I usually buy Vital Farms and their egg yolks are so yellowy-orange. They also taste so much better.
Today, I bought a dozen eggs from the Farmers Market, supposedly organic and pasture raised. I was disappointed when I cracked open the egg because the yolk was a light yellow color. They were not cheap…sob sob.
Does the color of the yolk correlate to the nutritional value the egg provides? Just curious.
CookingLight says marigolds, grass and small insects have high carotenoids that give the yolk their color. It’s just pigment in their diet.
I typically purchase Vital farms as well and a few months ago I received a carton that had BRIGHT yellow yolks. I emailed them just asking why this was and this was their response:
“As our hens are truly pasture-raised, you will notice natural variations in our eggs. Much of this variation is affected by what hens eat, and for our hens, this includes a variation of seasonal and localized vegetation in the pastures, as well as supplemental feed. Since a hen’s diet impacts the yolks, their color will vary throughout different seasons of the year. In the spring and summer, the girls tend to eat less due to the warmer temperatures, which can cause their yolks to be lighter. We do our best to respect the variation that stems from all the variables created by our system of small family farming.”
The color primarily comes from the two carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin. Unlike b-carotene, these 2 carotenoids are not able to be converted to vitamin A. They do have other uses though as intact molecules. For instance they accumulate in the back of your eye and protect against blue light damage.
While these carotenoids can be supplemented in a feed diet (but that costs $) it can also come from natural diet in free range chicken. So in general, free range will have that more vibrant color, but vibrant color doesn’t mean it is free range (square vs rectangle).
the color of the egg yolk correlates with the chickens diet more so then the nutritional value. some chickens are fed certain foods that increase vibrancy https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2022/04/11/why-are-eggs-different-colors/
We have bought expensive eggs from the store with extremely bright yolks and it’s clear that they are just feeding the chickens something to purposely make their eggs that color. I’ve done multiple blind taste tests and even though our backyard chicken egg yolks are not as bright, they are truly way better and richer. They free range every day and get our scraps and I know they have a better diet.
The color of the egg yolk doesn’t really tell you if it’s nutritious or not. Some folks might think that the darker orange or yellow yolks are better, but lots of things can affect the color - like what the hen eats, what kind of hen she is, and even what time of year it is.
Neither egg shell nor yolk colors mean anything. Dark yolks merely mean chickens ate a lot of pigmented foods. Egg shell color depends on the breed of the chicken that laid the egg. An egg is an egg. I get generic at my local Walmart.
I used to buy my eggs from a farm because it was on my way and their eggs were delicious and bright orange. But the farmer said he just experimented with what he fed them to make it a bright orange.
So colour isn’t the deciding factor.
When traveling Europe, the yolks were the same orange yellow you described. Their food standards are sooo much more strict on how food is produced. Better flavor, less chemicals, more natural processes, etc.