A darker orange yolk doesn’t automatically mean a better egg.
Yolk color is influenced primarily by what the hen eats.
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Dyes & Pigments
Biological Sciences
eggs
Certain pigments in a hen’s diet—particularly carotenoids found in ingredients such as corn, alfalfa, leafy greens, and marigold petals—can make the yolk appear more intensely yellow or orange.
A diet with fewer of those pigments can produce a much paler yolk.
So that gorgeous orange color can certainly tell you something about the hen’s diet.
But it doesn’t tell the whole story.
A dark yolk isn’t automatically more nutritious, and a pale yolk isn’t automatically inferior.
That’s the part I wish I’d known sooner.
Does a Darker Yolk Mean More Nutrition?
Not necessarily.
This is where the internet can make things confusing.
It’s tempting to look at a beautiful orange yolk and assume you’re holding a nutritional powerhouse compared with a pale-yellow
