How do you like your eggs? The answer to that question used to be sunny side up, scrambled, or over easy. Now, it’s cage-free and organic, thank you very much.  Since I moved to London recently, I’ve noticed a greater level of public awareness regarding egg production and chicken welfare as compared to the United States.  Most supermarkets and chain restaurants, and even some giant multinational corporations, sell or use exclusively free-range eggs and prominently advertise doing so.

It’s certainly a big change from the United States, where cage-free eggs are generally available but are not as widespread in popularity as in the United Kingdom. It appears to be a slowly growing movement back at home, and it’s great news that some states have begun to pass laws improving living conditions for chickens. Unfortunately, we’ve still got a long way to go before reaching the level of public demand and corporate response for the right kind of eggs that can be found here in the UK.

Here are a few of the differences I’ve noticed with regard to egg production and marketing in the UK and the States.

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This creative agency explains that they do not “work to sell products, they create work that sells ideas that build a more just and sustainable world”; and they are driven by a belief that “the right stories told in revolutionary ways can transform society“.

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If you’re one of the millions of California voters who helped pass Proposition 2 on November 4, chances are pretty good that your Thanksgiving meal will include some sort of free-range, hormone-free dead bird—or, if you fall into the veg camp, maybe a more benign Tofurky or Field Roast. But for illegal poachers like Peter Ciraula of Gilroy, California, odds are good that the celebratory meal will include breast of snow goose, leg of endangered sandhill crane, or perhaps a pot-pie of protected swan.

“[Ciraula] said he was going to eat some of them,” said Department of Fish and Game warden Patrick Foy, ”But when we asked him why he had so many, he never really never offered up a very valid explanation.”

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There’s a lot of strutting and posturing going on right now, which makes me think of turkeys…

For a serious foodie, it’s never too early to start planning Thanksgiving dinner.

Deciding what kind of turkey to serve is a key piece in that plan.

Here’s a quick guide to your turkey choices, and even a home-delivered organic turkey dinner option…

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In fact, eggs are the product with the most “eco labels” of all reviewed by Consumer Reports. How do you navigate the sea of label terms and find out what they really mean?

Consumer Reports offers an Eco-labels Center that has tools like a virtual kitchen that shows users common foods and the labels associated with them, some of which were new to me. Did you know wine can include a “salmon-safe” label, for example?

The site also offers three different ways to search for label definitions; by “label” including label term, logo, label index and label category; by product category including food, household cleaners, personal hygiene, and wood/paper; and by certifiers, the organization or program that validates the label claim.

Entering a grocery store for a socially and environmentally minded person can be quite a stressful and trying experience. Should you buy that organic, free-range, cage-free, grass-fed, non-GMO, natural, fair-trade beef? How do you know if those chickens really are free to roam in bucolic pastures? How often are the organic farms audited? How do you know if the apple from New Zealand produced less fossil fuels compared to the local one? When the seemingly more ethical products cost up to twice as much as conventional ones, we end up staring at the shelves in a daze with recycle symbols and cheery looking Peruvian coffee growers circling our heads.

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Want some of the most beautifully colored eggs this Easter, but don’t have time to dye them? No problem, you can get eggs in all colors from soft, warm brown to light sage, blue-green and olive or even pink. The best part? The chickens do all the work.

Different breeds of chickens produce different egg colors. This shell color is a result of pigments that are secreted by the hen and deposited on the eggshell’s outer layers during formation in the chicken’s oviduct. Brown eggs are from the pigment protoporphyrin, a breakdown product of hemoglobin. Blue and green hues are caused by the pigment oocyanin, a by-product of bile formation.

I was a bit skeptical of some of the information I found from the Egg Nutrition Center. The Center reported that the color of the eggs a chicken lays is related to the species of the chicken and the color of the chicken’s earlobes. Chickens have earlobes? (Tips on buying eggs and what the labels mean after the jump).

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Based in Berkeley and Washington DC, Free Range offers a wide selection of creative services for companies and non-profit organizations. "We know that our best work comes not just from our creative vision, but also from the creativity of those we serve. That's why every project at Free Range is a collaboration between designer and client. We've built our reputation on being collaborative partners." Company co-founder and President, Jonah Sachs, recently took time out of his busy schedule to tell me more about starting Free Range, unique projects you've probably never heard of, and a sneak peek at what's next.

Victoria E: How did you and Free Range co-founder Louis Fox decide to open a creative company with a conscience?

Jonah Sachs: Louis and I were childhood friends. Since we were 7 years old, we had been making home movies, games and haunted houses. We always collaborated really well and complemented each other's creative energies. After college, I started doing some freelance design and Louis was a production assistant on films. I was in DC and he was in NY. I was getting really excited about the possibilities of using graphics to influence people's thinking.

I had been on a journalism path but soon felt that it wasn't just words that taught people. It was also how those words were presented. The form was becoming as interesting to me as the content. But as I started running into some walls artistically, I called Louis and asked him to join me. Louis has always been the fine artist between us and he added a totally new dimension to what I could do. Only problem was he knew nothing about computers or the internet. So it was really a learning process for both of us.

VE: The client list on the company's website reads like a "who's who" of green businesses and organizations. Was there a particular group that was a uniquely exciting experience to work with?

JS: We did a piece with Students for a Free Tibet that really made us realize what this work was all about, what was possible. They teamed us up with the Beastie Boys to make a video for the song "Sabotage." The video showed the face of a Tibetan monk sentenced to death by the Chinese government plastered all over the world. It was all faked, but it looked like there was graffiti of this guy's face wherever you turned. Shortly after the campaign, this man's death sentence was commuted. It was a wonderful thrill.

We had a similar experience working with Amnesty International. We made a giant truck billboard that drove around the Saudi embassy demanding they open their legal system to outside oversight. The billboard was embarrassing to them, showing the sword from the Saudi flag cutting off someone's raised hand (a common practice in Saudi justice). The tagline said "Want to know Saudi Arabia's Human Rights Secret? Raise your Hand." They quickly caved to Amnesty's demands and opened a once-closed system to outside view.

VE: Despite your range of media works, Free Range is well known for its Flash animation videos. Do you have a favorite Flash project?

JS: When it comes to our flash movies, some of the older ones still make me smile the most. "A Bear Votes" is a classic (our second movie), and it was so cheap and so simple, but it was really fun. And it reminds me of a more innocent time on the web when people passed something around even if it wasn't the edgiest, nastiest thing going.

I also like the piece we did for Working Assets about Lady Liberty being imprisoned by the measures we were taking to "protect" the nation. It was, and still is, a really important message for people to understand. And I love "Friends with Low Wages" because it's so damn catchy and really was a victory for us in that we made a rather unsexy topic (union organizing) and brought hundreds of thousands of eyeballs to it.

VE: "The Meatrix" is known as the most successful Flash advocacy movie in the history of the web. What is it like for your business to hold an unexpected title like that?

JS: I often reflect on how, when we started this business, we hoped just to try something new and make enough money to live on. To have made some real, pioneering impacts on the world is beyond anything we could have imagined. It also makes us want to push to do it again.

VE: Very much committed to giving back and helping the little guy, Free Range has the yearly Gratitude Grant, whose winner receives $15,000 worth of services. Who originally came up with the idea for this project? Why do you see it as an integral part of the group's business?

JS: The idea came from McArthur, our VP, and Louis, the other co-founder. Our clients are all making sacrifices financially to do what they most care about. It's a language they inherently understand. So it's natural that serving this community we would make similar sacrifices. And in the end, the loyalty and attention we get does pay it back.

VE: The media has such a large impact on our daily lives it's nearly subconscious. What more could be done to help promote eco and social change via entertainment and ads?

JS: I wish I had the answer. The democratization of media has been the greatest gift the web has given us and its potential is enormous. But people, now given the option to consume anything, are still largely consuming the kind of media they've been conditioned to enjoy. A lot of it doesn't enrich them or the planet. But I think the growing awareness about social issues, especially global warming recently, is going to bring about more message/entertainment melds (like we did with "The Meatrix") that will have huge global impacts. I guess in short, we just need more creativity out there to disguise social content as entertainment.

VE: Do you have any other nifty, secret projects in the works that you could hint at?

JS: We're working on a next-generation eco-footprint calculator that is going to take the best elements of video games, social networking and earth science to create an incredible experience of measuring your personal impact on the Earth and what you can do to reduce it. It's going to be amazing.