As children, everyone is told about Santa, the Easter bunny, and even a tooth fairy. Sorry to break it to you, but they are not real. Now that people have grown up, these fairy-tales that parents told children are joked about. The lies have stopped. Or have they?

The FDA stands for the Food and Drug Administration, but it should actually stand for Fraud and Dishonesty Administration. This administration will break any limit to help companies make an extra buck. Almost sounds like Starbucks charging five dollars for milk and bean water. The FDA allows many untrue or misleading statements to be on egg packages. Yes, eggs. Eggs that can be scrambled, fried, sunny-side up, or raw (if you like it that way). Most packages are not what they seem. 

While shopping for your eggs you may stumble across the label “antibiotic-free”. Well, who wouldn’t want an egg that doesn’t have antibiotics, it sure does sound healthier. Wrong. All eggs are antibiotic free. The FDA doesn’t allow antibiotics, but still allows companies to label with it. If you see “antibiotic-free” eggs at the store just remember the time you did the absolute minimum at a task and still got a participation trophy. It is the same thing. 

If you’ve ever stayed in on a Saturday night crying at YouTube videos about farm animals being crammed into small spaces, you are not alone. If you are not vegan by now, you have maybe tried to change the products you buy. One recently popular egg label is “cage-free”. Now that the chickens are not pushed into a small cage, they must be living a happy life. Wrong. This “cage-free” label really means packed into a small warehouse and stacked on top of one another. This method reminds many of the feeling you get trying to dodge one million students in the Canyon High School hallways in hopes to get in the bathroom line first. The only exception is that these chickens are so fat and packed together, they cannot move at all.

If you have almost lost all faith in humanity, get ready to lose some more. One of the friendliest labels on eggs is “free-range”. Free range makes many think of a green hillside with a happy farmer tending for their chickens. Wrong. Free-range chickens are primarily a label put on chickens that are raised for meat consumption. The reasoning this label is put on egg packaging is unknown, but it really means that these chickens are crammed into a small area, just like “cage-free”, but outside instead of in a warehouse. 

The last misleading label is the strangest of all. Many farmers may try to raise these chickens to be vegetarian and label “vegetarian” on these eggs. Although this label is not necessarily lying to consumers, it is very harmful to chickens. It may be surprising to find out that chickens are actually omnivores. Just as chickens are related to dinosaurs, they could also be related to zombies.What happens when you leave meat-hungry chickens alone with only vegetables? Instead of World War Z, it turns into World War C, as these chickens turn into cannibals. Still want those “vegetarian” eggs now?

If you have made it this far in an article about eggs, you may be questioning all your lifetime’s egg purchases, but do not freight. There is one good egg label after all. Eggs labeled “pasteurized” are actually good. These chickens have at least 108 square feet of space to roam and do “chicken things”, such as peck around and not resort to cannibalism.