EGGS!

A recent meal I had that I enjoyed was scrambled eggs yesterday morning from the omelet bar in Nelson dining hall.  I started with three fresh eggs.  Then I asked to have ham, green peppers, and tomatoes added.  Kimberly, my favorite omelet chef, threw all my vegetables on the skillet.  Once they were heated she poured the eggs on.  We made some casual conversation, the eggs cooked up, and cheese was added.  I then turned it into a sandwich; the breakfast was delicious.  I came away from the dining hall feeling like a champion.  I was ontop of the world, a delicious meal in my stomach, high in protein, and probably other healthy things that are part of that non-fat breakfast.  The main components of this meal, the eggs, are what I will be examining.

It turns out that jungle eggs were the first known eggs to be domesticated.  By 3200 B.C.E. India was domesticating these eggs(Kritchevsky, 558).  The world hadn’t upgraded to the now-famous chicken egg yet; but we were well on our way.  “The first domesticated fowl reached North America with the second voyage of Columbus in 1493. (Kritchevsky, 558)”  The eggs folks ate way back when surely weren’t those of chickens, or consistently, but none-the-less they were undoubtedly eggs.  “Hen's eggs are the most common source of egg nutrition. In 1989 the three largest egg-producing countries were China (140,900 × 10⁶ eggs), Russia (84,600 × 10⁶ eggs), and the United States (67,042 × 10⁶ eggs)(Kritchevsky, 560).”  Hen’s eggs might be the most common, and might be what I ate, but other types of eggs are eaten around the world.  Take caviar for example.  Those are eggs.  And they definitely don’t come out of a hen.  People still enjoy them, but they made a much different type of food.  They make a food with less cooking options.  A hen’s egg can be poached, scrambled, cooked over easy, omelet-tized, and not to mention the possibilities of baking with an egg. 

There is big controversy over what is happening with factory farming of chickens.  It is my belief that this factory farming is mainly for their meat and not for the eggs.  Before the 1920s chicken meat was not common in the American diet. Female chickens were valued on the farm for egg production(Farm, 71).  Chicken meat is a huge part of the American diet.  Today at lunch I had the choice of a chicken or steak burrito.  At dinner they were serving chicken as well.  Its everywhere.  Christopher Cook claims that boneless chicken is the most popular and also the most labor intensive.  The conditions in factory farms aren’t just bad for the animals, but also for the workers.  They are often injured due to the unsafe conditions and high expectations that they are forced to meet.

Laying hens are much different than the broiler chickens that are harvested for their meat.  Here is some information about the economics of these mass produced animals.

 

(Farm, 58)

These 343.5 million laying hens produced nearly 90,000,000 eggs in 2005. See figure below.

(Farm, 73)

With laying hens only the females are valuable.  The males are of no value because they can not produce sufficient body meat compared to the broiler chickens.  They are sorted when they are only 1 day old and the male chickens are simply thrown out where they will suffocate or ground up in a high-speed grinder(Farm, 72).  The hens are forced to lay as many eggs as quickly as possible.  When their egg production slows down they are starved so they will molt and lay their final egg.  The hens are confined to extremely small cages that have been banned in other countries.  But not in America(Farm, 73).

            After all of this research and reading I have discovered more about the brutal truth behind factory farming in our country.  I have uncovered a lot of information, but I have only begun to scratch the surface.  Our economy demands so much food that we must resort to such brutal methods.  Maybe it is more due to capitalism and the selfish quest for money, animal rights set aside.  Knowing what hens go through makes me want to eat eggs less.  But that is easier said that done.  Eggs are one of my favorite foods and one person’s refusal to eat them will do nothing in the big picture to improve farming practices.  In other countries forced molting is banned, or battery cages are banned.  I believe that it would take new laws to really change the way the whole farming industry operates.  This doesn’t mean that I can’t do anything at all though.  I am more curious to find out where the eggs I eat come from.  Are they free range or organic?  Buying these types of eggs is more expensive, and I highly doubt Sodexo concerns itself with such minor problems.  After all they just want to make money too right? 

Source Citation 

Kritchevsky, David. "Eggs." Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. Ed. Solomon H. Katz. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003. 558-562. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 8 May 2012.

"Farm Animals." Animal Rights. Kim Masters Evans. 2007 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2008. 57-86. Information Plus Reference Series. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 9 May 2012.