The Truth About 'Free-Range' Eggs - Jonathan Safran Foer

http://www.peacefulprairie.org/freerange1.html

"Free-Range" Eggs – Can You Tell The Difference?

"Free-Range" Hen

• Debeaked with a hot bloody blade at one day old with no anesthetic.

• Force molted (intentionally starved to shock the body into another laying cycle).

• Violently packed into a semi and trucked hundreds of miles to an agonizing slaughter when considered “spent” (unable to keep laying eggs at a fast enough pace).

• Denied the opportunity to live a natural life in truly humane care.

• All of her brothers (roosters) are brutally killed as baby chicks simply because they can’t lay eggs.

Battery Cage Hen

• De-beaked with a hot bloody blade at one day old with no anesthetic.

• Force molted (intentionally starved to shock the body into another laying cycle).

• Violently packed into a semi and trucked hundreds of miles to an agonizing slaughter when considered “spent” (unable to keep laying eggs at a fast enough pace).

• Denied the opportunity to live a natural life in truly humane care.

• All of her brothers (roosters) are brutally killed as baby chicks simply because they can’t lay eggs.

http://www.upc-online.org/freerange/chicks_in_tray.jpg

What Can I Do?
Please show kindness and respect to birds and other animals by not eating them or their eggs or drinking their milk. Instead, discover the variety of all-vegetarian, vegan foods and cooking ideas. For recipes and cookbooks, go to www.upc-online.org/recipes/. For vegetarian and healthy food options worldwide, go to HappyCow Compassionate Eating Guide at www.HappyCow.net.

Egg-Free Baking Tips

• Vinegar and Baking Soda: For a rising or lightening effect in cakes, cupcakes and breads, combine 1 teaspoon of baking soda with 1 tablespoon of vinegar.
• Ground Flaxseed: Rich in essential omega-3 fatty acids, 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed whisked with 3 tablespoons of water in a blender or food processor will replace one egg. Flaxseed works best in nutty, grainy items like pancakes, waffles, bran muffins and oatmeal cookies.
• Bananas: For its binding abilities, half of a potassium and magnesium rich mashed or pureed banana will generally replace one or two eggs in breads, muffins, cakes and pancakes.
• Applesauce: Full of fiber and vitamin C, unsweetened applesauce offers the binding and moisture needed in baked goods. 1/4 cup equals one egg. Applesauce works best when you want the results to be moist, as in brownies.
• Silken Tofu: Rich in protein and fiber, but without the cholesterol and little, if any, saturated fat, this soy-based ingredient works best in dense, moist cakes and brownies. One egg can be replaced with 1/4 cup of tofu whipped in a blender or food processor.
• ENER-G Egg Replacer: Available in a handy box in most food stores, this nonperishable powdered product works well in baking, but is best in cookies.
Adapted by Rhode Island Vegan Awareness from The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks’ Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets, by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, 2007.

http://www.upc-online.org/freerange/chicks_in_box.jpg

“Free-Range” Poultry and Eggs:
Different from Factory Farming?

It is a myth that “free range” poultry and egg production is separate from industrial animal production. All forms of animal production are economically related. For example, many small farms buy their birds from mega-industrial factory-farm hatcheries such as Murray McMurray in Iowa. McMurray alone ships 100,000 chicks each week to buyers. “Free-range” producers have joined together with the U.S. Postal Service, cockfighters and other vested interests to force the airlines to ship baby chicks like luggage, because it is cheapest.

Millions of chicks die enroute of starvation, dehydration and terror. Despite the factory-farm connection and total inhumaneness, Polyface owner Joel Salatin speaks for the “free-range” lobby: “We small independent producers rely on that transport. It’s our very lifeblood.” He also says: “People have a soul; animals don’t. Unlike us, animals are not created in God’s image.”

http://www.upc-online.org/freerange/black_eagle_farm.jpg

“Cage-Free” Hens Kept for Eggs

“Cage-free” means that, while the hens are not squeezed into small wire cages, they never go outside. “Cage-free” hens are typically confined in dark, crowded buildings filled with toxic gases and disease microbes the same as their battery-caged sisters. And like their battery-caged sisters, they are painfully debeaked at the hatchery. While chickens are designed to dig in the ground for food with their beaks and claws, when deprived of outlets suited to their energies and interests, they can be driven to peck at each other, having nothing to do with their time once they’ve laid their egg for the day in a barren building. Chickens love sunlight - they sunbathe daily outdoors - but “cage-free” hens are denied even this simple pleasure.

http://www.upc-online.org/freerange/bloody_beaks.jpg

Newly de-beaked babies.

http://www.upc-online.org/freerange/severed_beaks.jpg

Severed beaks in the bottom of a debeaking machine.

Free-range hens are typically debeaked as chicks at the hatchery the same as battery-caged hens. Debeaking is a painful facial mutilation that impairs a hen’s ability to eat normally and preen her feathers. Typically, 2,000 to 20,000 or more hens - each hen having one square foot of living space the size of a sheet of paper - are confined in a shed with little or no access to the outdoors. If the hens can go outside, the exit is often very small, allowing only the closest hens to get out. And the “range” may be nothing more than a mudyard saturated with manure.

Thanks so for this good submission. Free-range just plain isn't "free." It helps assuage guilt, that's all... it's a bloody farce.

http://www.upc-online.org/freerange.html