Whatever Happened to White Eggs?

From pricey organic to bog standard battery broiler varieties, the British egg has one thing in common and it's not salmonella. Yes they are all coloured brown. OK I know that not all eggs in the UK are brown but by and large this is the case. However, by and large, this was not the case when I was a child. Eggs were white. If you were in a different part of the world you might have seen this differently, you grew up with brown eggs perhaps.

I can remember in the past that if you saw a brown egg it was thought to be something special. This is of course a myth. There are also lots of myths put forward about the importance of the colour of the egg. White eggs are organic. White eggs are superior/inferior, brown eggs are healthier. The list goes on and the myths change according to where you are and what prejudices you wear on your sleeve.

There are lots of reasons put forward for the difference in colour including the breed of hen, its diet and so on. I don't really need to know why eggs are brown but I can't remember when they changed colour. Was it gradual? Did the egg police decide that external laws were required to abolish the egg-apartheid and banish white eggs from the store front? Was there ethnically cleansing in the form of a clan war amongst different chicken factions? I have certainly been aware of brown eggs for what seems like decades so I guess the change must have happened some time ago.