foodperson.com

• What: Eggs from Cedar Valley Farms
• Why I like them: These eggs are scrupulously fresh, healthfully and humanely produced, and they taste good.
• Where to get them: You can get them at their farm and at the Community Mercantile.

I used to think eggs were eggs. When I joined the local foods bandwagon, though, I learned different.

I did so by buying the eggs from John and Yvonne Baumans’ Cedar Valley Farms. The Bauman family raises their chickens on pasture and grow much of the hens’ addtional feed on the farm. After the Baumans collect, clean (as needed), sort and grade the eggs, they deliver them on Thursdays to the Merc.

As the carton notes, “the difference is in the yoke.” The yokes are a deeper yellow-orange than typical commercial eggs, and that’s because the hens eat grass and bugs along with the feed. The color isn’t merely prettier, as noted on the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education site:

Eggs of the pastured chickens contained 34% less cholesterol, 10% less fat, 40% more vitamin A, twice as much omega-6 fatty acid, and four times as much omega-3 fatty acid as the USDA standard.

As important (to me, anyway), they taste better, too. I say that as someone who doesn’t get too excited about eggs. I also say that as someone who didn’t notice the difference at first, because most of the eggs I use go into other dishes. Every now and then, however, I’ll scramble some eggs when I’m feeling hungry and lazy.

After using the pastured eggs for a few months, I scrambled a couple of regular commercial eggs a while back. Those eggs paled by comparison, and I’m not just talking color. They just didn’t taste like much of anything.

An added benefit: The Baumans seem like genuinely nice people, and it’s nice to send my food dollars to nice people who live in the state.

Still, there are a few things that some people might find objectionable about these eggs:

• They cost more, at $2.59 a dozen. Funny, isn’t it, that we might object to paying 20 cents for an egg when no one flinches when paying $1.50 or more for bottled water? I suppose if you’re eating five dozen a week, the price might start making a noticeable bump in your grocery bill, but I can spread the additional dollar or so over two weeks.
• Their size isn’t as consistent as commercial eggs. Doesn’t bother me, but I’m sure it would bother some people.
• More specks. To be grade A, they aren’t supposed to have any blood spots, but more seem to slip through than occurs with commercial eggs. Of course, that could be because the local eggs are fresher than the commercial ones. And, despite the spots’ setting off yuck-it’s-different alarms, the spots aren’t harmful in any way. Nobody seems to freak out when they see blood spots on, say, meat, do they?

So that’s my first entry in the Local Favorites irregular series. Even if you don’t have ready access to the Baumans’ eggs, you can seek out local eggs near you by going to http://www.eatwild.com/products/index.html and clicking on your state for a list of producers. Get a-crackin’.