ova

[arguchik]

so i just hard-boiled a baker's dozen of eggs, and ate 2 of them. they're just your basic "organic, free-range" eggs. i was just wondering why egg companies (and presumably consumers) fetishize the "vegetarian feed" and "access to the outdoors" (which is not the same as the mostly outdoor life the hens would probably prefer, i would like to point out) of their egg-laying hens. for that matter, i would like to know why hens are kept in huge barns to begin with, where they need all kinds of additives in their food to keep them healthy enough to lay eggs...yeah, many of you have probably seen the ALF videos shot in large-scale industrial commercial egg production facilities. (so-called "organic, free-range" farms are not much better than your basic industrial egg farm, either...)

the thing is, hens are about the easiest animal in the world to raise, it seems to me. their natural diet is bugs and grubs, along with seeds and grass and whatever else they can forage (i.e. they are not vegetarians). when they are allowed to forage, they will take care of their own feathers, and they stay quite healthy (i'm not exactly prepared to defend this statement with evidence, but it seems plausible to me that the avian flu epidemic is a product of overcrowding in the modern agricultural context). of their own accord, they will return to their roosting spot at night.

so i'm just curious...i think many people are uncomfortable with the stark reality that is the industrial egg production facility--with the bleak lives that hens lead in such facilities, the overcrowding, the noise, the smell, the stress, the filth.... what is it about the words "all vegetarian feed with flaxseed!" or "access to the outdoors," or "high in omega-3's," (from all that flaxseed of course) that assuages a buyer's discomfort (liberal guilt)?*** this is a serious question...i still buy and eat eggs--and i always get the organic free-range ones--so i'm not moralizing or claiming a higher ground here, i'm just verbally scratching my head.

***incidentally, eggs from hens allowed to scratch out their natural diet of the aforementioned bugs, grubs, etc., are also high in omega-3 fatty acids; they are full of all kinds of good-for-you stuff that doesn't require the addition of an expensive commodity like flaxseed--seriously, have you priced that stuff???--to the hens' diet.

Comments

Re: huh?

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

p.s. the question is kind of about the rhetoric: what is it about the labels of egg cartons that convinces people to buy eggs from organic, "free-range" hens? my thinking is that it must assuage the bad-press-induced liberal guilt somehow (because "free range" is more humane, and "organic" is more environmentally sound...), but i'm not quite sure how or why, when the message is also widely available that "organic" and "free-range" are kind of bogus terms, and basically meaningless in terms of the hens' living conditions.

Re: huh?

[alice-at-night.livejournal.com]

hmmm. I usually just by the cheapest Large grade-A or AA dozen I find at Safeway (yeah yeah, I'm a typical ugly american consumer, not hip and conscientious like you cool friends.) I don't read the carton past the Large grade-A or AA part. Sometime I buy brown ones, but then remind me of my ex, so not usually.

Going back to, I'm buying big-farm eggs here too, so why do they taste so much richer than the Calgary ones?

Re: huh?

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

i dunno. that's weird. must be something different in the feed. or maybe your garden variety grocery store eggs in california are equivalent to free-range organic eggs elsewhere. it is california, after all; and you are in san francisco, after all...