What Could be Wrong with the Egg?

I spent years—even decades---denying to myself the occasional reports I heard about the cruelty hidden behind modern egg production.Those reports, I thought, had to be written by extremists and crazies.  After all I’d eaten eggs all my life---scrambled, fried, poached, in omeletts, cakes, cassaroles, etc.  Eggs are a staple in American life.  So, what could be wrong with the egg?

 

If you’re willing to look, you’ll see that modern egg production is shockingly cruel to one of the most gentle of creatures, the laying hen, who was respected in biblical times for her courage and nurturing character.  Today, however, she’s only considered an unfeeling commodity by factory farmers who value the bottom line over the chicken’s welfare.  Here, in brief, are the facts I finally had to accept about the modern egg and the chickens who suffer to produce them:

1. Fifty percent of all laying chickens are born male but since males can’t lay eggs they are sorted out and killed within a day of their birth, often by being suffocated or ground alive to serve as fodder for pigs.
2. Most laying hens spend their entire lives in small cages in long metal buildings.  The cages are stacked in long rows and on top of each other so that the feces from above rains down on the chickens below.  They’re called “battery cages.”  The hens can barely turn around, never smell fresh air and never feel the sun on their backs.  This system is used throughout the United States and in Maryland.  When you drive down a country road and see a long metal building with no windows, you’re probably looking at a factory farm for chickens with misery inside.
3. Because the chickens are raised in unnaturally crowded conditions, their beaks are routinely cut off with a hot blade so they can’t peck each other.  This is not akin to cutting your fingernails because a hen’s beak is infused with nerves.  It is extremely painful, more like cutting your cat or dog’s nails down well within the quick.
4. Laying hens are periodically subjected to a shockingly cruel process designed to increase their egg production.  It’s called “forced molting.”  Forced molting means that all food is removed from the hens for a period of about two weeks.  This shocks their body into producing more eggs, but, as you can imagine, it is terribly cruel to the hens.
5. Finally, after their bodies are so wasted that their egg production has waned the hens are shipped to the slaughterhouse to be used in products such as canned soup

One last point: egg producers don’t want you to know this information so their packages and advertisements are sometimes deceptive.  Don’t be fooled by notes such as “organic” (which only refers to chicken’s feed) or “certified humane” (which is often a marketing ploy that may have absolutely nothing behind it.)  Even the words “free range” can include items 1, 3 and 4 above.  Plus many facilities designated “free range” are really not free range for most of the chickens housed in these crowded, filthy factories.  And, remember, even if the hens are really free-range and really well-treated, all the male chicks were killed at the hatchery---hundreds of millions of them are killed each year in the United States alone.

 

 What’s a conscientious person to do?

So what’s a person to do once she’s finally willing to admit that eggs are cruel?  Only you can answer that question for yourself.  I choose to forego eggs entirely---I use egg substitute when I’m cooking, and I stop by Whole Foods, Zu Coffee, Emily’s Café or Sticky Fingers Bakery for vegan cakes or cookies when I want something sweet.  We’re not dependent on the egg if we choose not to be.We can boycott the cruelty and still eat delicious, healthy and satisfying food.

Gestation Crates

They Have To Go

In children’s movies and storybooks, pigs are portrayed in a jovial way as being intelligent and able to interact with humans and other pigs in a meaningful way…and that is the truth. Most animal scientists consider pigs to be highly trainable and very sociable. Contrary to their reputation, pigs are very clean animals who, when left to their own devices, maintain a clean environment for themselves. They roll in mud simply to stay cool. If allowed, pigs form close social and family bonds. They mate, remain together, and nurture their young just as a human family does.

Unfortunately for these sweet animals, humans have decided that pig flesh should be available in nearly every grocery store…and this is the reason their life is a living hell.

On modern factory farms, breeding sows spend months of hideous confinement in narrow devices called gestation crates. Slated floors beneath their feet remove body wastes. The pigs never see sunlight and toxic fumes fill the air. Mother pigs are transferred to farrowing crates after giving birth. The crates prevent the mom and her babies from snuggling and interacting. Bars divide the mother from the offspring so that only nursing can take place. She is then impregnated again and returned to the gestation crate to do it all over again…and again…and again. Then farmers complain because they “bar-bite” and “become aggressive’. The truth is that they are literally going insane.

So what can rational, humane thinkers do to help the pigs? By joining Maryland Votes for Animals, we can band together to establish humane farming practices in our state. Gestation crates do exist in Maryland and a bill to outlaw them was introduced in The Maryland General Assembly several years ago. Too bad for the pigs that very vocal farmers and meat industry people showed up to defeat the bill. Who was speaking up for the pigs? There was no organized group at that time speaking up for Maryland animals. Now there is! It is called Maryland Votes for Animals!

 

Fooled by Foie Gras

I had a dear friend in college who was French, and I loved everything about her.  She was sophisticated and worldly; she had a great fashion sense, she traveled to Nice and Corsica for vacations and at age 20 she knew more about wine than I’ll ever know.  She introduced me to a “delicacy” known as foie gras.  It’s French, it’s served in upscale restaurants, it’s tasty.  What could be wrong?

Ducks are immobilized in cages without escape from the force feeding, living and dying in cruelty and pain.

 

Little did I know what’s behind the production of foie gras.  Foie gras wears a veneer of sophistication and exclusivity, but it’s not at all what it seems.  Here’s what you need to know:

Fois gras is the diseased liver of a duck or goose that has been force fed with a 6-10” long tube put down his throat. 

 

In centuries past the poor animal had his feet nailed to the barn floor to prevent him from moving, so this has always been an unusually cruel food.  Today it’s just as bad because the force feeding is done with a machine and under the time constraints of modern production. 

Ducks become coated with blood and regurgitated food during the force feeding process, becoming so ill and weak they cannot stand or lift their heads.

A long tube is used to force food down the duck’s throat under high pressure, and this is done 2 to 3 times per day for 17- 30 days causing injury to the animal’s throat and extreme stress.  If you were to see the poor ducks, you’d see that they’re so fat they can barely move, and they’re covered in their own vomit.  They don’t look happy or healthy---because they’re not.  They spend their short lives suffering for a human “delicacy” and then they’re shipped to slaughter.

Several years ago when I first learned how foie gras is produced, I wrote and called some of the local upscale restaurants and politely asked them if they’d please stop serving foie gras.  Some of the proprietors angrily denied the cruelty, others were polite, even told me that they knew it was cruel, but said they had to serve it because their customers demanded it.

Ducks incur bloody, often fatal injuries from the force feeding, and their bodies can be seen contorted in agony.

 

So what’s a conscientious person to do?  How do we end this cruelty? 

First, boycott restaurants that serve foie gras.  There are plenty of restaurants to choose from that don’t serve this barbaric food---and it’s actually outlawed in Takoma Park, Maryland. 

Then please join and support Maryland Votes For Animals so you’ll get our action alerts and know when a foie gras bill comes up again in the legislature. (It was introduced in the legislature a few years ago but it was defeated by the restaurants and producers of foie gras who showed up in mass at the hearing.)  Then contact your legislators and demand that they outlaw foie gras throughout Maryland.

 

For more infomatioin visit NoFoieGras.org.