This is an industry that will only change when consumers demand it with their money. So if you find yourself in the egg section of a grocery, particularly in Brooklyn or Oakland or and similarly inflated markets, and you’re considering spending $7.99 on a dozen eggs (seven dollars and 99 cents, pre-tax, no joke, I have seen it with my eyes), it’s worth knowing the vernacular. Print out this list if you like, or bookmark it on your phone, and read it aloud in the egg section so that others can be spared the humiliation of wasting money on eggs––and inadvertently supporting the products that aren’t actually as humane or environmentally conscious as the packages would have us believe.

Here are some of the words I have seen or imagine seeing and what they mean, as best a consumer can know.

Cage Free: The birds aren’t kept in the aforementioned shoebox cages, but they might be shoulder-to-shoulder in a barn. Just because they’re not in a cage doesn’t mean they go outside. There are reports of cannibalism in close-quarter scenarios, in which case some humane-farming advocates have argued that the birds are no better off than if they had cages.

Free Range: Sometimes this means nothing more than cage-free. If Certified Humane Free Range standards are met, free-range hens have access to two square feet of outdoor space. This doesn’t mean they spent all or even much of their time outside, but they should have the opportunity.

Pasture Raised: This isn’t defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), but it usually means that the hens have access to more outdoor space than if they were simply “free range” or “cage free.” The birds are raised largely outdoors and may forage for their food, much closer to the children’s-book type image of a farm.

Natural: Nothing. These eggs are not supernatural.

Fresh: Nothing. The package will continue to say this long after the eggs are fresh. The USDA grading system is meant to include freshness in its scoring, with AA being the freshest.

No Hormones: Nothing. Egg hens aren’t given hormones. All eggs are hormone-free.

No Pesticides: Pesticides weren’t used in farming the chicken feed.

No Antibiotics: This is the first term so far on this list that’s important to human health. No eggs themselves should contain antibiotics, but this labeling term means that farmers used no antibiotics in the hens’ feed or water during growing periods or while hens are laying the eggs. There’s little reason to expect these eggs will be healthier for the individual consumer in an immediate sense, but they will be healthier for the world. Antibiotics aren’t a huge part of the egg industry, but buying these eggs could support farmers who are losing some of them to disease in service of the greater idea that antibiotic overuse leads to superbugs that could decimate swaths of the world’s human population. For antibiotic-free animal products in general, an extra dollar is rarely better spent.