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> I'm told the eggs taste way better, I don't really notice it because I really only eat my own eggs, but perhaps I just got used to them At 2 years old my son

> I'm told the eggs taste way better, I don't really notice it because I really only eat my own eggs, but perhaps I just got used to them At 2 years old my son could blind taste test tell the difference between my neighbor's chicken's eggs and store bought eggs. He refused to eat eggs (still doesn't) until we convinced him to try one of the eggs from our neighbor's chicken's. He liked that egg. Every time we've tried to pass (fancy!) store eggs off to him as our neighbor's eggs he's called us out for lying to him. He'll reliably eat eggs from the chickens across the street and nowhere else. So yes, there is a difference in taste!

Maxion 2y ago
My 2 year old daughter never liked eggs. We started buying some from a neighbor who pasture raises his lay hens (and feeds them more chicken-appropriate feed). She eats her eggs and asks for more. If we run out and I fry up some store bought ones, she refuses to eat them - even when I don't tell her where they're from. Same goes for chicken meat from the grocery store vs. pasture raised broilers from another neighbor. When it happened the first time it was something of a canary-in-the-coalmine situation for me.
- bilsbie 2y ago
  Taste (and health) are two things the market doesn’t select for.
prepend 2y ago
I think you demonstrated that eggs taste different, but not better. My 2 year old would only prefer to eat frozen chicken nuggets. That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken.
- CharlieDigital 2y ago
  > That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken. Taste is subjective. Sounds like his son preferred the taste of one over the other. My kids prefer nuggets over the whole roast chicken my wife and I eat. The salt, MSG, and seasoning of the nuggets along with the fat from the oil tastes better to them. Sadly, nothing I say will convince them otherwise.
  - johnla 2y ago
    Try making nuggets from scratch. It’s so good and easy to do. Chicken tenders from breast meat. Egg seasoned with salt, pepper. Dunk into seasoned breading. Dunk into egg again and back to the breading. Pan fry. Yummy.
    - CharlieDigital 2y ago
      I do make fried chicken for them occasionally and I season with a bit of curry, cumin, and smoked paprika. - 1 pack of 6 thighs or 3 breasts - 4 tbs corn starch + 1 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp each of curry powder, cumin, smoked paprika to coat - slice chicken thinly and use a mallet to flatten to make it even and cook faster (this also increases the ratio of breading to chicken which they like) - coat each slice in the corn starch mix - beat 2 eggs and then dredge the coated slices in egg - coat the now egg coated chicken with bread crumbs of your choice - fry in a flat pan with just about 4-6mm of oil - about 60-90 seconds each side They love it! But it also takes me almost 2 hours to do! So it's a once in a while thing in these busy times.
    - mapt 2y ago
      You're still going to come back to a child who's learned "Real chicken nuggets come in dinosaur shapes, are very salty, have a uniform breading, and don't require teeth to chew". He's going to think your dish doesn't quality.
      - CharlieDigital 2y ago
        Going through the school system (private pre-K/K and public) was really what changed my kids' eating habits. Once they get used to the school nuggets and pizza, it's hard to "unlearn". They were more diverse eaters as young kids and ended more picky and narrow in their food choices. It's why pizza is the staple of every kids' birthday party.
        shagie 2y ago
        I believe this is a difficult problem for schools. They need to have food that meets the standards (as they are defined), appealing enough to 6 through {age} range to have them eat it, something that can be prepared with relatively low skill demands, and something that can be prepared easily in the quantities needed with the kitchen staff provided. That really gets down to reheated chicken nuggets, pizza, and other classic school lunches. The alternative would be to have a school that has a sufficiently large and trained kitchen staff to prepare diverse food, make sure that the food selection that they have meets the requirements (and that the kids aren't just eating the deserts). I'm recalling back to my school food eating days and the kitchen had four people - two serving, one cooking, one cleaning. High school had two or three in the cafeteria - and they were constantly putting out the fast food equivalent food items. I can't even remember if there were salads (if there were, I don't think I ever ate them). [Burger, deep fried [fish, shrimp, chicken], French fries] was my lunches for four years. Though I'm also not entirely sure that schools are to blame for the narrowing of food preference with kids. They don't help, but I'm not entirely sure they are to blame.
- throwmeme888 2y ago
  eggs are homogenous in nature, so a blind test between two eggs can reveal the superior quality of one type of homogenous product. Especially when it is an egg, which is entirely "natural" a chicken nugget is not the same thing as whole chicken, because it has many chemicals, additives, flavouring agents, msg, organ meat, etc and is then battered or crumbed and deep fried before being packed. It also has a different texture altogether, and is eaten with the hands which children find easier than using cutlery. compare a child tasting two different varieties of dark chocolate in comparison to a milk chocolate with caramel filling, or two varieties of whole milk to chocolate skim milk, et cetera.
  - prepend 2y ago
    You are right. My point wasn’t that chicken and eggs are the same or even similar. What I wanted to convey is just because kids have a preference for something doesn’t mean it is better. So more a flaw in the syllogism.
- xattt 2y ago
  > That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken. It will depend on whether the whole chicken is chicken proper, or one reassembled from nuggets.
- cluckindan 2y ago
  Nuggets are mostly skin and cartilage, so maybe that preference stems from the nutritional needs of a growing child.
  - crazygringo 2y ago
    Where do you get this total misinformation? You're trying to propagate an urban legend. HN is not the place for that.
    - cluckindan 2y ago
      What are you referring to? Sure, chicken nuggets made mostly of breast or other muscle flesh exist, but you can bet your buns the majority of frozen nuggets are mostly ground skin and mechanically separated meat. In the United States, mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since 1969, after the National Academy of Sciences found it safe.
      - crazygringo 2y ago
        Chicken nuggets are primarily chicken muscle tissue, end of story. Yes they can include mechanically separated chicken, which is basically a fancy name for saying they scraped all the meat off the bones. But that isn't "mostly skin and cartilage", it's meat. There may be trace amounts of cartilage and small amounts of skin in it, but they are nowhere near the main components. If you're still not sure, just look at the protein content of chicken nuggets. The quantity of protein can only come from actual chicken muscle. Skin has little protein and cartilage has virtually none. There are a lot of urban legends out there about what chicken nuggets are made of. But they're precisely that -- urban legends. They're false.
        cluckindan 2y ago
        https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-made-of https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-... Seriously, do you think researchers are wrong on this?
tptacek 2y ago
People say that all the time, but professional cooks have run triangle tests on backyard/farm eggs vs. store bought eggs and people can't tell the difference. At this point, I don't believe there's a difference in taste. The psychological effects that would lead people to believe that difference exists --- a kind of culinary placebo effect --- are so strong that I just attribute everything to that.
- GeoAtreides 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - vluft 2y ago
    https://www.seriouseats.com/what-are-the-best-eggs https://www.seriouseats.com/what-are-the-best-eggs
    - GeoAtreides 2y ago
      i beg you to read my second paragraph
      - gusgus01 2y ago
        Not just that, unless you are eating them blindfolded or using food dye or in a more complex dish, a preference was shown to exist for pasture raised eggs. Visual stimuli is still part of the eating process and influences taste, it should not be ignored.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        Right, the one that says your claim can't be falsified. Dumb of them to have missed that!
        GeoAtreides 2y ago
        meta studies exist
wonderwonder 2y ago
I wonder how much of this is due to there simply being different types of chickens. I would guess that most commercial egg layers are from a specific or small subset of optimized chicken types. While there is a larger variety in the type of chickens people raise in their back yards. My brother has 3 different types of chickens and each lays visually different eggs.

Maxion 2y ago

My 2 year old daughter never liked eggs. We started buying some from a neighbor who pasture raises his lay hens (and feeds them more chicken-appropriate feed). She eats her eggs and asks for more. If we run out and I fry up some store bought ones, she refuses to eat them - even when I don't tell her where they're from. Same goes for chicken meat from the grocery store vs. pasture raised broilers from another neighbor. When it happened the first time it was something of a canary-in-the-coalmine situation for me.

bilsbie 2y ago
Taste (and health) are two things the market doesn’t select for.

prepend 2y ago

I think you demonstrated that eggs taste different, but not better. My 2 year old would only prefer to eat frozen chicken nuggets. That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken.

CharlieDigital 2y ago
> That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken. Taste is subjective. Sounds like his son preferred the taste of one over the other. My kids prefer nuggets over the whole roast chicken my wife and I eat. The salt, MSG, and seasoning of the nuggets along with the fat from the oil tastes better to them. Sadly, nothing I say will convince them otherwise.
- johnla 2y ago
  Try making nuggets from scratch. It’s so good and easy to do. Chicken tenders from breast meat. Egg seasoned with salt, pepper. Dunk into seasoned breading. Dunk into egg again and back to the breading. Pan fry. Yummy.
  - CharlieDigital 2y ago
    I do make fried chicken for them occasionally and I season with a bit of curry, cumin, and smoked paprika. - 1 pack of 6 thighs or 3 breasts - 4 tbs corn starch + 1 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp each of curry powder, cumin, smoked paprika to coat - slice chicken thinly and use a mallet to flatten to make it even and cook faster (this also increases the ratio of breading to chicken which they like) - coat each slice in the corn starch mix - beat 2 eggs and then dredge the coated slices in egg - coat the now egg coated chicken with bread crumbs of your choice - fry in a flat pan with just about 4-6mm of oil - about 60-90 seconds each side They love it! But it also takes me almost 2 hours to do! So it's a once in a while thing in these busy times.
  - mapt 2y ago
    You're still going to come back to a child who's learned "Real chicken nuggets come in dinosaur shapes, are very salty, have a uniform breading, and don't require teeth to chew". He's going to think your dish doesn't quality.
    - CharlieDigital 2y ago
      Going through the school system (private pre-K/K and public) was really what changed my kids' eating habits. Once they get used to the school nuggets and pizza, it's hard to "unlearn". They were more diverse eaters as young kids and ended more picky and narrow in their food choices. It's why pizza is the staple of every kids' birthday party.
      - shagie 2y ago
        I believe this is a difficult problem for schools. They need to have food that meets the standards (as they are defined), appealing enough to 6 through {age} range to have them eat it, something that can be prepared with relatively low skill demands, and something that can be prepared easily in the quantities needed with the kitchen staff provided. That really gets down to reheated chicken nuggets, pizza, and other classic school lunches. The alternative would be to have a school that has a sufficiently large and trained kitchen staff to prepare diverse food, make sure that the food selection that they have meets the requirements (and that the kids aren't just eating the deserts). I'm recalling back to my school food eating days and the kitchen had four people - two serving, one cooking, one cleaning. High school had two or three in the cafeteria - and they were constantly putting out the fast food equivalent food items. I can't even remember if there were salads (if there were, I don't think I ever ate them). [Burger, deep fried [fish, shrimp, chicken], French fries] was my lunches for four years. Though I'm also not entirely sure that schools are to blame for the narrowing of food preference with kids. They don't help, but I'm not entirely sure they are to blame.
throwmeme888 2y ago
eggs are homogenous in nature, so a blind test between two eggs can reveal the superior quality of one type of homogenous product. Especially when it is an egg, which is entirely "natural" a chicken nugget is not the same thing as whole chicken, because it has many chemicals, additives, flavouring agents, msg, organ meat, etc and is then battered or crumbed and deep fried before being packed. It also has a different texture altogether, and is eaten with the hands which children find easier than using cutlery. compare a child tasting two different varieties of dark chocolate in comparison to a milk chocolate with caramel filling, or two varieties of whole milk to chocolate skim milk, et cetera.
- prepend 2y ago
  You are right. My point wasn’t that chicken and eggs are the same or even similar. What I wanted to convey is just because kids have a preference for something doesn’t mean it is better. So more a flaw in the syllogism.
xattt 2y ago
> That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken. It will depend on whether the whole chicken is chicken proper, or one reassembled from nuggets.
cluckindan 2y ago
Nuggets are mostly skin and cartilage, so maybe that preference stems from the nutritional needs of a growing child.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Where do you get this total misinformation? You're trying to propagate an urban legend. HN is not the place for that.
  - cluckindan 2y ago
    What are you referring to? Sure, chicken nuggets made mostly of breast or other muscle flesh exist, but you can bet your buns the majority of frozen nuggets are mostly ground skin and mechanically separated meat. In the United States, mechanically separated poultry has been used in poultry products since 1969, after the National Academy of Sciences found it safe.
    - crazygringo 2y ago
      Chicken nuggets are primarily chicken muscle tissue, end of story. Yes they can include mechanically separated chicken, which is basically a fancy name for saying they scraped all the meat off the bones. But that isn't "mostly skin and cartilage", it's meat. There may be trace amounts of cartilage and small amounts of skin in it, but they are nowhere near the main components. If you're still not sure, just look at the protein content of chicken nuggets. The quantity of protein can only come from actual chicken muscle. Skin has little protein and cartilage has virtually none. There are a lot of urban legends out there about what chicken nuggets are made of. But they're precisely that -- urban legends. They're false.
      - cluckindan 2y ago
        https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-made-of https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-... Seriously, do you think researchers are wrong on this?

tptacek 2y ago

People say that all the time, but professional cooks have run triangle tests on backyard/farm eggs vs. store bought eggs and people can't tell the difference. At this point, I don't believe there's a difference in taste. The psychological effects that would lead people to believe that difference exists --- a kind of culinary placebo effect --- are so strong that I just attribute everything to that.

GeoAtreides 2y ago
[flagged]
- vluft 2y ago
  https://www.seriouseats.com/what-are-the-best-eggs https://www.seriouseats.com/what-are-the-best-eggs
  - GeoAtreides 2y ago
    i beg you to read my second paragraph
    - gusgus01 2y ago
      Not just that, unless you are eating them blindfolded or using food dye or in a more complex dish, a preference was shown to exist for pasture raised eggs. Visual stimuli is still part of the eating process and influences taste, it should not be ignored.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      Right, the one that says your claim can't be falsified. Dumb of them to have missed that!
      - GeoAtreides 2y ago
        meta studies exist

wonderwonder 2y ago

I wonder how much of this is due to there simply being different types of chickens. I would guess that most commercial egg layers are from a specific or small subset of optimized chicken types. While there is a larger variety in the type of chickens people raise in their back yards. My brother has 3 different types of chickens and each lays visually different eggs.