Have you ever eaten a turkey egg?
When we talk about eating eggs in the U.S., we're almost always talking about chicken eggs. Occasionally, we might see duck eggs or quail eggs on the menu in a gourmet restaurant, and even more rarely something exotic like an emu egg. But do we ever see turkey eggs being served? Nope, never. (At least I never have, nor has anyone I've asked about this.)
Considering how many turkeys are raised domestically in the U.S. (around 220 million) and how many wild turkeys roam among us (around 7 million), you'd think we'd make better use of their eggs. They are egg-laying birds, after all, and since turkey meat is so similar to chicken meat, it seems logical that turkey eggs would be similar to chicken eggs, right?
Turkey eggs are larger than chicken eggs with a thicker shell.Photo credit: Canva
Right. Basically, that's true. Turkey eggs are larger than chicken eggs and they have a stronger shell, but from what people say, they're similar to eating chicken eggs only a little richer. Larger and richer, and yet we don't eat them on the regular? Why the heck not?
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The Self-Sufficient Backyard YouTube channel explains the whole thing in a video that's been viewed by nearly 4 million people. Clearly, this is a burning question for people once it's brought to their attention.
- YouTube youtube.com
Basically, what it boils down to is that their size makes them hard to handle, package, and store. Turkeys also aren't nearly as prolific as chickens. (Chickens lay eggs around once per day, while turkeys lay at most twice per week.) It's also more expensive to raise turkeys than chickens, so the price of a turkey egg is prohibitive, at around $3 per egg. Considering how everyone lost their minds over chicken eggs at $6 a dozen, it's unlikely people would pay $36 for a dozen turkey eggs.
However, some people who have eaten turkey eggs shared their thoughts on how they taste, and now people (me, I am people) really want to try them:
"I have eaten turkey eggs for years. They are larger shells are thicker but they taste wonderful."
"I've baked with Turkey eggs and they made the best pancakes I have EVER tasted."
"They taste like chicken eggs, I have turkeys. They only lay seasonally, generally starting in March, and they’ll continue to lay through June-August. They can lay 60ish eggs a year. They’re about 2x the volume of a chicken egg. They make excellent omelettes. Harder to crack, with a thicker membrane and shell."
Turkey eggs on the menu.Photo credit: Canva
"Growing up, my family had a turkey! She laid eggs and we were always enamored by how huge they were. They taste wonderful!"
"We had turkeys with our chickens. They laid eggs daily with the chickens from March to September then would stop while the chickens would just slow down. I was surprised because I thought they would just lay a clutch once or twice because that’s what the wild turkeys do but nope. The only down fall we found was that cracking them was difficult. But if you use a butter knife to give it a whack at the top it works pretty well. It was like getting two egg whites and one yolk in chicken egg ratio lol."
"Taste exactly like chicken eggs. Way bigger. The only difference is the shell is way tougher to crack. So good."
Apparently experience with turkeys and turkey eggs is not uncommon? City folks, take note:
"I was raised on turkey's eggs... I come in from a part of Canada where we are raising turkeys. In Valcartier, turkey eggs used to be much cheaper than any other kind of eggs."
"Growing up on a farm being born in the 50s in western North Carolina we ate lots of turkey eggs. We usually had a dozen or so hen turkeys so we had quite a few to spare."
Turkeys live all over the U.S. Giphy/Minnesota State University Moorhead
"My inlaws usually give us turkey eggs for the holidays. They have a big farm in Virginia with all sorts of animals. They usually just sell their eggs at the local market and give us the rest lol."
"The wild turkeys that live in my area used to get in my bird feeders when I had a house. One day I found an egg in the yard, possibly as payment lol."
"I've got a turkey for a pet. Her name is "Sweetpea" and I keep her around for no other reason except that she's awesome and provides good conversation. Every now and then during the warm months of the year she leaves me breakfast somewhere around the yard."
And then, just for funsies, there's this little anecdote about those "technically edible" emu eggs:
"Back in elementary school we had a teacher that raised Emus. She would always make delicious cakes but would tell no one how she made them. Eventually she told my mother the reasons she told no one was because she was afraid that people would stop eating them if they found out that she was using one emu egg for every three chicken eggs. We didn’t care."
There you go. Answering a question you may never have asked but desperately needed and answer to once you thought about it.
This article originally appeared in May.
Urban planning is a choice.
When you think of a "neighborhood," what do you picture? Block after block of houses? A variety of homes and businesses all within walking distance? A community of people in close proximity who see and interact with one another regularly?
Neighborhoods can look very different, and the rise of suburbs in the past century changed the way neighborhoods have traditionally functioned. Sprawling housing developments often lack the "walkability" factor that serves as a hallmark of urban life. But a comparison of two side-by-side suburban neighborhoods shows that design is not a given, but a choice.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
A video from StreetcraftShorts shows two neighborhoods in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, that offer drastically different ways of living. One of them is built for people and community, the other built for privacy and cars. To showcase the differences, the video goes through the process of getting a pizza in each neighborhood.
The first neighborhood contains continuous tree-lined sidewalks and nary a driveway or garage in sight. Vehicle access to the homes is from alleyways behind the homes, so the streets don't feel like they are geared toward cars. The lack of driveways cutting into the sidewalks also makes it safer for kids to walk or ride bikes down the sidewalk. Many of the front porches open up to green space as well, with intertwining paths people can walk on as shortcuts through the neighborhood.
Paths through green spaces make walking more inviting.Photo credit: Canva
Perhaps most importantly, this neighborhood includes businesses. This is possible because the variety of home types—single-family, townhomes, and duplexes—creates enough population density to allow businesses to have a walkable customer base. The pizza place is right there in the neighborhood, so people can walk to it (though there's also parking behind the building, so they can drive if they prefer). Businesses are right there on the street, just like the homes, which creates a more cohesive sense of place compared to having a strip mall on the edge of a gigantic parking lot.
Want to walk down to your local pizza place? Photo credit: Canva
The other neighborhood is different. This one is all single-family homes with driveways and garages at the front of the houses. There are no businesses in this neighborhood, so you have to go to a pizza place a few blocks away. The distance isn't terrible, but there's no infrastructure in place to make it walkable. In fact, there are streets between the neighborhood and the pizza place that have no sidewalks and signs indicating you're not even supposed to walk.
To get to the pizza place, residents have no choice but to drive on a large suburban road and cross four lanes of traffic. And the pizza place faces a parking lot—not exactly a community-based location to eat outdoors. The community appears to be built for cars, not for people.
Some suburbs seem like they were solely designed for cars.Photo credit: Canva
Many people compared the first neighborhood to what's commonplace in Europe and other older places:
"In Europe, pretty much every neighborhood has a little coffee shop, a hair salon, some little stores, mini market.. it's easy to go out and grab something you need, by foot. Almost everything we need is available in walking distance, so it helps us being healthier and we breathe a little fresh air while we walk.. we only use the car for longer distances or big shopping."
"The Northeast (maybe the East Coast in general) is sort of a different beast to the rest of the country because a lot of it was built in an earlier time when walking was the primary mode of transportation. Or at least that's what I think. Out West where I grew up, the second neighborhood you see in the short is much more typical, with suburban neighborhoods centered around cars and no nearby businesses until you get to a commercial zone."
Not having driveways in front of homes makes sidewalks safer and more user-friendly.Photo credit: Canva
Zoning rules and regulations are partially why modern suburban neighborhoods are what they are, and automobile companies are partially to blame for those regulations. For decades, car makers have pushed car-dependent lifestyles and influenced city planning, which has altered what we view as normal.
While many feel that the first neighborhood is more desirable, not everyone agrees. Some people prefer not to interact with their neighbors, want their own backyard over communal green spaces, and wish to enjoy the greater sense of privacy that the second neighborhood affords. Whether that's a product of getting used to those kinds of developments or a genuine desire for less community walkability is a legitimate question, but everyone has their own preferences.
Either way, the contrast illustrates that urban planning is a choice. Neighborhood design must be intentional, and as this video shows, it's not actually all that difficult to create the kind of quaint, walkable, community-centered neighborhood so many people desire, even in the suburbs.
via Canva/Photos
A woman choosing an orange.
The Internet is a place of creation and destruction. It’s where people come together to share ideas and collaborate to make a better world. It’s also the destination of choice for those who like to sow chaos and contribute to the gradual unravelling of civilized society. In this article, we aim to focus on the positive side of the Internet by sharing one of the newest rounds of life hacks, which are seriously simple ways to make your life easier.
Tech writer Danny O’Brien coined the term "life hack" in 2004 to describe software-related tricks that developers used to make their lives easier. “Modern life is just this incredibly complex problem amenable to no good obvious solution,” O’Brien told Lifehacker in 2005. “But we can peck around the edges of it; we can make little shortcuts. And once you point out that everyone does that, once you coin the term, it’s really easy to pile a whole of lot of shared behaviors into one neat pile.”
Reddit is always a great place for people to share their latest and greatest life hacks. Recently, a user asked people to share the ones that are “so good, you can't believe other people don’t know them." The responses didn’t disappoint. They covered everything from time-saving keyboard shortcuts to how to pick the best orange at the grocery store. We combed the list to choose the best 17, and here they are:
17 lifehacks that are so great people can't believe everyone doesn't know them
1. Pick heavy fruit
"When purchasing citrus fruit, select the heavy ones. They are more likely to be fresh and juicy than the lighter ones (assuming the same variety and similar size)."
"I learned from Alton Brown to pick the fruit that feels heavier than it looks. Means it's more dense. Hasn't failed me yet!"
2. Dental trick
"Dental tablets - like the ones that dissolve to clean dentures - clean out water bottles incredibly well. Can be super lightweight to carry while camping/hiking/traveling too. Put all my friends onto this hack!"
"Have been using them for decades for cleaning anything that's not easily cleanable. And since it's made to clean third teeth you can use it without worry for anything that touches food."
A man dropping a dental table into a glass of water.via Canva/Photos
3. Clipboard history
For people who work on Windows computers, hit the Windows key and V at the same time. Instead of pasting, it opens up your entire clipboard. Once you enable it, it will save a history of what you copy, and you can pick and choose."
"I have worked with computers for decades and just tried this. I cannot believe I didn't already know how to do this. Thank you random internet person!"
4. Magic delete
"Instead of hitting backspace 10x when you misspell a word and want to retype it you hold control and when you backspace it deletes the whole word."
5. Proven stress reducer
"Minding your own business really does reduce stress."
"Honestly, just leaving social media behind in the dust can be amazing for your soul."
6. Latex for pet hair
"A wet latex glove in circling motions extracts all the pet hair embedded in your couch's upholstery into neat little balls that you can easily collect and discard."
"Tbh you don't even need to get it wet. The friction and static clump everything together. I work as a dog groomer and at the end of every work day, I throw on a glove and just start going to town on any fuzzy surfaces."
7. Two checking accounts
"Having two checking accounts. One for bills, one for spending. Total up all of your monthly bills and divide by how many paychecks you get in a month. That amount (plus a little more for fluff) should go into the bills account. The rest is for saving or spending and goes to the other account. Never keep the debit card for the bills account with you. That money is NOT for fun times!"
"I have not had a single money issue since I started doing this. Should be way higher."
A man depositing cash.via Canva/Photos
8. The hiccup cure
"If you have hiccup or sidestitch (running), you can rid of it by exhaling all the way till you have no more breath and then hold it for a few seconds."
"For hiccups, I usually take really deep breaths and hold them. I guess either way is pretty much just stimulating the diaphragm, which helps stop the hiccups."
9. The trick to being a great listener
"Do you want to vent or do you want advice?"
"We're on the same team. It's you and me vs the problem, not me vs you."
10. Unzip zip ties
"You can loosen zip ties by pinching the side of the block with pliers."
"Alternatively, you can also push a pin or small flathead screwdriver under the tab to lift it and then let the zip tie out that way without damaging the block."
11. Lettuce that lasts
"Wrapping lettuce in aluminum foil makes it last for a month."
12. Brag your way to the top
"Work pro tip, particularly if you are in an office/corporate environment: Just doing your work silently isn’t enough. There is a reason those most vocal are usually who get promoted. It might be unnatural, but you need people to know the work you’re delivering. You have to be comfortable humble-bragging to keep climbing."
"Can confirm. Have talked myself through many promotions all the way from the floor to a director position. I guess I have to do some actual work soon though… meh, let me go see who’s by the coffee machine now. It’s been five minutes after all."
13. Meditation is peace
"Prayer and meditation do not change other people or your surroundings; what they change is *you*: how you interpret situations, other people's actions, how you react, etc. and as you calm and filter life through this lens, the people around you become calmer, more at ease, more open to connection with you, and life expands."
"This is also what mindfulness does, too! And ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). They help you learn to give space to your thoughts, feelings, and actions before you make a decision to keep them or let them go."
14. Get moving
"If you're depressed, don't feel good, maybe had a bender or anything else, get out from underneath the blanket and take a walk around the block. You will feel 10x better after about 10 minutes of moving. If you're actually bed-ridden or sick sick. Don't. But if you're hungover or beating yourself up or you don't feel good, go for a stroll. You'll feel better when you get back."
"When I was super depressed, I'd call it my depression shuffle. Once every 24 hours, didn't matter what time, I had to go outside for 10 minutes. Didn't get properly dressed or anything, coat and beanie, and then at minimum a slow shuffle to loop twice around my building. Usually I went right back to bed after. It didn't make everything instantly better, but it did put me one inch closer toward recovery. An inch is an inch, I'll take it."
A couple on a romantic walk.via Canva/Photos
15. Enliven your leftovers
"Using a slightly damp paper towel to cover food when you microwave it. Prevents it from getting dry and retains more flavor."
"Also, if you're reheating leftovers and don't want them to be soggy from the microwave, put them in the Air Fryer for 5 to 7 minutes. Works well for French fries, chicken wings, spring rolls, etc."
16. Revolving credit
"I have one credit card that is used exclusively for recurring bills, and it never leaves the house. It’s also set to autopay, so I never have to think about it."
17. Don't worry about what you can't control
"Stop allowing things you can't control to live rent-free in your head."
"A very helpful trick I learned for when anxiety is making me ruminate at night is to pick a random shortish word, preferably with nonrepeating letters (ex, "blue"). Take the first letter of that word (B) and just start listing any and all words you can think of that start with that first letter. When stuck, move on to the next letter (L) and start listing those words. If you make it to the end of your word, start over with a different word and eventually your brain gets bored enough to let you fall sleep lol. I can usually go from high anxiety to dead asleep within a few minutes and most often before I finish my first word, so it might be worth a try! Bonus: there's nothing to learn or practice for it to work since it's just listing words :) hell, it even works if you misspell your base word lol."
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via Canva/Photos
A woman with hundred dollar bills.
The United States has more money held by private citizens than any other country in the world. According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. households hold a total of $160.35 trillion, which is the value of each person’s assets minus their liabilities. However, many Americans are perplexed by the fact that, in a country with such wealth, so many people still struggle to make ends meet.
Although Americans hold the largest amount of privately held wealth in the world, many of us still struggle with financial stress. A recent report found that 68% don’t have enough money to retire, 56% are struggling to keep up with the cost of living, and 45% are worried about their debt levels. A significant reason is that a small number of people hold a large portion of the privately held wealth in the U.S..
Nearly two-thirds of America’s private wealth is held by the top 10% of people, leaving the remaining one-third to be divided among 90% of the population.
Elon Musk at CPAC.via Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons
What if America divided its privately held money evenly?
With so many people struggling in America, while a few at the top are unbelievably wealthy, what would happen if the money were magically divided evenly among the 340 million people who live in the United States? If everyone received a truly equal share of the American pie, every person would receive approximately $471,465. That’s $942,930 per couple and $1.89 million for those with two kids.
With that chunk of change, the couple could easily pay off the average U.S. mortgage and have plenty of resources to save for a good retirement and send both kids to a decent college or trade school. The billionaire who once had more assets than they knew what to do with would probably have to move into a middle-class neighborhood.
A couple with cash sitting on a couch.via Canva/Photos
However, such a drastic redistribution of wealth would be cataclysmic for the economy, as people would have to liquidate their investments to give their assets to others. The sudden increase in wealth for many, without a corresponding increase in goods and services, would lead to incredibly high inflation. The dramatic reconfiguring of the economy would also disincentivize some from working and others from innovating. Some posit that if everyone were equal, in just a few months, those with wealth-generating skills would immediately begin rising to the top again, while others would fall behind.
What programs reduce poverty?
Although it seems that a massive redistribution of wealth isn’t in the cards for many reasons, we do have some evidence from recent history on how programs that give people money can help lift them out of poverty. Government stimulus programs during the COVID-19 pandemic brought the U.S. poverty level to a record low of 7.8% in 2021. Child poverty was also helped by the American Rescue Plan’s Child Tax credit expansion, which drove child poverty to an all-time low of 5.2%. It’s also worth noting that the trillions in government stimulus had a downside, as it was partially responsible for a historic rise in inflation.
While for many, the notion that there are billionaires while others can hardly get by feels obscene, redistributing America’s wealth is more of a thought experiment than something that would realistically happen. But it highlights an important truth: massive wealth inequality exists in the world’s wealthiest nation. While perfect equality will never exist, that shouldn't stop us from making targeted efforts to reduce poverty that make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.