Land O Lakes product review!

Hello, all!  Bannon and I were given the opportunity to try and review Land O Lakes All Natural Eggs, through Vocalpoint.  We haven't received any compensation for the review, and the opinions are strictly our own.

Land O Lakes offers all-natural eggs, from hens that are fed, according to their website, a "premium, all-vegetable, whole-grain diet".  The feed does not have any animal fat or byproducts.  Besides the All-Natural eggs, there are also Organic, Cage-Free, and Omega-3 varieties.  As of right now, Giant Eagle stores carry the line in the Columbus area.  I was able to only find the All-Natural eggs, so those are the ones I tested.

Now, people that know me know that I'm kinda "crunchy".  I pay attention to packaging, ingredients, sustainability, blah, blah...What I'm saying here is that I prefer to get eggs from a farm.  However, the only source I have that I consider to be reliable is through the North Market, which is a bit of a drive for me.  I would love to find a good source at the grocery store.  I really think that there is a distinct taste difference between farm-fresh eggs and the ones in styrofoam at the grocery store.  So when I read on the Land O Lakes page that the eggs have darker, more flavorful yolks, I got interested.

I gave the eggs a test run this morning, along with the pancakes that my Big Dude very thoughtfully made for me to freeze last weekend.  First thing I notice about the eggs is that the packaging is plastic, with some odd piece that folds in to cover the eggs.  It's a kind of trifold packaging.  I'm not a fan of plastic, but at least it should be recyclable.

The eggs are brown and very uniform in size.  The yolk did seem to be a bit darker, but not so much so as to really be notable.  I simply fried them with a bit of salt and pepper.  I really didn't get a lot of flavor difference from them.  They were good, but I think I'd still rather get my farmer's market eggs.  Little Dude did eat them, which is a good sign, since he's really picky about when/how he'll eat eggs.  Just for the sake of comparison, we also tried Simple Truth brand eggs from Kroger earlier this week, and I'd say they're about the same, quality-wise, but I prefer Simple Truth's cardboard cartons.

At 3.29/dozen, these aren't cheap eggs.  They are less expensive than other brands of organic/all-natural eggs, but Vocalpoint does have a way to make them a bit more reasonable.  There is a trivia game on the Vocalpoint/Land O Lakes page that allows you to win a coupon for $0.75 off of one dozen.  My store doubled the coupon, which made the final price $1.79.  You can hit the back button to reload the coupon after the first printing, so you can get a second one.  I believe you do have to be a Vocalpoint member to get the coupon, but Vocalpoint is a decent page to be a member of.  I've gotten free Fresh Express bagged salad, free Mott's apple juice, and free Downy Unstoppables from them, as well as lots of high-value coupons.

So, my final review is, get your eggs from the farm if you can, but if not, these aren't such a bad way to go.