I know there's a lot of moral compromise and cognitive dissonance in my food choices. I know I'm ignorant of ugly truths about where a lot of my food comes from, and I know there are some I'm actively ignoring. Should my self-challenge to not eat cheap, mass-produced chicken carry over into cheap eggs? I've kind of avoided cheap eggs in the spirit of avoiding cheap chicken, passing up numerous beloved egg salads, the world's most perfect mayonnaise delivery vehicle. But I have not once turned down a chocolate chip cookie, ice cream or, well, mayonnaise on any other kind of sandwich. The Incredible Edible Egg is in everything, because it is kitchen magic. I once thought, with some seriousness, that I was ready to devote the rest of my life to cooking omelets.
But last week, as I looked into the definitions of marketing labels like "free-range" for chicken, I kept running into information on egg labels and what they mean as well. Some of these seem kind of goofy — I mean, how important is it to you that your eggs come from a hen who's had a chance to flirt with a rooster? — but some speak to some seriously unpretty things that go on. Here are some common marketing labels for eggs and what they mean:
Cage-free: The vast majority of industrial eggs are laid by hens in cramped cages, stuffed wing-to-wing so tight they can't walk, spread their wings, or do other chickeny things like lay their eggs in nests. It's foul enough a practice (that was NOT A PUN) that a Nobel-winning zoologist, Konrad Lorenz, lamented its use as "the worst torture." (The fact that Lorenz was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party in his younger years isn't too thrilling, but still.) Anyway, the Humane Society of the United States, whom I don't agree with on every issue, has focused one of its major campaigns on the promotion of cage-free egg production. Which, frankly, seems smart: it's a step toward a good place, but it's also achievable enough that massive fast food chains like Subway and Burger King can pretty readily commit to a switch without breaking too much of a sweat. No one's a hero, but at this scale, the hundreds of millions of hens' lives can be significantly improved at any given moment.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Salon
