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The Perfection of Eggs as Packaging

By Rain Noe - February 1, 2019

in Packaging

Because we have free-range chickens, we often find eggs laid in random places around the farm. Every day is like Easter here.

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These become breakfast, courtesy of the missus.

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When a chicken's diet consists primarily of bugs and grass (supplemented by feed in the colder months), the yolks are extremely orange-ish and delicious.

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It's hard to tell from the photos above, where eggs match. For contrast, below is a photo of a store-bought egg alongside an egg from our farm. I believe you can easily tell the difference.

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In any case, eggs are really an incredible form of package design.

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That they just occur naturally is staggering. As evidence of the perfection of their structure, check out this egg my wife showed to me this morning.

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It had frozen in the cold, and cracked. Look at how the crack runs perfectly straight, right down the axis of the egg.

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Biodegradable to boot. I'd like to see a package designer top that.

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Z Hulett

6 years ago

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While I do agree that eggs are great packaging, the fact that it splits right down the axis has more to do with basic physics than design. It's the same as why hotdogs always split long way rather than break in the middle when they swell. The freezing causes an equal pressure inside the shell at every point. The force applied by the pressure is related to the surface area of the plane it's being acted on. The bigger the surface area, the greater the total force. If you imagine the egg as a rectangular prism for simplicity's sake, which each end of the egg being smaller squares. The force applied to the ends is less than the force applied to the sides, since the sides have a larger surface area. The egg shell will split at its weakest point first, and from there the crack will propagate along the greatest force gradient, which will be straight along the axis.
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Brad Johnson

6 years ago

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I always enjoy seeing the comparison between fresh and store bought anything.

Designers turn to nature for inspiration, and to solve problems on a regular basis. Nature is the true master designer!

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- Luke Haney
  
  Brad Johnson
  
  6 years ago
  
  Z
  
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  I think nature is not the designer, but the design!
  
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