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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren vogel Bomb, and this is another

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Speaker 1: classic episode. I don't know about you, but if you

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Speaker 1: catch me in the wrong mood, I find the options

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Speaker 1: in some grocery stores for seemingly simple things like eggs overwhelming.

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Speaker 1: So in today's episode, we're going to talk about whether

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Speaker 1: the color of chicken eggs matters. Hi, brain Stuff, Lauren

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Speaker 1: Vogel Bomb. Here Peru's the eggs section of a grocery

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Speaker 1: store of Farmer's Market, and you'll notice curtains of eggs

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Speaker 1: separated into white and brown, and sometimes even green or

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Speaker 1: blue eggs. But once they arrive scrambled on a plate

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Speaker 1: or baked into a cake, it's tough to tell the difference.

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Speaker 1: So what is the difference between eggs with shells of

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Speaker 1: different colors? This isn't a situation like rice or flour.

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Speaker 1: Brown eggs are not more natural, and white eggs have

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Speaker 1: not been dcolored with bleach. Both varieties occur completely naturally,

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Speaker 1: as do bluish green chicken eggs. But really all chicken

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Speaker 1: eggs are the same on the inside. So what causes

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Speaker 1: different egg colors among the same type of bird. We

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Speaker 1: spoke with Dr Justin Fowler. We cannot make this up,

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Speaker 1: who's a professor at the University of George's poultry science department.

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Speaker 1: He said, the different colors, or the presence of spots

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Speaker 1: or speckling, come down to the genetics of the bird.

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Speaker 1: Leg Horn chickens, which make up most of the commercial

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Speaker 1: egg industry in the United States, lay white eggs, while

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Speaker 1: Orphington's or plymouth rocks will lay brown eggs. The amri

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Speaker 1: quana breed has a pigment that's able to permeate the

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Speaker 1: whole egg shell and make blue colored eggs that are

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Speaker 1: colored on both the inside and outside of the shell.

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Speaker 1: So there you go. I want to know whether a

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Speaker 1: specific chicken will pop out a white egg or a

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Speaker 1: colored egg. Examine the chicken's earlobe. Surprise, birds have ear

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Speaker 1: lobes more often than not. Chickens with white or lighter

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Speaker 1: ear lobes tend to have white feathers and thus white eggs,

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Speaker 1: while those with colored feathers and ear lobes tend to

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Speaker 1: produce colored eggs. Where does this color come from? Though?

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Speaker 1: Here's where understanding how an egg comes to be is important.

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Speaker 1: Chicken yolks or ova form in the chicken's ovaries. A

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Speaker 1: fully formed ovum will leave the ovary and be deposited

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Speaker 1: into the oviduct. This part of the chicken's reproductive system

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Speaker 1: has five distinct sequential segments which the yolk passes through

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Speaker 1: on its way to the outside world. But it's the

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Speaker 1: fourth one, the shell gland, that affects the color of

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Speaker 1: the egg. This is where the shell forms around the ovum.

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Speaker 1: Fowler explained the process. He said, the shell of all

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Speaker 1: chicken eggs are made of calcium carbonate, a crystal that's

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Speaker 1: white in color, So all eggs are at least at

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Speaker 1: the start white. Any that we then see that our

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Speaker 1: other colors have had a pigment deposited on them as

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Speaker 1: they were moving through the overduct, after the white egg

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Speaker 1: shell had been deposited. You can see this if you

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Speaker 1: open up a brown egg and look at the inside

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Speaker 1: of the shell, it'll be white. Two pigments are responsible

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Speaker 1: for the spectrum of chicken egg color. Shades of greens

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Speaker 1: and blues are caused by the pigment bill verden, while

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Speaker 1: proto porphyrin is responsible for reddish brown hues. The same

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Speaker 1: egg coloring process holds true for all birds with colorful eggs.

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Speaker 1: American robin eggs, for instance, are famously blue. Oh, but

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Speaker 1: that egg inside an egg story that you might have

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Speaker 1: seen going around the internet. That's another thing entirely, and

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Speaker 1: involves an egg accidentally reversing its course in the oviduct. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: we'll leave you with the answer to a practical egg query.

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Speaker 1: Should chicken eggs be kept refrigerated or at room temperature?

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Speaker 1: It depends on whether you live in a country Australia, Japan,

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Speaker 1: and the United States, for instance, that requires eggs produced

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Speaker 1: for commercial sale to be washed. This protects against salmonella,

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Speaker 1: but also removes a waxy shell coating that naturally defends

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Speaker 1: eggs against microorganisms, thereby necessitating refrigeration. Today's episode was originally

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Speaker 1: produced by Tristan McNeil and is based on article white, brown,

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Speaker 1: green chicken eggs. What's the Difference on how stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot Com written by Christopher hassi Otis. Brain Stuff is

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Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio in partnership with how stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Clang Or

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