I know what you’re thinking….. “what weird Sci-Fi alien mess did you get yourself into this time?”. I can assure you the incident with the fuzzy blue elephant head people was purely a misunderstanding and I, in fact, did this on purpose…. This idea came to me from a buddy of mine while he was preparing for a trip into the wilderness. Let’s call my buddy Kyle for now…. Kyle D….. a completely made up, and fictional, name. So when Kyle D. posted three of these jars on his Facebook wall, last fall, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

As it turns out it’s just an incredibly simple, yet ingenious, idea that anyone could have thought of, at any time but didn’t. You know, like the pool noodle, who’s inventor makes millions on while making us all feel silly for not thinking of a floating foam straw sooner. Anyway, up to this point I had never seen this setup before and I wasn’t exactly sure I knew what I was even looking at. Yes, they are eggs, but a no mess, easy storage egg that you take camping with you.

You simply crack all of your eggs into a mason jar ahead of time, this one holds about 16 eggs, and you pack it in your cooler. Now you don’t have to worry about your eggs breaking in the cooler, your carton getting soggy, it uses less cooler space, you don’t have to worry about extra garbage on your trip, and there is absolutely no mess. You simply get up in the morning, open the lid, pour out what you need, and replace…done!

But wait, it doesn’t stop there, in fact you can then recycle the shells at home, instead of throwing them out at camp. Simply let them dry in the oven, or sun, crush them, and either use them in your garden, or you can do what we do. We take the dry, crushed, shells, which is just basically calcium, and feed them back to our chickens. We do this because it takes a huge amount of calcium for chickens to form an eggshell on a daily basis. Incidentally I imagine all types of birds would benefit from this but I don’t really know if they would eat them or not, might be an interesting experiment.

So there it is, no leftovers, no mess, and just a really great idea that I thought I would share. Now if you are buying your eggs from the store then the carton is another story. I strongly suggest you just go buy a basket full from your local farmers market and just bypass the extra trash. It’s a great way to help the environment, a little, while supporting your local farmers. So from me to you, safe travels, and happy camping!

-Spencer