2 April, 2013
Adventures At The Egg Ranch
Well, for some reason we were running low on eggs and I decided to find a local egg farm to stock up. We headed out to north east San Jose and went to Olivera Egg Ranch where there was a huge selection of eggs – everything from your standard white eggs to cage free organic. They even had some there called “checks & dirties” at $1 a dozen so we bought a flat of those for $3 and two 18 packs of cage free for $4 each. Now we should have probably checked online to see what “checks & dirties” were because I threw them in water to boil, but we went out and I left them in the water. When we got back a few hours later, they all had visible cracks, so I have to remove and use them in other ways. We could probably have boiled and used them right away, but we had no idea what they were. Sure they were cheap, but they were all different sizes and shapes – my sense is that they throw all of these in the same case – they could be regular, free range, cage free or anything – you never know what you are going to get – so to be on the safe side I’d say to stay away from them, especially if you are looking to eat the paleo way.
I found this info on “checks & dirties” after the fact. Sure they are eggs, so if you are a budget, they might be a good choice, but if you can stretch, I’d say get the real cage-free organics:
Checks have a broken shell or a crack in the shell, but the shell membranes are intact so that the egg contents don’t leak.
Dirties may have adhering dirt, prominent or conspicuous stains, or moderate stains covering more than one-fourth of the shell surface.