How do you like your eggs? The answer to that question used to be sunny side up, scrambled, or over easy. Now, it’s cage-free and organic, thank you very much. Since I moved to London recently, I’ve noticed a greater level of public awareness regarding egg production and chicken welfare as compared to the United States. Most supermarkets and chain restaurants, and even some giant multinational corporations, sell or use exclusively free-range eggs and prominently advertise doing so.
It’s certainly a big change from the United States, where cage-free eggs are generally available but are not as widespread in popularity as in the United Kingdom. It appears to be a slowly growing movement back at home, and it’s great news that some states have begun to pass laws improving living conditions for chickens. Unfortunately, we’ve still got a long way to go before reaching the level of public demand and corporate response for the right kind of eggs that can be found here in the UK.
Here are a few of the differences I’ve noticed with regard to egg production and marketing in the UK and the States.
By Aurelia d'Andrea •
November 25, 2008
If you’re one of the millions of California voters who helped pass Proposition 2 on November 4, chances are pretty good that your Thanksgiving meal will include some sort of free-range, hormone-free dead bird—or, if you fall into the veg camp, maybe a more benign Tofurky or Field Roast. But for illegal poachers like Peter Ciraula of Gilroy, California, odds are good that the celebratory meal will include breast of snow goose, leg of endangered sandhill crane, or perhaps a pot-pie of protected swan.
“[Ciraula] said he was going to eat some of them,” said Department of Fish and Game warden Patrick Foy, ”But when we asked him why he had so many, he never really never offered up a very valid explanation.”
By Beth Bader •
June 11, 2008
Antibiotic free, cage free, biodynamic, grass fed, pastured, fertilized, free range, free roaming, free roaming, free running, irradiated, natural, no hormones, no chemicals administered, pasteurized, vegetarian fed, high-Omega 3, whole grain fed. All of these labels have been used just to market eggs.
In fact, eggs are the product with the most “eco labels” of all reviewed by Consumer Reports. How do you navigate the sea of label terms and find out [...]
Entering a grocery store for a socially and environmentally minded person can be quite a stressful and trying experience. Should you buy that organic, free-range, cage-free, grass-fed, non-GMO, natural, fair-trade beef? How do you know if those chickens really are free to roam in bucolic pastures? How often are the organic farms audited? How do you know if the apple from New Zealand produced less fossil fuels compared to the local one? When the seemingly more ethical products cost up to twice as much as conventional ones, we end up staring at the shelves in a daze with recycle symbols and cheery looking Peruvian coffee growers circling our heads.
By Beth Bader •
March 18, 2008
Beautiful green and brown eggs are dwarfed by the huge goose eggs. Some farms also offer duck eggs for interested buyers.
Want some of the most beautifully colored eggs this Easter, but don’t have time to dye them? No problem, you can get eggs in all colors from soft, warm brown to light sage, blue-green and olive or even pink. The best part? The chickens do all the work.
Different breeds of chickens produce different egg colors. This shell color is a result of pigments that are secreted by the hen and deposited on the eggshell’s outer layers during formation in the chicken’s oviduct. Brown eggs are from the pigment protoporphyrin, a breakdown product of hemoglobin. Blue and green hues are caused by the pigment oocyanin, a by-product of bile formation.
I was a bit skeptical of some of the information I found from the Egg Nutrition Center. The Center reported that the color of the eggs a chicken lays is related to the species of the chicken and the color of the chicken’s earlobes. Chickens have earlobes? (Tips on buying eggs and what the labels mean after the jump).
By now, you've probably seen "The Meatrix," seeing as it is the most successful web advocacy video in the history of the web. This project helped to bring the world of Free Range Studios into the limelight and gave much-deserved attention to their hard work.
Based in Berkeley and Washington DC, Free Range offers a wide selection of creative services for companies and non-profit organizations. "We know that our best work comes not
[...]
