Not all chicken yolks look the same. Some are pale yellow, while others are so orange they are almost red.
But what does it mean? Are egg yolks such as lettuce, where a darker color indicates more nutrients?
Fox News Digital spoke to an egg expert to help solve the case.
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The color of a chicken yolk, cookbook author and backyard chicken expert Lisa Steele, told Fox News Digital, “is completely dependent on the chicken’s diet.”
Steele, who lives in Maine, is the creator of Fresh Eggs Daily, a website about raising chickens. She is also the author of “The Daily Cookbook with Fresh Eggs.”
Chicken egg yolks come in a spectrum of colors, from light yellow to dark orange. (iStock)
“Foods rich in xanthophyll and carotene, which are actually pigments called carotenoids, provide beautiful dark orange egg yolksshe said.
Carotene is found in orange-colored foods, she said, such as carrots, mangoes, cantaloupe and pumpkins.
Xanthophyll is found in green leafy vegetables, such as spinach and kale.
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But while a darker egg yolk doesn’t mean a chicken is eating a nutritious, organic or fresh diet, “this will likely correlate, because the food with the pigment is also packed with other nutrients,” she said.
Yet, pet food companies and commercial egg farms have discovered solutions to create a darker egg yolk without them nutrient-rich foodsSteele said.
The color of an egg yolk depends entirely on a chicken’s diet, an expert said. A diet higher in carotenes and xanthophylls will produce a darker yolk. (iStock)
These companies “have gotten smart and realized that consumers want to see that bright orange yolk, so they will add things like marigold, peppers, sea kelp, corn (and) alfalfa to ‘artificially enhance’ the yolk color,” she said.
To ensure that the most nutritious eggs possible, Steele suggests that customers look for certain labels on boxes at the grocery store.
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Chickens raised on pasture or free-range typically lay eggs with a darker, more orange-colored yolk, Steele said, “because their diet consists primarily of grasses, weeds and other plants.”
It’s important to note that “cage-free” and “pasture-raised” are not the same, she said.
Chickens that have access to the outdoors tend to have a more varied diet and produce a darker egg yolk, according to an expert. (iStock)
Pasture-raised eggs are the “gold standard,” Steele told Fox News Digital, noting that some “cage-free” chickens may still spend their lives in a warehouse.
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The eggs of pasture-raised chickens have less cholesterol and more nutrients, Steele said, because of their healthier, more varied diets.
Yolks aren’t the only thing that come in different colors.
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The shells also vary.
Unlike yolks, the color of the shell has nothing to do with the nutritional value of the egg, Steele said.
The color of the eggshell has nothing to do with the nutritional value of the egg. (Yulii Zozulia / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
The color is “purely based on the breed of chicken,” Steele said.
“Some chickens have brown dye, while some have blue dye and some have none.”
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And that’s not a yolk.
