$8-A-Dozen Eggs? An Organic Quandary

$8:00 sounds pretty steep I know- and I baulk at 6:50 in the grocery store for ' organic' eggs but having read these comments I guess when you think of it on a per egg basis 67 c isn't too bad. I mean how much would you pay for a good egg? I like the eggs to be rich golden/orange yolked that sit up in the pan when you crack them and taste like the sunshine. If I get dozen eggs that are pale and wimpy yolked I throw them out ( and my $4.00).

Its a bit like bread I guess. I am horrified that bread can be $7:50 a loaf! For a simple sourdough rye! Should be work out how much we would pay per slice??

I think because they are what we consider basic foods we feel somehow entitled to them being cheap. Probably better to buy good eggs, good bread and nice tomatos ( they are another expensive item), lettuce and maybe ham at a pinch and have lovely omelettes and sandwiches for days for $20.00 than buying lamb for the same price and having to add all the extras on top....

Don't know. Everything seems expensive when you're a single mum!

i've been buying local produce this summer through a CSA (community supported ag) and it has forced me to think outside of my comfort zone as far as veggies go (big black turnips anyone?) i won't do it again next year. it was 600 dollars for the 26 week season, paid in installments which was nice. but i don't think it makes economic sense for me to be buying things i'm going to end up tossing (arugula with slugs? no thanks). i usually end up stopping at the farm stand to buy veggies which are mostly grown locally (in season, they do import their blueberries from michigan)

now the eggs... our CSA farm was selling them at 5 dollars a dozen, but we won't buy them at that price. i've been after the hubs to get a few chickens that we could have live out back, but we both balked at the work aspect of having half a dozen chickens, plus our subdivision would probably hate us. anyway, we do know a gal who did raise six chickens from peeps and we get our eggs from her: 2.50 a dozen delivered. they come in all different shades of brown, some of them have spots on the shells, they are different sizes and delicious. i've always lived in "farm country" in suburbia, and i often see "eggs for sale" signs at farms. not sure if you live in an area with farms, but check your local pennysaver newspaper for eggs. 8.00 a dozen is just ridiculous.

I would love to buy organic and local. But unfortunately, my grocery budget really doesn't have the wiggle room. I buy as many fresh fruits and veggies as possible, whatever is in season and at a good price. If strawberries are on sale for $2, I'm going to have to buy them instead of paying the $6 organic ones. And I will be happy my family is eating fruit instead of processed junk. I will admit, veggies grown in my garden taste better than anything I have ever purchased in a store, but that is a very small season. And I don't necessarily trust our local farmers markets (there was just a news story about how they shipped in all their "local" produce). I do my best to get healthy, balanced, home cooked meals into my family, but I'm not going to sell my car to pay for organic/free range food. If I win the lotto, I'll promise to keep the $8 egg farmer in business though.

I had this exact line of thinking and wrote one of my local farmers about it. I LOVE her eggs best (strongest shells, most dense, orange-yellow yolk, holds up great to whatever I dish out in a pan, etc.) She wrote me an e-mail about her costs incurred, and then explained it extremely well in a blog post. For those of you who are interested, I highly recommend reading the cost/benefit analysis of raising eggs here - thanks, RDK http://www.heavensentfoodandfiber.com/blog/2011/08...

What the chicken eats is a HUGE part of the expense, and also changes the egg quite a bit. Chickens which truly range free are also eating a lot of insects and grubs. In other words, they're eating protein, and the result is a rich yellow yolk with noticeably different properties. "Cage free" eggs usually implies that the birds are housed in tight quarters in a big metal shed. They eat a very homogeneous diet of grain (with perhaps some seaweed added for "omega-3 enhanced" eggs) and they don't go outside.

Farmers who treat their hens really well also lose a few to predators. That doesn't happen in big metal sheds, and it drives up the marginal cost.

My favorite marketing oddity with eggs: some say "vegetarian fed" on them, as if this were all natural. A chicken's natural diet isn't vegetarian! They like bugs.

It really is so confusing today what is the best to feed our families. Just when you think something is healthy, you find out it may very well not be. As far as the prices, that's just so tough right now in our economy. So many families do want to buy what is best, but who can afford eggs for $8/dozen. Where I live in Arkansas, it is pretty easy to get free range eggs, but some of the more rural areas don't always have access to them. Eating healthy and attaining healthy food should be easier in my book.

Thank for this post. There is a farm close to me that sells raw goats milk for $10 gallon. I don't buy it, because I can't afford it. I do believe in its benefits.

If I was able to afford it, I would. It's that simple.

To spend $8 on a dozen eggs I have to know why they were better than those I can get at the grocery store. Then, I'd have to believe it.

This is such a thoughtful piece. Organic *is* great, but not when there's no one who can afford it! I've seen $9.50/gallon organic milk in our local health food store and thought about how quickly we'd drink through the mortgage money filling three small kids' sippy cups.

We buy local and eat local. While it may not always be "organic," at least our cash supports agriculture, and not shippers.

But we don't buy $9.50 milk, and we'd never get $8.00 eggs. That's just silly.

$8 is really steep.

I get eggs from a local, who buys cartons for new customers and reuses them when she can , and she only charges $2.50 a dozen. That's actually cheaper than our grocery stores non-organic eggs. The most expensive I've found is $3.50 a dozen. They are all people who have chickens because they want to and sell the "extra" eggs.

I had 16 chickens, which I fed organic feed, cracked corn (when I called them in at night), oyster shell, and whatever scraps we had from the day (veggies, meat scraps, egg shells, etc.) (The scraps were taken out right away so nothing was rotten.)

I did the math and it costs about 12.50 a month per chicken (Including water and electricity for the coop). Each chicken lays 5 eggs a week, most weeks. That makes it .625 cents per egg which would be $7.50 a dozen. This is with no scraps or cracked corn.

I can see why the farmer was charging so much, but by giving my chickens the scraps, which they love (especially apples) and is good for them, and letting them free range during the day, they eat waaaay less feed.

So I guess the prices aren't out of line if it is a large chicken farm and they only feed the chickens pre-purchased feed. At the same time I'm sure they pay a lot less for their feed per pound than I do at my local feed store, because the more you buy at a time the cheaper it is.

$8 sounds like a lot. I pay $4/dozen and get them from a local farmer. They are free-range and I know they get to live their lives like chickens because I've seen them. For me, that's why I pay more than at the grocery store. Factory farms--whether it is chickens, cows, pigs, whatever--are horrific places. And just because a package says "organic" or "free range" doesn't mean that the animal lived it's life in a good way. There is a ton of wiggle room when it comes to label regulation. You can't blindly trust what you read anymore. I want to know where my food comes, as much as is possible.

I'm curious to know where you are located? In the Bay Area, we're very lucky, in that we can get a lot of great local food for pretty cheap. I buy my eggs from a local farm, mostly because I don't want to support factory farming. I think it's also important to note that the USDA doesn't actually have a definition for "free-range" so anyone can put that label on their eggs, and that beak-cutting and starvation are both allowed under the label "certified organic." So what you're buying at the grocery store is probably not what you think it is.

Here's a link on the Humane Society's website with definitions for all the different egg-carton labels: http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/confinement_fa...

We've paid $6 a dozen (we were curious). We've also paid half of that for a flat of 30. Both came from local farmers and we could not tell the difference between the two. So for our money, we're sticking to the $3/dozen or the $4/flat.

The best deal I ever got on eggs though was when I was dating someone whose parents had a little hobby farm. Most people don't want small eggs so they were kept for family. Farm fresh eggs for free just because they were on the small side. It was awesome.

That's pretty steep when I can pay $2-3 for a dozen eggs from a local farm here that are all free-range birds.

It's a good question and a lot to think about - what is the healthiest choices for our family? But at eight dollars a dozen it seems like a steep price to pay for a family on a budget.