I cannot tell the difference between backyard eggs and fancy store bought (organic, free-range) eggs, but I can tell the difference between that set and industrial store bought eggs.

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tptacek 5 months ago | parent [-]

My expectation is that what you're tasting is the difference between a very fresh egg and an older egg; there's no doubt that's real (older eggs aren't even functionally the same as fresh eggs).

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adrian_b 5 months ago | parent [-]

I doubt that there can be any difference in the egg whites, but the egg yolks certainly have a composition in fatty substances that varies with the kind of food used for the chicken, which should lead to noticeable differences.

While there are some taste differences in egg yolks, the taste difference in meat, between chicken that ate mostly what they had found themselves in a large area with abundant vegetation, insects and worms, and chicken that had been raised in industrial complexes, is huge.

	▲	tptacek 5 months ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, the constitution of the chicken's feed matters enough to change the color of the yolk, so much so that organic chicken farms introduce additives to feed specifically to color the yolks. And yolk color may indeed cause you to enjoy the egg differently! But there is apparently no discernible taste difference, once you control for egg age. Multiple groups have done tests on this. Kenji did a somewhat informal test, where he dyed the eggs so you couldn't discern the farm egg. The Japanese have done expert panel chicken feed tests. It's interesting stuff! I think people want this "farm egg" thing to be true more than it really is true. People got mad at me on Twitter when I griped about those Vital Farms eggs (don't buy those eggs! they cost more than 2x as much as commodity organic eggs!).