Cage Free and Free Range

Today's topic is a personal favorite of mine: EGGS.  I feel like I have a special relationship with my eggs.  As someone who was a self-proclaimed picky eater most of my life, my experience with taste was fairly restrictive for a long time.  The day I discovered eggs was the day I finally realized I needed to loosen my lips.  Forgive me for sounding snobby, but I hold this particular food to high standards.  Hence, I feel it is essential to describe some of the standards of the industry.

Most eggs are factory farmed eggs.  They come from one variety of chicken, the White Leghorn, and these chickens are fed the same type of unnatural diets I have described in previous blogs.  Then you have cage free eggs, farm fresh or all natural eggs, and finally free range organic eggs, all held to their own standards.

Recently, West Virginia University made the decision to switch to cage free eggs certified by Humane Farm Animal Care.  A laying hen raised under Certified Humane conditions meets the following standards: "nutritious diet without antibiotics or hormones, animals raised with shelter, resting areas, sufficient space and the ability to engage in natural behaviours." I would like to congratulate the University.  The students said they wanted food produced more naturally and humanely, and the administration listened to their voices.  Everyone who eats on campus should offer them our applause and gratitude.  One thing I feel I have to point out though: cage free is not free range.

When you first heard the term cage free, what did you imagine?  Did it look like this?

Certified Humane chickens still do not require access to the outdoors.  According to their own fact sheet, the organization requires chickens have only the space to stand up, turn around, and stretch their wings.  As for being allowed to engage in natural behaviors, this means the chickens have access to dust bathing (an activity chickens preform to clean their coats).  Pens are still crowded enough that we see unnatural behaviors occur as well.  Humane Farm Animal Care's own standards state: "It is accepted that in colony housing systems there is a great risk of outbreaks of cannibalism. The pain and suffering of the hens that are being pecked to death is appalling and may quickly affect a large proportion of the flock."  Beak-trimming is considered an appropriate solution to chickens' attempts to eat each other.  If you had multiple dogs, and one day they started gnawing at each other, would you think it best to take them to the vet to pull out their teeth?

The only chickens raised in a truly natural, sustainable way are free range chickens.  They are guarenteed access to the outdoors, and the standards even cover the types of vegetation and shade needed to accommodate these lucky hens.  Furthermore, their diet is the most natural and their eggs the most delicious!  Because they are allowed to forage for weeds and insects as they would in the wild, their yolk is darker and richer.  Just compare for yourself:

 

Left: Free range, Right: Factory farmed

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to hear that if I want to eat scrambled eggs at "drunk breakfast" in the Mountain Lair, I know they came from a hen that wasn't loaded up with antibiotics.  However, I feel like sometimes people hear something is certified, and think that means it's the top of the line.  I'm not trying to say cage free is not a step forward.  I'm not trying to say free range is the only acceptable way to eat eggs.  All I'm trying to say is a sticker does not necessarily mean what it implies.  If you want to know what you're eating, you have to look into what the industry is really selling you!  In the end, you'll be asking for higher quality.

EXPLICIT

In keeping this blog, I've been trying and trying to put off this entry.  Every time I start trying to talk to people about how their food is made, they always say, "Just don't tell me about the slaughterhouses, I don't wanna hear it!"  And the thing is, I get it.  People want to imagine their burger grew up in a beautiful field with lots of grass to eat and lots of other cows to hang out with.  I didn't want to know Bessie was packed into a  pen like a sardine, or that she couldn't even walk when she was taken to the slaughterhouse.  I never wanted to hear that my food gets covered in feces during processing, that 10% of all chickens are expected to die in transport, or that Babe had to share a pen with dozens of other pigs (and some of those pigs were already dead in their cage).  But WHY doesn't anyone want to hear these things?  If you intend to put that into your body, into your children's bodies, shouldn't you want to know, if nothing else, that it's CLEAN?

So, here we are, at the beginning of the blog no one wanted to be written.  And if no one wants to read it, then I refuse to write it.  I'm going to show it to you.  If you're squeamish, I recommend you navigate to a less sad-but-true kind of site.  I recommend cuteoverload.

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Old McDonald's Farm (Version 2011)

 

Cows chained indoors, covered in their own excrement.

 A downed calf.  These "downers" are the result of malnutrition and deplorable living conditions.  They are usually left to die of exposure.

 

 Laying hens confined in battery cages.  These chickens will spend their whole life in these cages.  Many will be destroyed after one laying season.

Broiler chickens fight for space in "modern barns."  There are no regulations on the amount of space needed to house a certain number of chickens.

Some pigs get their own pen...with no space to move.

Chickens are shackled by the legs at the processing plant. Many of their bones will be broken during this process, and though their throats are systematically slit before being hung, it is not uncommon for the chicken to survive all the way to slaughter.

 Male chicks born at a laying operation are useless to the industry.  Some are gassed, others are ground up alive.

 A cow suffering from Mastitis, an infection of the udders caused by overmilking.  This disease has been proven to be caused by using hormones used to increase a dairy cow's milk production.

Dead piglets left in their pen with all the others.  The pig in back appears to be rotting.

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I'm sorry if you found those images unpleasant, I know I do.  But, I have a question for you now that you've seen them.  If you can't stand to look at this stuff, how can you tolerate putting it in your mouth?

Food and Water Watch

Lately, I've been looking harder at what I, or anyone, can actually DO about the problems associated with factory farming.  I've found a few different organizations (some more radical than others), and I thought I would bring one I think has real promise to your attention, dear readers. 

Food and Watch is a group working hard across the country to lobby for legislation that would bring change to current factory farming, but it goes a step further than I have been taking it and also incorporates fishing and water supplies into their mission.  Whether you take issue with any of these industries or I not, I think we can all agree with the groups vision for our future: "We envision a world where all people have access to enough affordable, healthy, and wholesome food and clean water to meet their basic needs — a world in which governments are accountable to their citizens and manage essential resources sustainably."  Anyone have a problem with that?

If you're like me, and you want to see meat and produce (or fish and water) produced in a way that is healthy, sustainable, and environmentally friendly, you should take a closer look.  They have lots of little ways you can help out, as well as ideas to really raise awareness in your community.  For example, you could simply sign up to receive alerts from the site about important food-related legislation.  Right now, they are lobbying for a bill to ban genetically modified salmon which was recently approved by the FDA.  Maybe think about writing to your congressman to let him/her know you don't support the FDA's decision.  And as far as raising awareness, Food and Water Watch is organizing events across the country to raise awareness about the upcoming Farm Bill.  Every few years, a new Farm Bill is passed which defines how agriculture must be run and regulated for a period of time.  Unfortunately, the last few Farm Bills have been targeted at increasing profits for major companies and providing subsidies for crops we really don't need (i.e. corn, which the country is producing a massive surplus of).  Food and Water Watch hopes that by holding these events, people will be more interested in taking a stand on the bill to be passed this year.  Just by checking out their website, you can find out if there is an event near you to help out with, or even sign up to host one.  There are a lot of ways to help make a change in the farming industry right now, and in a country that is becoming increasingly apathetic, it's important to remember that.