So there I was, shivering in the dairy aisle, my two kids climbing the wire walls of the shopping cart as I scanned the shelves trying to figure out what kind of milk, yogurt and eggs to buy. The options induced near paralysis—I felt like I needed a degree in nutrition to decipher the labels. Eggs used to be eggs. Now choosing a carton elicits the sorts of soul-searching questions a guilt-ridden mother is especially susceptible to: should I get free-range or organic or the fancy fortified kind?

Omega-3 eggs deliver a dose of fatty acids—polyunsaturated fats that are key to healthy brain development in children. Omega-3s also lower the risk of developing heart disease in adults. The Naturegg Omega Pro carton makes even more specific claims: it promises a hit of DHA, reputed to be the most effective of the omega-3s (the other two are ALA and EPA). The Omega Pros also contain lutein, which helps to protect our eyes against macular degeneration and cata­racts. Seemingly overnight, grocery shopping has taken on Darwinian overtones.

Every generation has its fountain of youth, and omega-3 fatty acids are the food fad of the moment—today’s oat bran. They’re one reason why salmon consumption in North America has skyrocketed over the past decade, and foods boosted with the stuff are colonizing the grocery store. Dairy farmers now produce DHA milk; pig farmers are adding omega-3s to their hog feed; manufacturers are fortifying orange juice, bread, granola bars and even chocolate with omega-3s. But do these new and improved products make us any healthier or do they just make their manufacturers richer?

The company that launched the omega‑3 craze in Canada was Burnbrae Farms, an egg producer near Brockville. In the 1970s and 1980s, egg producers had a major public relations problem. Cholesterol was a dirty word, and eggs contain more cholesterol than almost any other food. For the health conscious, tucking into a plate of eggs Benny seemed as foolhardy as giving a toddler a box of matches. Egg consumption in Canada dropped 35 per cent over three decades; egg farmers were struggling to make ends meet. The Hudson family, who operate Burnbrae Farms, were desperate to change the public’s perception of their product.

Margaret Hudson, the youngest daughter of the family’s patriarch, Joe, encountered her first omega-3 egg on a business trip to Australia in 1995. The trouble was, it tasted fishy (the chicken feed had been fortified with fish oil). When she returned home, she spoke to Steve Leeson, a poultry nutrition expert at the University of Guelph, who was studying the possibility of developing an enriched egg in Canada. A colleague of his, nutritional scientist Bruce Holub, had been researching the effects of omega-3-rich flaxseed on the human diet. Holub discovered flax raised levels of omega-3 in the bloodstream, which gave Leeson the idea of feeding it to chickens. Ontario egg producers and the Flax Council of Canada, along with Burnbrae, were only too happy to help fund Guelph’s studies. Later that year, Leeson published a peer-reviewed paper suggesting flax-fed chickens could produce omega‑3-enriched eggs that might reduce the risk of heart disease.

By the following spring, Burnbrae had launched its Naturegg Omega 3, and a commodity that was barely breaking even quickly became a premium product. In a 2007 report, consulting firm Deloitte referred to the transformation of “an old, ultra-generic [product] into a highly specialized and heart disease–combatting weapon” as “one of the great marketing success stories of recent Canadian business history.”

Not only do consumers pay $1.25 or so more for omega-3 eggs, we buy them more often than any other type of specialty egg. Omega-3 egg sales—12 per cent of the retail market share—are second only to classic white. Loblaws’ PC-brand omega-3 eggs are the store’s best-selling private label product in the store—ahead of even the Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookie.