We too have gravitated to jumbo eggs but more importantly we go for locally produced eggs from small operations with free range chickens. Usually found at Whole Foods or upscale local markets. The flavor is superior to the mass produced ones. These are organic more often than not but that's not essential, more important to us is that the chickens can have a reasonably normal life (from a chicken's perspective) walking around, eating bugs and pecking in dirt, all of which improve the egg flavor. Also, we like brown eggs, it's easier to find small shell bits when hard-boiled.

California fortunately passed a law that applies to all eggs sold in the state, even if produced in another state. The law requires more humane conditions for the chickens than is practiced in other parts of the country. Still, we go for the free range ones that far exceed the minimum standards. It's about flavor and concern about the conditions the chickens live in.

We don't bake much and for the recipes that use eggs, we use the premo ones we normally have.

Ha, gardengal, I once had a container with 11 double yolks. I was making something with one of my boys, so it was quite the treat. It's hard to believe it was an accident. Yet it is also hard to believe that even for those of us who buy from smaller producers, there could be that much human input.

We buy our eggs from a local woman who lets her chickens run around in the yard during the day. They happily spend their days searching out bugs under rocks, bushes and wherever else they find them. The sizes and colors of the eggs vary; some are small, some medium, some huge in shades of white, brown and green. Once in a while we get a double yolk.

I purchased a dozen double eggs a few years ago - what a surprise that was, I see so few double eggs any more and an entire carton was quite a chuckle. I don't remember the graded size.

I buy 'store eggs' for DH if I know he's going to be breading and cooking clams, often for baking and typically extra large. I didn't know the cartons were weighed, not individual eggs graded.

A friend has a pet mixed-breed flock of chickens and most of our eating eggs are theirs. They come all sizes and colors - Easter every week. ;0) Some are quite large, and there is one frizzel hen that lays almost banty sized making the cutest petite eggs over easy. They wouldn't satisfy DH's bigger appetite but are a great size for me.

Grew up on eggs from the nearby farm, then from the neighbors down the lane. Now they usually come from the grocery store but I choose the carton labeled “pasture raised”. I also get them from the bakery, they have a farm where they have chickens, but I don’t know how they are raised. They are good eggs, though.

Double-yolk eggs, sometimes you can buy a carton labeled that way, so to get a carton randomly filled with them is certainly different! Don’t they “candle”eggs anymore?

I also buy Pasture Raise eggs. I think they taste better.... like when I was young. It's interesting what you say about weighing the whole box and not the individual. It explains why there will always be at least one BIG egg and one small one in amongst the rest. I actually find this handy when I'm halving a recipe that calls for one large egg and I just happen to have a very small one.

It seems I remember that they do some sort of candling but looking for developing chicks rather than size. I suppose there is a robot that does that now.

OMG Elmer, thank you!!

This made my day: It's about flavor and concern about the conditions the chickens live in.

I'm a vegetarian - not because I don't necessarily like the taste of meat, but because I can't support the factory farming industry that treats living beings with a level of cruelty that takes my breath away.

Everyone who knows me knows I love animals. So it totally takes people off guard when I say I am fine with people who hunt for meat. I won't eat it but I have no problem with those who do. My whole weird thing is not about "no one should eat meat" - just that those animals who are destined to become human food deserve to be treated humanely along the way.

Anyway I'm not trying to take this thread in a different direction - but I just had to say thank you for thinking of the source of your food.

CA Kate......"think they taste better" might be the operative phrase :-) Serious Eats did a blind taste testing of eggs sourced from 6 different producers ranging from standard factory farmed eggs to organic, cage free and pasture raised, fee-range chickens as well as those with various levels of Omega-3 fatty acids and the results were inconclusive. Not a single source was determined by any majority as the "best" tasting.

Concern about how the animal was raised and lives its life is certainly justifiable. But it does not necessarily translate into an egg that is necessarily better tasting nor even healthier for you than one that was raised differently but fed a proper, high protein diet.

Interesting, I've been a Kenji fan since back to his time at Cooks Illustrated and I respect what he does. I do care about animal welfare and humane treatment. Proper husbandry seems to be getting more attention than in past years and I'm glad about that. I'm not anti-big business at all but large scale production practices in our food supply have subtracted flavor from everything so sourced, in my opinion. I avoid it when I can. What drives me is flavor, not politics nor emotional reactions to what is done.

Maybe it is a feel good factor that does it. Considering where you live, it's the difference between eating wild salmon and high quality farmed salmon. That flavor difference is noticeable but knowing that there's at least an effort to manage the Pacific salmon stock also gives a feel good feeling to me too. There's a place for the high quality farmed product (from Norway and Germany that Whole Foods sells) but it's different. I hope it's managed in an environmentally sensitive way.

When possible, as in when the hens are laying, we buy eggs from back yard hens. One source is a high school student who is also in 4H and he takes his hen raising very seriously. He feeds them good wholesome foods and they have an idyllic life at his back yard. His eggs are mostly jumbo size unless it's a hen's first laying time and sometimes they are so jumbo we hope the hen was alright after laying that huge egg. They are many different colors (green are our favorite as they do taste better) and the shells are amazingly strong. I have to work hard at cracking his eggs. The other source is a woman who raises chickens to sell the eggs. While they still usually taste better than regular store eggs, they are not nearly as large, strong shelled or tasty as the 4H boy's eggs. We can definitely taste the difference. We suspect it's how she doesn't put as much attention to raising her hens as the 4H boy does.

Store bought eggs have less dense shells in our experience, and don't taste quite as nice as the home hen's eggs. The cost for store and home eggs runs us about $4 a dozen.

The sizing of commercial eggs is sometimes worth a trip to the store for me though due to recipes that I know from experience really do mean 3 "large" eggs. Home hens can lay quite the assortment of sizes. Bless them. We feel good knowing that our eggs most of the year come from well treated and happy hens.

What a nice story

Aldi had large eggs this week for 47 cents!. I buy Jumbo at Wegmans' and really don't think they are much different than extra-large. Very occasionally I get a double yolk but not as often as I used to. I eat one egg every day of the year.

We used to have chickens years ago and we had one hen who only laid an egg every 2 or 3 days but they were always double-yolkers. It was a mixed flock we got by default so who knows what breed(s) she was. I miss those days, storebought eggs are rather anemic by comparison and my egg yolk mayonnaise isn't as pretty. But we don't use enough eggs any more to have to deal with going out to feed and thaw out drinking water for them in midwinter. I have noticed that large eggs do tend to vary some in size so that was a good explanation, thanks!

Egg lovers here....When we can we buy directly from the chicken farms. One place we buy from the eggs are so large, if you transfer to a regular carton you can not shut it! Most are double yolks. My daughter and niece raise chickens. Winter time I usually buy at the store. Not quite the same, but we cannot go without our eggs.

Yesterday while pumping gas into my car, I learned how to make heart shaped hard-boiled egg slices by watching the video screen on the pump. :-)

I grew up eating fresh eggs, so I was used to their delicious flavor. However, my "city boy" husband was not. On our first visit to my Grandmother's farm ( in 1969!), she asked him if he'd like a fried egg for breakfast. Of course, he said "yes, please". After his first bite, he whispered to me "there's something wrong with these eggs!". Silly guy had never had a really fresh egg! Now days, I buy fresh eggs at farmer's markets, etc. whenever I have the chance. My husband STILL doesn't like farm fresh eggs!

A local meeat and produce market sells xl jumbo eggs in a carton of 20. They are huge with harder shells. Every so often ( once or twice a year the entire carton will be double yolked. They told me it’s more likely with young chickens.

If they held a gun to my head and said I had to pick one and only one type of animal protein to eat for the rest of my life I'd pick eggs. Not only are they versatile and delicious, they are economical. And they can be used in so many ways, it would take awhile to get sick of them.

Just a side note: Often people buy "cage free" eggs thinking that it's more humane. While it might be slightly better, be aware that all that means is that the hens aren't in a cage. They're very likely still in an extremely crowded building where they have no access to outside and are still, in my opinion, suffering from the conditions. So - I always buy "pasture raised" or "free range" or similar description.

"Cage-free" gives the consumer a false sense that the chickens are being housed humanely.

ritaweeda, I agree 100%!! I love eggs and it is a rare day that goes by that I don't have one in some form! Although if push cane to shove, I'd really like that they would include bacon in that protein restriction too :-).........eggs with bacon is a match made in heaven!

Suzique, thanks for pointing that out. That was something that was made clear when I was investigating egg sizing and I think too many have an inaccurate impression of what "cage free"means.

We had chickens when I was growing up, and I used to collect the eggs and sell them. It was kind of scary because I would occasionally find a copperhead snake in one of the nests. My father didn't kill the snakes because he thought they kept the rodent population reduced. I do remember holding a light bulb to the eggs, but I thought that was to check whether there was a chick inside.

My friend Michelle took me to Mercado de Xochimilco to buy eggs, which were multi-colored. She told me that brown chickens laid brown eggs and white chickens laid white eggs, which did not explain where the green or blue eggs came from. Anyway, I believed her at the time.

The best eggs I've had were at Annie's house, and they had much more flavor than what I get at the store. I have also found that some store brands are better than others, especially with regard to shell hardness, and I don't like to buy eggs with thin shells. I try to buy only free-range eggs, but some stores I go to do not always have them. I eat no more than one egg a day - they are not one of my favorite foods, but they are on my diet, and I'm supposed to eat one a day. I generally make it into an omelet with mushrooms, ham or turkey, cheese, etc., or some combination of those. I usually sauté the mushrooms with onion, and that takes a bit longer. I can only have one slice of bread with this, but it is enough.

I actually heard with my own ears a Nutritionist declare on public TV that brown eggs are only brown because some farmers feed their hens dye in their feed. OMG. Egg color is breed-dependent and yes, there are some breeds that do lay blue, green or some combination of colors. We had an Americauna hen who not only prolifically laid the prettiest eggs but she was a total sweetheart. I do believe that eggs from hens who get out and eat bugs and grass and whatever else strikes their fancy taste better. Certainly the yolks are more vibrant.

I wonder how that nutritionist would explain bird's eggs -- is someone secretly feeding all our robins "robin's egg blue" dye? what about those pretty speckled eggs other wild birds lay ... speckled dye? LOL maybe he or she misspoke him/herself.