“Eggs are like a magical capsule,” says Manjunath Marappan. “No other food on Earth packs in as much nutrition within just 50 grams.” Marappan, 42, is the co-founder of the decade-old Happy Hens Farm, India’s oldest commercial producer of free-range eggs. They partner with small farmers across Nashik, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, and many of the 20,000 eggs they produce every day end up on India’s trendiest menus.

Eggs, urban India is starting to realise, aren’t all alike. Brown and white shells aren’t any indicator of quality. And good ones – tastier, produced ethically, carrying more nutrients – are worth paying three times more for. Here’s why.

The chicken comes first

Tasleem Ahmad, the business head of 57-year-old Keggfarms, says that India’s egg production falls broadly into two categories: Commercial and natural. Most eggs stocked at supermarkets and grocery stores are commercial, which means the hens that laid them were kept in closed cages, with no access to light, fresh air or movement for much of their lives. The birds are typically fed cheap fish meal and limestone powder to boost the nutritional output of their eggs. As a result, they’re more stressed, so they’re given anti-stress medicines and antibiotics, which they pass on to the eggs, and ultimately to you.

Natural egg-production, on the other hand, includes more humane systems such as cage-free and free-range chicken rearing. At Keggfarms, the cage-free hens live in a large enclosure, allowing them to fly around and socialise with other hens, which boosts both their quality of life and the quality of the egg. Free-range farming takes it one step further. The birds at Telangana-based Nutrifresh Eggs and Happy Hens Farm are left to forage in open, sunlit, fenced pasture. They feed on greens, grass, protein-rich maize and barley, worms, and trace minerals in the soil. So the eggs they lay end up rich in iron, phosphorus, zinc, folate, and Omega-3.

For egg-eaters, this means that cage-free and free-range eggs have the advantage of being ethically produced and delicious at the same time. The yolk is firm and doesn’t smell. The egg is overall more creamy and smooth. They are also less likely to affect cholesterol levels.

But there’s a catch. “Commercial farms produce about 90% — or 90 eggs for 100 hens every day,” says Marappan. “In free-range or cage-free production, you’ll only get about 60-75 eggs.” So, natural-egg producers price their eggs higher to keep the business running.

Come out of your shell

Will a switch to eating natural eggs improve a diner’s health? It depends on how much you eat, says Aditi Dugar, founder of Mumbai restaurants Masque and Araku. “If I’m eating eggs every day, of course the choice of eggs is going to impact me,” she says. For those who eat them only occasionally, or in a dessert, it won’t make much of a difference, she says.

Egg farms are realising that a good way to get India to eat better eggs is to convince restaurants to start using them. Organisations such as Humane Society International and People for Animals have urged large hotel chains such as Marriott and Hyatt to use natural eggs in their restaurants. These eggs do have vibrant orange yolks that look good at the breakfast buffet and over a bowl of ramen, but when they’re used in recipes, they sometimes need adjustment, because every egg is different in size and taste, says Rahul Shrivastava, chef at Mumbai’s Hyatt Centric.

The challenge for natural egg farms is to get regular folks to choose better eggs when they’re grocery shopping. Urban consumers tend to read nutrition labels (even though we’re largely befuddled by them), and have shown a preference for less-industrialised foods. Still, the demand comes from a small base of repeat consumers, and the scale of their operations outweighs the profits.

Cracking it open

While the US and Europe have certifications qualifying eggs as organic, in India, no such standard exists. For an egg to meet international standards for organic, the grain and other food fed to the hens must be organic too. “Eggs in India can be up to 70% natural, but not completely organic,” says Marappan.

In addition, there are no quality checks or regulations for producing natural eggs. So farms have been working towards standard certifications for natural eggs, which will help educate customers too. Meanwhile, Marappan suggests doing your own research. “As a consumer, research what kind of farming goes into the product. Write to the brands and visit their farms, and ask questions. Choose your eggs wisely, and know the nutrition content in it.”

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