You walk into the local Vons looking to buy some eggs for your morning omelet. By the time you’ve made it to the back wall where the cartons are, you’ve already managed to put two boxes of Oreos, a family-sized box of microwavable popcorn, and enough chocolate to feed a small village in your cart, but that’s beside the point. You’ve found the eggs and think wow, who knew there could possibly be that many different types of eggs? Being the broke college kid that you are, you grab the cheapest carton you see and move on with your day. Right?
Well, maybe you should think twice. While price is the primary concern for most shoppers, there’s another consideration you should pay attention to, and that’s where the food that you buy comes from. Specifically, it is important to think about what the living conditions were of the animals which provide you with products such as eggs, milk, cheese, and meat.
While you may think that your choices as a shopper have no influence over markets, Cal-Maine Foods, the largest egg-producer in the country, recently announced that it is cutting back on its cage-free egg operations because consumers were unwilling to pay the higher prices associated with a more humane product. Your decisions at the store really do matter to the animals whose products you enjoy, and taking the time to educate yourself on how to shop smart is an important first step in improving their conditions.
The quickest way to know what kind of life an animal had is to pay attention to the labels on packages of their products. These labels usually include happy sounding phrases like “organic,” “free-range,” or “all-natural.” But what do these labels really mean for the animals? I did some research on some of the most commonly seen labels on eggs to compile the following guide.
Cage-free: Cage-free means that chickens are not contained in battery cages, which are cages that restrict chickens from spreading their wings or turning around. Cages are often stacked in order to maximize farm space. However, while cage-free is certainly better than using battery cages, this label does not mean that these chickens had a great life. Cage-free allows chickens to walk around the barn, but there are usually so many chickens in this “cage-free” space that their movement is still restricted. Chickens often peck at each other causing sores that go untreated, and disease spreads easily.
Free-Range: The only qualification for being free-range is that birds must be allowed outdoor access. It doesn’t matter if that means the door of the barn is open for five-minutes a day, or if birds are left outside in the elements year-round with no shelter. Most of the time, free-range means the same living conditions as cage-free, but with a small hatch leading to a dirt patch outside the barn.
“Free-range” chickens.
Pasture-raised: Pasture-raised means that birds are given access to vegetation covered land for a significant amount of their day, and that this pasture area is of a significant size. Different regulatory systems have different specific requirements for being considered “pasture-raised.”
Organic: Organic on its own means nothing. However, “certified organic” means that the farm is USDA regulated and that the birds are free-range, fed organic feed (no pesticides), and receive no antibiotics or hormones.
Other common labels on eggs include vegetarian-fed, no-antibiotics, no-hormones, farm fresh, and all natural. These terms literally mean nothing for the welfare of the chickens, as chickens are not naturally vegetarian, antibiotics and hormones are never used in chicken production, and farm fresh and all natural simply have no meaning other than making the product sound nice.
If you’re looking to buy eggs from chickens that had a pretty good life, your best bet is to look for pasture-raised, or for a label from an independent certification program such as “Animal Welfare Approved,” “Certified Humane Pasture-Raised,” or “Food Alliance Certified.”
Knowing what these common labels mean can make shopping humanely an easier process. Of course, there’s always the option of cutting meat or all animals products out of your diet, but if that’s too big of a step for you right now, making better consumer choices can help ease the conditions of factory farming and provide animals with a far happier life. After all, it was the consumer whose demand for lower prices pushed farmers into placing their animals into harsher and harsher conditions, so it’s the consumer who should change things back.
While it can be difficult to convince yourself to spend even more money on food, an extra couple of dollars is the difference between this:
And this:
It’s your choice.
For more information on shopping humanely, including labels to look out for on dairy and meat products, check out the Humane Society’s website here.
All photos public domain and obtained from Pixabay.com.