Based on industry estimates, Americans eat 220 million eggs a day, but the recent salmonella scare has people across the country acting cautiously when it comes to buying eggs.

Seemingly, no one is safe from food-born illness when even your trusted, local grocery store could sell you a bad egg!

Where eggs are concerned, knowledge is power. Knowing which eggs are the healthiest and safest to eat will protect you and your family from any future health crises. Unfortunately, there is no way to visably tell if an egg contains harmful bacteria, but science is getting closer. According to thedenverchannel.com, a new piece of technology called a food safety test cartridge will be able to detect food-borne illnesses in 30 minutes. Set to hit the market next year, the device will allow food producers to test foods for bacteria contamination before they are shipped out to retailers.

In the mean time, you can decrease your chances of contracting a food-born illness by avoiding cracked or dirty eggs and eggs past their use-by date. There are ways to ensure that the eggs you buy are nutritious and of the highest quality. Short of raising chickens in your own back yard, buying eggs from your local farmer is the best choice. Look for a farmer that raises chickens on pasture with plenty of space per bird. Visit LocalHarvest.org for a list of farmers in your area.

It’s a known fact that eggs from pastured hens are far more nutritious than those that come from hens caged in battery farms. Yet sadly, more than 90 percent of the eggs readily available in the US come from caged hens. Caging hens is both cruel and counter productive. A recent Penn State study published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems found that eggs from pastured hens contain more vitamins and omega-3′s than their commercially fed, battery-cage counterparts.

If convenience has you buying your eggs at the grocery store, it’s important to  know what the claims on the carton really mean, to make the right purchase.

Here is a guide to buying eggs:

• Cage-Free –  This means that the hens are not kept in cages, but they are generally kept inside in an enclosed building. What’s important to realize about this classification is that Cage-free does NOT imply antibiotics were not used. They are not organic!
• Free-Range – Chickens are kept outside of cages in either a barn or a warehouse. They have full range of motion but, and this is a big but, there’s no third-party inspection required for free-range claims. According to the Humane Society of the United States, chickens can be debeaked or forced into molting through starvation.
• Organic – A USDA-certified organic label ensures the consumer that the eggs came from hens that were not kept in cages and were given regular access to the outdoors. Most importantly, organic eggs come from hens that are fed certified-organic feed, free of antibiotics, pesticides, and other animal products, producing a more nutritious egg.
• “Natural” – Don’t be fooled by this label. It’s a round about way of saying the egg didn’t undergo certain unnatural processes (whatever that means!), but it doesn’t mean that the hens weren’t pumped with antibiotics or other unnatural substances!