If you pay more for organic, cage-free eggs, guess what: The yolk's on you.
As a person who tries to do the right thing by buying the right things -- in other words, voting with my dollars -- I've been purchasing organic, cage-free eggs from my local supermarket and my non-local progressive wavy-gravy mega-mart. All the while, I thought, Fie on you, factory farms; I may have paid more for these eggs, but they came from happy chickens and humane farmers like my grandpa.
And all the while, the factory farm owners were laughing their conglomerate butts off at me.
Thanks to two years of egg-related research by The Cornucopia Institute, an advocate for real family farms, I was ultra-dismayed to learn the words "organic" and "cage-free" does not mean that the chickens who lay these eggs were put out on a nice, natural pasture with plenty of room to flap their flightless little wings, eat stuff they should be eating, and then go back to comfy nests to lay gorgeous future scramblers. No, "organic" just means they eat organic feed. And "cage-free" just means they aren't in cages; it doesn't mean they aren't packed by the thousands in filthy, cramped, airless sheds. And "access to the outdoors" means there might be a tiny door leading to a concrete patio, should any chicken be strong or brave enough to get outside. (For a list of the best and worst egg providers, click here. For a video on the egg research, click here.)
Quel nightmare, peeps. And here I thought I was doing good by spending a little extra money to get organic, cage-free eggs. I might as well have been saving money on the dollar-a-dozen kind, as it's the same difference. And ultimately, those dollar-a-dozen eggs come with a hefty price tag: Remember how half a billion of those had to be "recalled" (read: destroyed) due to a salmonella outbreak? Yeppers, that's just what I want for breakfast -- scrambled salmonella.
I know not everyone can afford to buy organic food. Me, I cut back on other things (so long, cable) so I can put healthier food on our table. Sometimes I can't deal with five-dollar strawberries, but when I do spend more, I want to know that I'm not just buying a buzzword. I want to support farmers who take care of their animals and crops the way my grandfather did -- naturally and humanely. Thanks to Cornucopia's list, I can do that. Or I'll eat oatmeal for breakfast. One way or the other, when it comes to factory farms, I'm going to get my fie on.
Follow Suzan Colón on Twitter: www.twitter.com/colonsuzan
Buy local eggs. It's easy.
Bottom line - if the issues and politics of food are important to you, go to the farm. Period. If it is important to you you'll go. If you don't go, it probably wasn't really as important to you as you claimed it was.
Any protein bought at a supermarket is more than likely raised in a way that would make you unhappy to see. That's how it can be raised at a cost that a supermarket can make a profit from.
I sell our farm's products (goat cheese) directly to consumers at farmers markets. I see market cheats. It happens. YOu read about it all the time here on the HuffPo. Our farm has absolute transparency, part of what you buy when you buy our cheese is the right to inspect our farm. I hope this becomes the norm someday.
The conditions of the hen have some affect, but that is only dealing with specific causes of health or not health (like bacterial infection). Paying more for something does not mean that it is any more nutritious or healthy or even necessarily better.
The eggs would likely be cleaned, pasteurized, and then sold as liquid eggs to be used as ingredients for the items that people buy (like some ice cream for example)
Organic chickens have fewer infections too:
http://ozarkhomesteader.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/are-you-going-to-eat-that-news-flash-the-majority-of-commercial-chicken-is-contaminate/
www.eatwild.com
Eggs from chickens raised on pasture are far more nutritious.
http://www.styleyourfood.com
AManAndAMouse
i'm not sure if it's the same up here in canada, as far as the labeling goes, but the ones i buy are called organic free-range.
Luckily I queried some friends and found a supplier at my local farmer's market who's eggs have oragne -yellow yolks.
Why, look! This little fella was just a 6" long parr yesterday, but today he weighs in at 30 pounds. If we let him go another week, he'll be the size of tuna!
I get my eggs at an urban farmer's market. I talk to the guy who raises the chickens. You can tell.
http://www.localharvest.org/
If we added up the costs of subsidizing (GMO) commodity crops, health issues from the superabundance of corn derivative products (weight related issues, diabetes, cancer), and the healthcare costs of industrialized foods (salmonella, E. Coli 157), would our food really be so inexpensive?
I don't mind spending a little more on food I can trust. In the words of James Beard: "There is absolutely no substitute for the best. Good food cannot be made of inferior ingredients masked with high flavor. It is true thrift to use the best ingredients available and to waste nothing."