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

huh?

[alice-at-night.livejournal.com]

ummm, what exactly is the question?

I'd like to know why the eggs are less tasty in Calgary. The yolks there are not as rich.

now I'm hungry.

[rojonoir.livejournal.com]

The "access to the outdoors" is bogus - but vegetarian diet should be good. With mad cow disease, they stopped grinding up dead diseased cows and feeding them to other cows, but you gotta do something with the carcasses. My understanding is they feed the diseased cows to the chickens and the diseased chickens to the cows. Or at least a couple years back there was some discussion about whether or not this was safe.

If a 0th order vegetarian is plant-matter, and an N+1th order vegetarian is something that eats an Nth order vegetarian, I try to be a 1st or 2nd order vegetarian.

Please forgive me, I just finished The Omnivore's Dilemma

[jennaxide.livejournal.com]

Food-producing companies treat animals like any other commodity and they treat people like any other subject of supply and demand, both ideas of which are flawed. Animals will suffer and die if enslaved to continually produce more, and people will grow unhealthily fat if they are manipulated into consuming more. The short answer is, food doesn't work with the capitalist commodity model. But that hasn't stopped anyone from grossly abusing chickens for years to arrive at this conclusion.

That said, how do you feed a nation of urban-dwellers on farm-fresh food? One option is you can sell them socially conscious-appearing food: "free range!" just means that a battery of hundreds of chickens is in a barn with a door- one little door- that they don't ever use. But using it isn't the point, selling the eggs to you because they have one is. But you know all this. I think what you're looking for is that we know the treatment of food animals has been so hellish, and as consumers we feel responsible, and thinking that we can eat a chicken that had a happy chicken life makes the deal of us eating them seem more fair somehow. You're right, it's assuaging liberal guilt. Feeding them flaxseed is downright bourgeois.

At any rate, buy from local farms. When they invite you out to visit the farm, go. I'm going to try to raise chickens-- the risk that I run is that at the end of it all I will have whole bunch of eggs and will be able to neither kill my chickens nor eat any other chicken ever because I've bonded to the damn things, which is what happened with lamb. But I'm willing to give it a shot.

[malafrena.livejournal.com]

Jumping into this discussion a bit late . . . I buy organic eggs (not free range, since I know that's a total lie) because I assume that organically fed hens have a slightly better life. Local would be even better, but I have no clue as to how to get it. Another book for thought: Slow is Beautiful. I think that's the one that talked about local and sustainable farming.

Oliver is damn near a vegetarian, and that's probably because I tried to get our whole family to go vegetarian before I gave up (I was pregnant and also iron-deficient at the time, and eating vegetarian made me a nervous wreck). He asks tough questions.

Q: But why do we eat dead animals?
A: Because we're hungry.

That, in a nutshell, is where I'm at. :)