WEBVTT - How can some eggs be better for you than others?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com

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<v Speaker 1>where smart Happens. I am Marshall Brain with today's question,

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<v Speaker 1>how can an egg carton claim that the contained eggs

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<v Speaker 1>have less fat and more vitamin E than another egg?

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<v Speaker 1>Eggs seem like they should be a commodity item, with

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<v Speaker 1>one egg being about the same as any other. But

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<v Speaker 1>if you've been to a grocery store lately, you know

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<v Speaker 1>that egg types are proliferating. You can buy eggs based

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<v Speaker 1>on their size and color, as well as the organic

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<v Speaker 1>content of the feed the chickens eat, the amount of

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<v Speaker 1>freedom the chickens have while they're eating, and so on.

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<v Speaker 1>And now farmers are starting to differentiate their eggs using

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<v Speaker 1>nutritional claims. It turns out that the eggs you bought

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<v Speaker 1>are patented, and the patent reveals that all of the

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<v Speaker 1>benefits come from the diet fed to the chickens. What

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<v Speaker 1>a chicken eats has a significant effect on what ends

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<v Speaker 1>up in that chicken's egg. By feeding the chicken a

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<v Speaker 1>diet rich in vitamin E and low and saturated fat,

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<v Speaker 1>the eggs end up being high in vitamin E and

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<v Speaker 1>low and saturated fat. There are two other ways that

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<v Speaker 1>a farmer or breeder could change the contents of an egg.

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<v Speaker 1>One way involves the traditional selective breeding approach. If the

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<v Speaker 1>farmer were to analyze eggs from a hundred chickens and

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<v Speaker 1>find the chickens that produced eggs with, for example, the

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<v Speaker 1>lowest amount of cholesterol, the farmer could then breed just

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<v Speaker 1>those chickens with each other. By repeating this process over

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<v Speaker 1>several generations, the farmer may be able to create a

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<v Speaker 1>stable line of chickens that have lower amounts of cholesterol

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<v Speaker 1>in their eggs. Farmers use this technique all the time

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<v Speaker 1>for all kinds of farm products. For example, they breathe

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<v Speaker 1>the sweetest corn plants in an attempt to make sweet

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<v Speaker 1>corn sweeter, and so on. The other way would involve

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<v Speaker 1>some form of genetic engineering in which one or more

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<v Speaker 1>genes are added to or subtracted from the chickens DNA

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<v Speaker 1>for more illness, and thousands of other topics. Because it

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<v Speaker 1>how stuff works, dot Com