Hi there everybody this is Monica Reinagle and you're listening to the

nutrition diva quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous

Anthony recently wrote in with a question about eggs.

I buy Egglins best eggs, he says, because they're supposedly more nutritious,

but my fiancee thinks I might be falling victim to good marketing.

Are there actually any tangible nutritional gains between regular eggs and

egglands best or eggs from free-range chickens? Well first let's talk about these terms

free-range and you sometimes see cage free.

When you see these words on egg cartons,

you probably picture chickens pecking around a grassy farm yard

with a picturesque red barn in the background

and a friendly cow named Bessie looking over the fence.

But you should note there are no standards for the use of these terms with regard to eggs.

Chickens that produce so-called free range and cage-free eggs may in fact never see the light of day, much less a blade of grass.

The focus of today's discussion is really the nutritional aspect of the eggs, and I don't

want to get too far off topic, but if you're concerned about the welfare and the living conditions of the birds that lay your eggs,

you can't really rely on packaging claims.

You need to contact the producers and ask for specifics.

Generally speaking, farmers who are raising their animals the way that you probably hope they are, are very eager to give you all the details.

How chickens live affects their health and their welfare, of course, but it's what they eat that has the biggest impact on the

nutritional quality of their eggs and the two are not necessarily related.

Organic eggs come from chickens that are given only organic feed which hasn't been

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