If You Want to Save Money on Eggs, It Might Be Time to Stop Buying Into a Myth About Them (2025)

This is part ofEgg, an attempt to explain why Americans absolutely lost their minds over egg prices. The Eggsplainer briefly considers some of our weirdest behaviors around eggs.

If you’ve ever wondered why some eggs at the grocery store are white and some are light brown, there’s a very simple reason: Generally, hens with white-colored feathers lay white eggs, and hens with brown-colored feathers lay the brown eggs. Unless you manipulate the genes of the chicken, “there’s nothing you can do” to make an egg a certain color, Vincent Guyonnet, a poultry veterinarian and scientific adviser to the World Egg Organization, told me.

You might also have instinctively reached for brown eggs thinking they are healthier than the white ones. But when it comes to their nutritional value, it doesn’t actually matter what color an egg is: There’s absolutely no difference. “It’s only people’s perception,” Guyonnet said.

It’s not clear when and where the misconception about brown eggs being healthier originated, but experts who study consumer preferences point to some possible flawed logic. People tend to assume that things with earthy hues—like brown—must be natural, said Brianne Altmann, who studies how human decisions affect sustainable animal production. And people also tend to assume that natural things must be healthy. Put that all together, and brown eggs = natural = healthy.

Don’t feel bad for your error, though: Retailers want you to make it. You might have noticed that brown eggs are usually the ones that are organic and free-range. That’s not because brown eggs have to be the organic ones—it’s just something that American companies decided. The color distinction helps producers differentiate organic from nonorganic eggs, said Guyonnet. But they’re also likely aware that it would be harder to sell an organic white egg, said Altmann. If there’s a misconception, might as well lean into it.

You might be saying: Wait. If brown eggs tend to be organic, then they actually would, indeed, be healthier. But that’s not the case either. Research suggests that while people often conflate organic with healthiness, organic food doesn’t actually guarantee more nutrients than conventionally grown food. Organic food does tend to be more expensive, however, which is one reason why brown eggs can cost a premium. Even the label “free-range” might not mean quite what you think it does. (Brown eggs can also cost more because brown-feathered hens tend to be larger and require more feed—and thus more money—than white-feathered ones.)

There are other misconceptions around different variations of hen eggs: that a darker yolk indicates more nutritional value, and, relatedly, that brown eggs harbor darker yolks. Neither of those things are true, either. That being said, some things, such as the composition of the chicken’s diet, can increase the amount of healthy omega-3 fatty acids in the egg. If a flock of hens is receiving feed that’s more nutritional for them, then their eggs might contain healthier fats and more vitamins and minerals. You can usually suss out that info on your own by looking at an egg carton’s nutritional profile.

Healthy or not, people hold strong preferences for what color their eggs should be. Some countries primarily eat brown eggs; for others, it’s white eggs. In the U.S., one study found that 30 percent prefer white, 30 percent prefer brown, and the other 40 percent are indifferent (except at Easter, when our egg-dying tradition causes white-egg demand to skyrocket). Experts believe that this preference is determined more by familiarity than health concerns. “It’s mostly historical-slash-cultural,” said Guyonnet. “It’s what people got used to.” Kind of like how an aversion to runny eggs might be based on what you grew up eating.