In 2024, while I was working with Miller's Bio Farm, their egg farmers experienced something awful - they found a "soy oil" tag on their corn & soy free feed. Gasp! After a series of red flags, this was the final straw with their old feed supplier.
They quickly changed to a new, very trusted feed supplier - John at County Line Feed. I helped formulate the feed, giving insight into what customers are looking for in terms of being truly natural, allergy-friendly, and highly nutritious.
At that moment, the team made a bold choice. We removed the colorants from the feed. That includes anything unnatural but also natural additives like marigold and paprika. These colorants aren't necessary for a bird's health (although you could argue certain benefits). They're mainly in there to make the yolks orange (no matter what the hens are foraging for).
As the months went by, the hens were quite healthy and the eggs delicious. But... the yolk color started to change. We had yellow yolks - not orange! Customers started to ask questions. They started to doubt if the new feed was producing eggs with the same nutrition. After all, it's become common knowledge in the natural food world that orange yolks = pasture raised = more nutritious eggs.
I needed to know more, so...
I sent eggs for nutritional testing with Dr. Van Vliet.
I really like Dr. Van Vliet. He specializes in metabolomics, the study of cellular processes and their affect on health and nutrition. He's well versed in the field of regenerative agriculture. He's also just a really nice, level-headed guy. He's the perfect person to test and help analyze the results.
I sent him 5 egg samples:
Orange yolk eggs from Miller's hens on the new feed.Yellow yolk eggs from Miller's hens on the new feed. Orange yolks eggs from a local regenerative competitor using our old feed supplier.Orange yolk eggs from a national regenerative competitor.Orange yolk eggs from a national conventional company (the cheapest I could buy at the supermarket).
We waited a looong time for the results, but it was worth the wait.
The results showed that yolk color does NOT matter.
That's right. The orange and yellow yolk eggs from Miller's had nearly identical nutrition. If anything, the yellow yolks eggs were slightly more nutritious. Wow!
Moreover, I was happily surprised to see that the eggs on the new feed offer stellar nutrition - better than before!
There's load of data from the testing. But, here are 4 key data points (and if you scroll to the bottom, you can access the actual, unedited, full results).
1- Eggs on Merry Natural Feed had higher vitamins than any other egg tested!
Merry Natural eggs were particularly high in A and B vitamins. I love getting my vitamins directly from food. They are the most bioavailable that way. The problem is, because of soil degradation and cheap farming practices, ingredients have less vitamins than they used to.
2- Merry Natural eggs were second highest in antioxidants.
This is particularly important because there's no corn or marigold in the feed, which usually results in higher antioxidants. Antioxidants protect our cells from damage from free radicals. They help our body function optimally and prevent malfunctions.
3- Merry Natural eggs were lowest in PUFAs.
We're not going to the lowest PUFAs possible. It's really all about balance and keeping PUFAs in check. As a whole, Americans are eating far too many PUFAs. Thanks corn, soy, and seed oils in everything everywhere.
Eating too many PUFAs can result in a long list of chronic issues, including but not limited to oxidative stress, inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, and thyroid issues. Overconsumption can basically increase the risk of chronic conditions like heart disease and certain cancers.
Plus, I've noticed that, with other "low PUFA" eggs, what's really happening is lowering the overall fat in the egg. We like healthy fat!
4- Merry Natural eggs had the most balanced 4:1 omega 6/3 ratio.
This one is super important to me. You need omega 3s and 6s, but the modern American diet is all out of whack. Ideally, we should be eating a 1:1-4:1 omega 6/3 ratio. But, largely due to the prevalence of corn, soy, and seed oils, the average American is eating a 20:1 ratio.
Having too many omega 6s compared to 3s can lead to a host of issues including inflammation, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, asthma, depression, fatigue... the list goes on and on. I mean, this is just one reason Americans are overall in poor health.
What do you think? Does Merry Natural feed provide the nutrition you're looking for in eggs? What's most important to you when choosing layer feed or eggs?
(view pdf report here)
(view spreadsheet data here)