Wikipedia has a good breakdown of egg mass by size for various countries here (I used the US data for the graphic): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_egg_sizes. I ended up focusing more on relative size as compared to a large egg (medium = .88 of a large egg) in the guide because most US recipes use large eggs as a standard, so relative sizing helps with substitutions.
Thanks for the link to the Cornucopia Institute’s report – that looks like a great resource!
The same way they test for quality in other manufactured items: statistical sampling. Since the Grade is an indicator of freshness and other environmental conditions, they can crack open a few and deduce that the rest are similar.
Shouldn’t the top row be listed Grade B, A, AA , in that order? Then it would be consistent with the price of the egg, as the other rows are.
With regards to your question, you’re right – that order would be consistent with price. When I made the graphic, I meant for the arrow under the farming methods to refer to just the farming methods, and not the sizes and grades. I now see how that can be a little confusing and I’ll see if I can make it more clear in V2. Thanks for pointing it out!
What’s the unit of measure on the egg size?
Also if you really want a discussion of the meanings of organic (not cage free or free range), free range, and cage free (meaningless), check out the Cornucopia Institute’s report Scrambled Eggs. http://www.cornucopia.org/2010/09/organic-egg-report-and-scorecard/
No units for the eggs – just the relative sizes compared to that of the Large.
Wikipedia has a good breakdown of egg mass by size for various countries here (I used the US data for the graphic): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_egg_sizes. I ended up focusing more on relative size as compared to a large egg (medium = .88 of a large egg) in the guide because most US recipes use large eggs as a standard, so relative sizing helps with substitutions.
Thanks for the link to the Cornucopia Institute’s report – that looks like a great resource!
How do they know they are Grade A if they have to cook them sunny side up to tell?
The same way they test for quality in other manufactured items: statistical sampling. Since the Grade is an indicator of freshness and other environmental conditions, they can crack open a few and deduce that the rest are similar.
Shouldn’t the top row be listed Grade B, A, AA , in that order? Then it would be consistent with the price of the egg, as the other rows are.
With regards to your question, you’re right – that order would be consistent with price. When I made the graphic, I meant for the arrow under the farming methods to refer to just the farming methods, and not the sizes and grades. I now see how that can be a little confusing and I’ll see if I can make it more clear in V2. Thanks for pointing it out!
An updated version of the infographic which works in feedback from the original one is available here: http://culinaut.blogspot.com/2011/03/visual-guide-to-eggs-v2.html