on a chicken farm and prefer what I got used to during childhood...white, unfertilized eggs. Now I feel bad for the caged chickens and I wish that chickens were all free-range, but I'm afraid my budget doesn't allow me to pay 3 to 5 times as much for those eggs. Sorry chickens.

Here in Washington my relatives' farms produce a large portion of the eggs and they are all white from White Leghorns. I believe the most common brown egg layer is the Rhode Island Red.

I worked in an egg processing plant for three months. It was without a doubt the worst job I've ever had. You really haven't experienced true boredom until you've watched the ovums of chickens speed by your glazed eyes at 60 mph. I took from this experience: enough money to pay the rent, the ability to crack an egg with one hand(although I always out of sheer habit stop to smell it) and the wise words of a coworker as I walked out the door for the last time "Don't eat the eggs."

As long as they are real eggs, I don't really care.

My favorite chicken (rooster?) is Foghorn Leghorn. "Now see here boy, I say, see here..."

"I'm a chicken hawk. I eat chickens."

my sister and i both are sensitive to eggs. let me rephrase: 'normal' eggs make us puke... however, neither one of us gets sick when we eat free-range hormone free eggs. go figure, my body prefers unfooled-around-with food...