Alysa Golden: Woman Behind the Golden Eggs

We’ll let you in on a little secret. The goose didn’t lay that golden egg… Alysa Golden did. Her chicken eggs in Toronto are a delicious protein fix for the same price as many organic suppliers. However, her eggs have a golden secret.

With more than 130 clients and 100 dozen eggs coming every couple of weeks to her house door, Alysa is as close to an egg farmer as she wants to get in the city of Toronto. Buying “free range” eggs that didn’t have any elements of freedom frustrated her. Even with a packed schedule as a social worker, she found a way to make it work and Eggy Weggs was born.

Alysa greeted tuja with a smile that could light a room as efficiently as an LED light bulb. Over wine glasses filled with freshly pressed juice, we got to the goods, learning about her business and how the rest of us can be sure that we have good eggs in our lives.

People aren’t the only ones to come in all shapes and sizes. Since Alysa’s eggs come from different chickens, and chickens lay about an egg a day, not all eggs look the same. “Chickens don’t lay eggs by the dozen!” she affirmed. Some may have yellow yolks, some have orange yolks, and the size of the eggs can vary. Alysa made the good point that it all depends on what the chickens eat: “One may eat a grasshopper, while another may eat mostly grass and slugs.”

Fresh eggs taste like eggs. Well, duh, you may be thinking, but it’s like thinking Wonderbread and Artisanal bread taste the same. Fresh eggs are real food, and many of the eggs we eat are not as real as we’d like to believe. In fact, Eggy Weggs are so fresh that the salmonella risk (about 1 in every 10,000 eggs) that requires egg refrigeration is not necessary. Like in Europe, Alysa keeps her eggs on the counter for weeks (if they last that long). She says a way to test for freshness is to note that the yolk sits on top, rather than running into the white. In addition, the white itself has more of a firm consistency.

Don’t be fooled by the happy chicken pictures. Some of the big marketing campaigns in Canada show farmers and chickens living in perfect harmony. In reality, the chickens live in dirty farm factory conditions. This includes free range, free run and organic which mean as much as the word calligraphy does to the texting generation. If it matters to you where your eggs come from, the only way to be certain is to do your research. Call the company, visit the farm, or find an egg fairy like Alysa.

The honour system can still round up very honourable people. Alysa keeps all her eggs in the front of her house. Her customers take what they’ve ordered, they pay what is expected and Alysa trusts them to do so. She’s never lost out on a payment, or had a customer take extra eggs (save for one very messy raccoon transaction).

Mennonite farmers are not so good at email. The Hope Eco Farm has no electricity, and very old-fashioned practices to maintain a high quality food standard. Alysa speaks on the phone with her farmer on Tuesday, and he has to travel quite a distance to get to that phone. Therefore, if someone was late to place an order, they may have to wait a little longer. Alysa did take a group of her customers to visit the farm (ten cars’ worth!). She puts a whole new spin on customer service…

A carton of Eggy Weggs runs for around $8, plus Alysa also introduces farm made products to her customers (like sheep’s cheese and water buffalo ice cream!). If you’re in Toronto, get on the egg train and head to her website. If you aren’t, it’s also a good referral for more information to ensure that you are a conscious consumer. 

In the meantime, we’ll try to clone Alysa to have one of her in each Canadian city.

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Courtney Sunday is a writer, yoga teacher, Pilates instructor, spinning instructor and Thai massage practitioner. She teaches corporations in Toronto the fine art of breathing deeply, and travels too much for her own good. She likes to cook meals from scratch using ingredients from her garden, and would mill her own flour and make her own butter if she had more hours in the day. Find out more about her at www.courtneysunday.com.