Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and we're about to take you on a
Speaker 1: ride through a chicken's ovaduct at some point in this episode.
Speaker 1: And why we're doing that is to explain why chicken
Speaker 1: eggs have different colors in some cases, and we're going
Speaker 1: to get really into the weeds on it and it's
Speaker 1: going to be great.
Speaker 2: That's right. And for this episode, we're going to pretend
Speaker 2: that eggs are not super expensive because we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about buying eggs and you know, stuff like that, right,
Speaker 2: And that's just the fact that life eggs are really
Speaker 2: expensive right now, So let's just put that to the
Speaker 2: side for a moment.
Speaker 1: Well, we also have to presume that you can even
Speaker 1: find the eggs to buy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a solid point. This came about because I
Speaker 2: just went on our annual fifth annual rather frigid Fiesta,
Speaker 2: which is my buddies and I try to get together
Speaker 2: and go to my camp on the coldest, one of
Speaker 2: the coldest days of the years. I make an MVC
Speaker 2: Most Valuable Camper Trophy. I earned that trophy for the
Speaker 2: first time this year.
Speaker 1: Very provatulation. Would you do to earn it.
Speaker 2: I so bead some Wagoo steaks I provided the camp
Speaker 2: I think it finally dawned on everyone. That was kind
Speaker 2: of a big deal. You know. I partied in just
Speaker 2: the right way to impress everybody nice and you know,
Speaker 2: some other things, and that's generally how you went it.
Speaker 2: You kind of go above and beyond. And my comedy
Speaker 2: was on point. I was just on fire with the jokes,
Speaker 2: wow and DJing like, yeah, I kind of had it
Speaker 2: in the bag. But long way of saying, my buddy Justin,
Speaker 2: whom you know from London, England, who raises chickens. He
Speaker 2: always supplies the eggs, and he showed up with some
Speaker 2: olive eggs, some brown speckled eggs, a couple of sort
Speaker 2: of light tan eggs, and I just started wondering about it.
Speaker 2: And now I know, and I told Justin the deal
Speaker 2: as well, why his chickens are making different eggs.
Speaker 1: Did he want to know that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: He was very curious. Okay, good well, Chuck. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I think immediately pops up that we
Speaker 1: can't possibly get past without mentioning first is that, regardless
Speaker 1: of the color of the eggs, I really hope this
Speaker 1: is true. One is not necessarily more nutritious than the other.
Speaker 2: Now, those brown eggs, you gotta get those brown eggs
Speaker 2: or natural josh, no bleach them.
Speaker 1: You're thinking of rice or flour. Oh, non brown chicken
Speaker 1: eggs are not bleached. That is not true. That would
Speaker 1: be a really bad thing to do to an egg.
Speaker 1: The white eggs that you see that make up the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the eggs that you buy in the
Speaker 1: United States, they come from leghorn chickens, as in foghorn
Speaker 1: leghorn but he was a rooster, but the hens of
Speaker 1: his breed lay white eggs. They're not bleached, they just
Speaker 1: come out that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And most eggs in the commercial egg industry in
Speaker 2: the United States are from leg horns, so most are white.
Speaker 2: So when you see like a fancy brown egg, it's
Speaker 2: the same egg. Well that's if it's you know, not
Speaker 2: you know, the pasture rays and the stuff that we're
Speaker 2: already expensive.
Speaker 1: The one distinction really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll talk about that later. But a white
Speaker 2: egg is the same as a brown egg nutritional. Nutritionally speaking,
Speaker 2: they come from the leg horns, Orphington's and plymouth rocks.
Speaker 2: Those are varieties of chickens they're going to lay the browns.
Speaker 2: There's a chicken called an Americana and not Americana because
Speaker 2: it has an au in there that is a breed
Speaker 2: which gives the the It permeates that pigment goes all
Speaker 2: the way through, and so the inside color of the
Speaker 2: egg is bluish as well as the outside, which is
Speaker 2: a pretty cool fact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to shout out. A University of Georgia
Speaker 1: poultry scientists named get this justin Fowler Amazing. It is amazing.
Speaker 1: And so he provided a lot of the insight on
Speaker 1: how all of this works, and he basically said it's genetics.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to run a chicken's genome to
Speaker 1: figure out what color eggs it's going to produce. It's
Speaker 1: it's much easier than that. You can at least distinguish
Speaker 1: colored egg layers, not necessarily the color, but whether they're
Speaker 1: going to lay an egg that has some sort of
Speaker 1: tint to it versus ones that are going to lay
Speaker 1: just white eggs based on their ear lobes. A couple
Speaker 1: of things about this. I didn't know that you could
Speaker 1: judge the color of a chicken's eggs by looking at
Speaker 1: its earlobes. I also didn't know that chickens had earlobes.
Speaker 2: And you're gonna say that because you know what I
Speaker 2: told Justin that he has chickens, and he said the
Speaker 2: same thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I've seen them a million times. They're
Speaker 1: like they almost look like mutton chops, like meatloaf from
Speaker 1: a Rocky horror picture show, but they're on chickens faces instead.
Speaker 1: Those are their ear lobes.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine if his name was Greg Fowler, why
Speaker 2: we'd have the name egg in his name too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he could.
Speaker 2: Go buy g R egg Fowler.
Speaker 1: He could.
Speaker 2: Anyway, if you've got a white chicken, it's gonna lay
Speaker 2: a white egg because they probably have white ear lobes
Speaker 2: or generally lighter ear lobes or lighter feathers. If they
Speaker 2: have colored feathers and colored ear lobes, are going to
Speaker 2: have colored eggs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but again not necessarily like the same color as that.
Speaker 1: But it just means that they're producing more pigment than
Speaker 1: other chickens, and they like to really show off by
Speaker 1: laying some of that pigment on the eggs. And I say,
Speaker 1: we take a break, and we come back and we
Speaker 1: take that trip down the oviduct when we return.
Speaker 2: All right, let's do.
Speaker 1: It, Okay, Chuck, get your miner's cap on turned on
Speaker 1: the light. Yep, maybe don some gloves. Yeah, And we're
Speaker 1: going to go in the oviduct of a chicken a hen.
Speaker 1: And when you go in there, we're going to see
Speaker 1: the ova that is the chicken yolk and it forms
Speaker 1: in the chicken's ovaries and an ovum leaves the ovary
Speaker 1: and it gets deposited in the oviduct and it's almost
Speaker 1: like a cartoony conveyor belt, like I can almost see
Speaker 1: like mechanical gloved hands shaping things along the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, in the oviduct on that conveyor belt,
Speaker 2: there're gonna be five different sort of in order, because
Speaker 2: it's a conveyor belt segments that they're going to go
Speaker 2: through that yoka is going to go through or the
Speaker 2: ovum and it's in the fourth one of those five
Speaker 2: where that shell is formed. It's a calcium carbonate shell
Speaker 2: that comes from the shell gland and that is where
Speaker 2: the shell forms around the ovum and that's where it
Speaker 2: gets pigmented.
Speaker 1: Right. That's uh, that's Greg Fowler's middle name.
Speaker 2: Gregg, Greg's shell Gland Fowler.
Speaker 1: Or his fraternity nickname.
Speaker 2: But they all start white, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because they're made of calcium carbonate, and that is white
Speaker 1: in nature. It's so all chickens eggs are white. That's
Speaker 1: That's all you really need to know, except for everything
Speaker 1: else that's about to follow, and that is that once
Speaker 1: the egg is formed and it's a white egg, some
Speaker 1: kinds of chickens deposit a pigment on it. Yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: like the leghorn white ear lob, no pigment deposit. But
Speaker 1: other kinds, like you said, Plymouth Rocks, Orphington's, Rhode Island reds,
Speaker 1: they all put a little bit of pigment, I guess,
Speaker 1: just to kind of make the world a slightly brighter place.
Speaker 1: I can't think of any other reason for this, evolutionarily speaking,
Speaker 1: but we have narrowed it down to two distinct pigments
Speaker 1: that are responsible for the galaxy of colors. Maybe not galaxy,
Speaker 1: but the wide array of colors that chicken eggs come in. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And do you know, by the way, I heard a
Speaker 2: recording of the actual sound they got a microphone inside
Speaker 2: of chicken. The sound of the pigment being placed on
Speaker 2: it is kind of like this. Let me try another
Speaker 2: take just in case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, does it come out of like a pastry frosting bag?
Speaker 2: Well, sure you can call it that, Chris. All right,
Speaker 2: So back to sorry about that twelve year old Chuck
Speaker 2: showed up for a minute. Those two pigments that, like
Speaker 2: you said, are the ones responsible for the different shades
Speaker 2: are Billi Verden Biliverden I like Billi Verden and poor
Speaker 2: Fyrine or proto poorfyron Porrin.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's proto. Yeah, that is those two make
Speaker 1: the whole thing. The greens and blues are the Billy
Speaker 1: Verden and the protopor Frin make the reddish browns. That's right.
Speaker 1: And it's not just chickens that this happens with. You
Speaker 1: know Robin's lay Tiffany box blue eggs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at you.
Speaker 1: I think it's usually described as Robin's egg blue, but
Speaker 1: that's from the same process. It makes that same sound.
Speaker 1: Can we hear it again? Yeah. There's also a bird
Speaker 1: called the common mure, and they have a blue egg
Speaker 1: that sometimes is speckled. I think all of this is
Speaker 1: so wonderful, but really there's nothing that can compare to
Speaker 1: an easter egg that's been dipped in a vinegar food
Speaker 1: dye dip and held by that little wire thing that
Speaker 1: you kind of bring it out with and then you
Speaker 1: mark or no, you start with the crane and then
Speaker 1: you you dyet like, let's see a chicken do that
Speaker 1: maybe a chevron patterned on your egg? Naturally chicken and
Speaker 1: you can't do it.
Speaker 2: I totally agree. Uh. And here's the thing. We talked
Speaker 2: about nutrition earlier and you said it's all the same,
Speaker 2: and that's true. The inside of a white egg is
Speaker 2: the same as the inside of a brown egg. If
Speaker 2: you if you get like, you know, the really now
Speaker 2: they're super expensive. Not not the free range, because you know,
Speaker 2: I worked in the chicken industry and I've tried to
Speaker 2: dispel that myth that generally if it says free range,
Speaker 2: that just means that the door is open to the barn.
Speaker 2: But they're not really.
Speaker 1: Out there with page free too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cage free, but a genuine pasture raised chicken. They
Speaker 2: can actually be more nutritious if they're foraging on greens
Speaker 2: and eating insects and things that just a better variety
Speaker 2: of of stuff that the even the cage free and
Speaker 2: the free range aren't getting If you get those really
Speaker 2: really expensive pasture raised ones, they may have slightly higher
Speaker 2: levels of Omega three, fatty acids and vitamins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and before Warren, because in the United States, at least,
Speaker 1: the term pastur raised is not regulated. You could slap
Speaker 1: that on any egg you wanted some research. Luckily, there
Speaker 1: are some certification groups that go through and actually certify
Speaker 1: these are pasture raised. So you want to look for
Speaker 1: certifications like certified humane is a legitimate one that means
Speaker 1: that that chicken actually was walking around pecking at the ground,
Speaker 1: not in like some big metal shed with a trillion
Speaker 1: other chickens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm gonna recommend, especially now that eggs are
Speaker 2: so expensive, like try and source them locally. They're guarantee
Speaker 2: you in your town there is a farmer's market with
Speaker 2: some stinky hippie that's going to sell you some eggs
Speaker 2: and a funny looking container, or at the very least
Speaker 2: a used egg carton from somewhere else. Or if you
Speaker 2: have a friend like I do that you know they'll
Speaker 2: give us eggs because those used to be like, oh gosh,
Speaker 2: they're so pricey, but their prices aren't jacked up because
Speaker 2: they're not. You know, the locals aren't suffered from the
Speaker 2: commercial egg industries woes. So now some of those are
Speaker 2: cheaper than grocery store eggs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know where they're.
Speaker 2: Coming from and they're walking around eating insects and grass.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But there's some things that you need to know
Speaker 1: about this if you're eating locally sourced eggs. One is
Speaker 1: that they probably haven't been washed, which is fine, that
Speaker 1: they don't normally come washed. Unless you're buying the commercially
Speaker 1: produced eggs in Australia, the US, Japan, you have to
Speaker 1: wash them. The problem with washing an egg, though, is
Speaker 1: that it removes the little waxy coating that the egg
Speaker 1: is naturally encased in that keeps bacteria out of the shell.
Speaker 1: As hard as the shell seems, it's actually kind of
Speaker 1: porous and bacteria can make it right into the egg
Speaker 1: and kill you and everyone you love, but that waxy
Speaker 1: coating keeps that from happening. The problem with all this is,
Speaker 1: and this is the reason why the United States, in Japan,
Speaker 1: and Australia require their commercially produced eggs to be washed,
Speaker 1: is that coating really hangs on to things like salmonella
Speaker 1: and chicken yard poop and all this stuff. So you
Speaker 1: kind of have to balance the two. Do you want
Speaker 1: salmonilla or do you want e coli? Which one do
Speaker 1: you want? So if you get locally sourced eggs, it
Speaker 1: makes sense to keep them unwashed until you want to
Speaker 1: eat them. Then you wash it, use a little bit
Speaker 1: of DON some water, you wash that off, and then
Speaker 1: you eat it a washed.
Speaker 2: I would not recommend using don, but that's just me.
Speaker 1: Why what's wrong with Don? I love Don great. They
Speaker 1: have a free and clear with the it's got a
Speaker 1: little duck on it. It's totally natural.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure it's free and clear. It is the
Speaker 2: good thing though about getting eggs from your friends or
Speaker 2: someone that doesn't wash their eggs, as you can just
Speaker 2: leave them out.
Speaker 1: They don't need to be refrigerated, true it, But once
Speaker 1: you do wash them, you need to refrigerate them because again,
Speaker 1: bacteria can invade them pretty easily. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you I've eaten dozens and dozens of
Speaker 2: those eggs from justin, never washed them, never had a problem.
Speaker 1: Really. Oh yeah, did you get a little poop in
Speaker 1: your eggs?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: They're great? Cool? Well there there you go to everything
Speaker 1: you need to know about locally sourced eggs from your
Speaker 1: friend Chuck feet. That's right, Well, I Chuck said, that's right,
Speaker 1: and that means obviously that short stuff is out.
Speaker 2: Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.