I don't buy meat at Top after a couple of bad experiences there, in fact last time I got liver there it made us sick. And their prices are outrageous on the nice cuts! Like 14 bucks a pound for New York last time I was there. Great selection of brews, for what that's worth, but they store the fine imports and micros at room temp while the likes of Bud and Coors get the prime cooler space, which is just plain wrong.

Wyv

A grain-fed hen who is fed more corn/less soy will produce a more yellow yolk, and if you feed a grain-fed hen marigold leaves, she will produce that deep yellow yolk. Point--yolk color doesn't necessarily indicate grain-fed vs bug-fed. :)

Local is the key word! Egg letter grading is freshness based, as you said. An egg fresh out of the chicken and cracked on a plate will have a very firm white, and a high, round yolk--an AA grade. With time, that same AA egg will start to flatten out, get runny, etc. The transition from AA to A is very fast....less than a day, I think? Then A to B is slower, and refrigeration halts the process somewhat.

Interesting posts, Ysa.

I eat free range chicken and eggs, I live in London so I appreciate they are easier to come by. I do feel alittle guilty about eating meat sometimes and if I at least know the animal did not live cooped up in a shed, I feel better about it.

Here if a chicken has yellow skin it is often a free rnage
corn fed chicken, which taste really good. I also like it when I get feathers in my egg carton too.

Yeah, they are given antibiotics, just looked it up. But it looks like some producers are experimenting with going without them.

I tried to teach my broilers to smoke hickory wood shavings to have a pre-smoked flavor - but they couldn't inhale very well without lips.

breed, feed and age all affect flavor and appearance of poultry meat and eggs. Without knowing these three things, it is hard to speculate as to the why the meat looks or tastes the way it does. I agree that most commercial poultry meat is pretty much the same breed feed and age - so you won't find much variation. (cornish cross, grain / plant, 6-7 weeks

Granpa, you a chicken man? :D

Do you give antibiotics in their feed? It sounds like that is a pretty uniform commercial standard.

No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night... seriously though I studied it some in college (Animal Science Major).
Antibiotics are widely used is for a couple of reasons. If chicken farming isn't a "hobby" and it is your sole source of income the margins are so thin that you have to have the economy of scale by having a lot of chickens, and you want to be growing them year round. This means a controlled environment of heating, water and feed. This also means keeping as many as you can in the space you have. Chickens are susceptible to infections, and under these conditions, any problem will quickly infect all of them. Vets never treat an individual chicken under these conditions. You just couldn't keep an eye on thousands of birds. So as a prophylaxis measure, small doses of FDA approved antibiotics are added to the feed or water.
There certainly are valid concerns regarding the practice. It is ultimately consumer driven though as discussed here before. If enough of the public is willing to pay a little more for less intensive husbandry practices, it will fade away. Chicken is extremely cheap. I really doubt that an individual could raise their own and feed them a prepared feed and have meat much cheaper than is available in stores. But… it might be cheaper than what you would pay for antibiotic free chicken in a store.

Does that also help controll the samonella contamination in eggs? I remember reading that they've really got the contamination knocked down so it is pretty rare these days.

Nancy, in a nutshell - no, feeding antibiotics probably does not reduce the presence of salmonella.

several factors are contributing to the decreased incidence of salmonellosis in humans and preventing associated health problems for the chickens as well.

On the production side:
Sanitation, and management practices that reduce stress which can lower the resistance to infection (overcrowding, chilling and overheating of birds) But treating with antibiotics to prevent or treat doesn't produce good results.1

Processing practices:
Salmonella bacteria are spread in fecal material from all kinds of animals. They may also pick up bacteria from the soil or contaminated, processed feed. The organisms then live in the intestinal tract of the host and may, or may not have an effect on the animal. As the animals are slaughtered and processed, there are times when some of the bacteria from the intestines have the opportunity to contaminate the uncooked meat products.
Dry chilling is a good example of an improved practice. Instead of dipping the carcasses in chilled water which can transfer the bacteria from bird to bird, the bird carcass remain isolated from each other.

Consumer:
Education about handling raw meat, cross contamination to foods that won't be cooked and achieving proper cooking temperatures have also helped.

1 OSU extension publication f-0109 "bacterial Diseases of Poultry http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docus...8/F-9109web.pdf

Interesting! Thanks for the chicken tutorial. :) They must be doing something different with the eggs too. Do the eggs contain samonella? Or is it introduced from the egg shell when you crack it open?

Nancy,
After re-reading your question, I realized that you were asking about eggs, not meat. except for the processing practices, the information would be similar.

Thanks, you're a treasure of Chicken Lore, Grandpa. :)

Nancy,
If the egg is relatively fresh, and the shell isn't cracked, any bacteria would be on the outside of the shell. Even if some made its way through the shell, it won't multiply much in the white. Now if the egg is really old, it is possible that the bacteria could make it to the nutrient rich yolk. (as an egg ages, the albumin breaks down - you may have noticed that really fresh eggs have more of the thick high white when fried, and sometimes the white is runny and spreads out or some combination of the two - this is due to the age of the egg)

Commercial eggs are cleaned and disinfected to further reduce the chances of fecal bacteria remaining on them. To be safe, never use a cracked egg. When buying eggs besides looking for obviously broken or cracked shells, check the Sell by date. Getting the ones with the farthest into the future will mean the freshest eggs. But if you are going to boil them, very fresh eggs are hard to peel. Older ones peel easier because there is more air between the shell and the shell membrane. Plus no worries about bacteria because the whole egg including shell is heated before opening.

Cool! Its good to know they can't get inside an uncracked shell. I've heard about pasturized eggs too, for making things calling for raw eggs. Like mousse!

I've learned to use a spoon to peel fresh HB eggs. Works really great!

Hey... lookie here, kind of timely: FDA bans use of antibiotics in poultry

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health...otic-usat_x.htm