Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
If you feed pasture-raised chickens extra grass-fed beef fat and liver, their egg yolks end up with five times more 'good fat' called CLA — about 0.05 grams in every 100 grams of yolk — compared to eggs from chickens on regular feed.
Pasture-raised eggs are more nutritious than regular cage-free eggs — they’ve got more of the good stuff like omega-3s and antioxidants, and a better fat balance that could help keep your heart healthier.
Chicken feed usually uses soybean meal for protein, but other plant or animal proteins can be swapped in depending on price, availability, and how nutritious they are.
Chicken feed often uses grains like corn and wheat for energy, but things like hard-to-digest parts, natural toxins, or germs in the grain can make the feed less effective and harm the birds' health.
Adding special ingredients to chicken feed might help chickens grow faster, get more from their food, lay more eggs, and stay healthier in big farms.
Most pasture-raised eggs you buy at the store are actually not much healthier than regular eggs because they're fed cheap corn and soy—so you might be paying more for something that's not really better.
If you keep chickens on the same pasture all the time without rotating it, the soil gets worse, the grass doesn't grow as well, and there are fewer bugs and plants for the chickens to eat.
The 'pasture-raised' label on food doesn't always mean animals spent real time outside — often, it's just based on a farmer's word, with no inspections or rules about how long they were actually on pasture.
If a chicken eats bugs and grass, its eggs have dark orange yolks that are naturally nutritious. But if the yolk is dark just because the chicken was fed corn, soy, or food with color added, that doesn’t mean the egg is healthier.
Farmers add paprika and marigold to chicken food to make egg yolks look more orange because people think those eggs are healthier—even if they're not.
Farmers in the U.S. mostly feed corn and soy to chickens because they're cheap, easy to grow in large amounts, and used in all kinds of egg farming — even the more expensive 'premium' kinds.
Even pasture-raised chickens from fancy brands usually get extra food — mostly corn and soy — that's high in omega-6 fats.
Chickens can't break down certain fats like omega-6 from their food, so those fats go straight into the yolks of the eggs they lay.
Eating too much omega-6 fat—especially from vegetable oils and meat from grain-fed animals—might increase body-wide inflammation, which could lead to long-term health problems like heart disease or diabetes.
Two pasture-raised eggs from big farms can have as much omega-6 fat as a spoonful of canola oil, because those eggs sometimes contain a lot of a fat called linoleic acid.
There's a protein in our brain called AMPK that might help protect nerve cells when they're under stress, which could make it a good target for treating brain diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
Eating fewer carbs might turn on a key energy sensor in your body that helps improve how your body handles sugar and fat, making it a possible way to boost your metabolism.
A protein in your body called AMPK helps control how fat is burned and made, so fixing how it works might help treat obesity and related health problems.
If we can turn on a certain switch in the body—using things like diet, exercise, or supplements—it might help our cells use sugar and fat better, clean out junk, reduce damage and swelling, and improve overall metabolism.
Think of AMPK like a car's low-fuel light and mechanic rolled into one — when your cells run low on energy, AMPK turns on and boosts energy production while turning off energy-heavy activities to get things back in balance.
A hormone called ANP might help fix broken energy factories in fat cells that aren't responding well to insulin — at least in lab dishes.
A hormone called ANP might help fat cells burn more energy by boosting their tiny power plants, according to lab studies.
ANP helps break down fat in human fat cells in the lab, and it does this by turning on a specific switch called the alpha2 part of AMPK. If you block that switch, ANP can't do its fat-burning job anymore.
A hormone called ANP might supercharge fat cells in a lab, making them burn fat seven times more and use twice as much oxygen by turning on a specific energy sensor in the cell.