Ambiguous Standards of Food: Eggs
The food industry has developed metrics to classify and value different foods according to criteria such as shape, size, weight, colour, and firmness—though, peculiarly, never taste. These metrics also determine the foods’ packaging, transportation, and consumption.
A range of different birds’ eggs in this crate demonstrates the variability of nature’s standards in comparison to the complex industry matrix of chicken eggs. The standards of commercial chicken eggs are strictly regulated. As a result, not only many birds’ but the majority of chicken eggs, ranging from tiny (fart) to extra-large eggs with various colours from light to dark, red and chocolate brown, do not qualify for commercial sale.
Medium and Contents:
Beech wood, stryofoam, metalspun eggholders, and various eggs (Zebra finch, budgerigar, pigeon, rosella, sultan chicken, burford brown chicken, seabright sage chicken, leghorn chicken, legbar chicken, quail, ostrich, turkey, goose, duck, rhea, emu, cooper maran chicken, ameraucana chicken, gold wyandotte chicken, trabzon gugullu chicken, sussex chicken, australorp chicken, silver wyandotte chicken, red blue laced Wyandotte chicken, splash wyandotte chicken, black mottled brahma chicken, rhode island red chicken, gold brahma chicken, turken chicken, cream legbar chicken, blue brahma chicken, appenzeller chicken).