Please do us a solid and take our super-short survey. Just click here – thanks!

Even before the first little flock of chicks blossomed in to the frenetic bird herd we call Spumoni today, sharing eggs with others has been something we treasure. Few things are more satisfying than taking good care of the birds, and sharing their bounty with others.

Local food banks and pantry programs have been of a particular focus for us for the last several years. We started with donations twice a month to a Sunday bag lunch program in Paso Robles for community members in need, and now in the Morro Bay area we give weekly to one of three different organizations sharing food with those in need. Even though we’ve been able to share over 70 dozen this year alone, when it comes to eggs, most of the food sharing programs to which many of us donate, are not getting the best.

It is estimated that over 46,000 of us in San Luis Obispo county are having trouble getting enough to eat. Many of these folks are the most vulnerable in our community – children and seniors. The Director of Operations at our area’s largest food bank shared that fresh eggs like ours are an item of which they are always in need, and find cost-prohibitive to purchase. When we reached out to a soup kitchen in Paso Robles, we were told that they receive whatever eggs the USDA donates to them. A small local church doing food shares almost weekly said they rarely get eggs from the food bank. So when eggs are donated at all, they are almost always the aging, mass produced eggs from industrial “farms,” and those eggs are far from the best.

Setting aside, but certainly not dismissing the cruel methods of industrial egg farms, and the egregious environmental practices that often accompany them, let’s just focus on the eggs they produce.

Mother Nature News conducted a study, looking at the difference between these industrially produced eggs and eggs from flocks kept like ours – with access to the outdoors, a varied diet, and opportunities to indulge species specific behaviors – and the mass produced eggs came up short.

Eggs like ours may contain:

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene

This is the kind of well-rounded, wholesome nutrition that we believe is good food for all, and we want to share it with our fellow community members dealing with food insecurity.

As we move forward and explore this transition, we would very much like to hear from you. If you have a couple of moments, you could help us gather valuable feedback. We put together a simple four question survey of yes-no responses that takes two minutes – tops – to complete. The information you share will help us decide our next steps to meeting this very worthy goal for our community. Thank you!