Feeling Chicken About Eating Eggs. . .

I'm in the middle of reading a book I borrowed from my friend Holly Diet For A New America and it's bumming me out. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying what the author, John Robbins, has to say about animals. He started out with wonderful stories about animal compassion, bravery and intelligence. Remember my earlier post about Anecdotes and Science? Scientists would have a problem with Robbins' writing because its full of anecdotes on animal behavior. I like reading them though. We're not the only species with extraordinary stories.

But I am getting to the point of the book where the horror stories begin. Chickens being locked in small cages unable to move, scratch or spread their wings. I've also read about debeaking chickens, so they don't peck each other to death. The book points out that this would be a loss of profit for the manufacturers.

I say manufacturers and not farmers because that's what it has come to. Apparently, the manufacturers of chicken flesh and eggs don't even see chickens as chickens. Instead, they call chicken bred for flesh, broilers and chickens bred for egg laying, layers. Did you know that male chickens have no place in the industry and as soon as they are hatched, they're killed? I didn't. I can't imagine breaking out of the egg only to be thrown into a plastic bag with my chicken kin to suffocate to death.

I eat eggs all the time. My favorite breakfast/snack/dinner is fried ramen noodles and eggs. (I really am an adult, I swear.) My husband Noah and I buy eggs once a week and we're careful about what we buy. We've at least been trained to pick out Organic, Natural, Cage-Free, or Free Range eggs that cost $3-4 a dozen.

Well I wonder if that's even vigilant enough? In this book that was written in the 80's, Robbins says there isn't enough USDA regulation over the rhetoric used on egg cartons, so words like Natural or Cage Free could mean a lot of different things to different manufacturers. To see if that's true today, in the 20-teens, I went to the internet.

On a website called Egg Industry.com, they explain what these comforting consumer words can be confusing and deceptive. Just because your carton say's Cage Free, doesn't mean your eggs came from a comfortable chicken that had enough space to move. Lots of chickens are kept in windowless barns or warehouses, hundreds of them piled upon one another. They are still manic under such close quarters and still pecking at each other.

I also found a link to The Humane Society of the US. They want to push for legislation that regulates the treatment of egg laying hens. It's a great step in the right direction. I think I'm going to book mark it for February's protest. If you're in the mood to protest now about your eggs, visit this link: 
The Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012