to eat eggs from caged hens?

[ChickenWashingDilemma]

Trying to distract myself, thought AIBU was as good a place as any to hide from real tasks of the day! Warning: Very middle class, having-the-money-to-be-able-to-choose problem.

I am lucky in that I can afford free range eggs. I don't eat much meat as I would prefer to eat higher welfare less often than cheap meat more often. But in the supermarket I managed to pick up eggs from caged hens. I never buy these, don't know how I did it, but noticed when I got home.

I talked to OH about them and he said he would not eat them. But I cannot bring myself to throw them away as to me that seems worse than using them. At least the produce is being used. I would never buy them again through choice but what to do?

I have already eaten 2 so it is a bit of a moot point but what would you have done? I just want to get rid of them as quickly a possible without throwing them away. (I have since been told that I might have been able to return them but had not considered that you can return foodstuffs just because you pick up the wrong thing)

So if the choice was between eat them or chuck them, AIBU to eat them?

Eat them. You have already bought them! No harm in it now.

Although I do understand where you are coming from. I find it hard to stomach eating caged hens eggs or battery chickens.

We buy organic free range from a small farm. When I sometimes buy the free range ones from the corner shop (they do stock battery ones too) when I run out it astounds me the colour difference in the yolk. An omelette made from the organic ones is almost bright yellow whilst the normal free range is a very pale yellow almost white. I am thinking this could be indicative of quality?

I don't think I could bring myself to eat them; I'd give them to the dog.

Youve paid for them, not eating them now wont discourage the production and sale of battery eggs. I would make them into something lovely so at least the chooks didnt suffer for no reason at all. I used to keep chickens and have a huge respect for the effort that goes into an egg, I hate seeing them wasted.

I met a woman at the children centre a while back who did the cooking classes with her toddler but wouldnt let her eat it if it had eggs in as the centre didnt provide free range. It struck me as wasteful whitewashing of the issue. it might feel like the ethical choice, but it changes nothing.

How about you eat them, or give them away - then donate to The British Hen Welfare Trust? www.bhwt.org.uk/

On their website you can find out about the new 'enriched' cages and also find out how to adopt some ex-battery hens. It's so amazing watching these birds discover that there's a whole new world out there!

I would eat them, as you have already purchased them it would be a shame to let them go to waste.

As thunderbolt said, new EU rules mean that cages are much bigger and welfare standards higher these days. The birds can stretch their wings, and do normal behaviours like nesting, roosting and scratching. No more battery chickens.

I still prefer free range.

choceyes, the colour comes from a varied diet and freshness. Some hens are fed coloured feed to imitate the colour of eggs from chickens on a quality diet though, you can spot this as the white takes on a tint too.

I know M&S certainly only use free range eggs - I buy mayo from there and always make my own cakes. I get eggs from my pil's neighbour (super free range, happy hens I can see from pil's house) or if she doesn't have any I buy happy chicken company, or whatever it's called. It is definitely possible to feel confident that you're only eating free range.

Ooooh, just realised - I do sometimes have a cake in a cafe, so I guess I can forget my smug post above!

I agree with Choceyes about the watery yolk etc. As you have already bought them, put them in a cake or something. They won't taste of anything if you eat them as just an egg.

As for the size of Dorset thing; you can just put hens in fields being used by other livestock, in gardens and so on, so they don't have to take up any extra space if lots of people just keep a few each rather than attempting to organise all farming for everybody on an industrial scale.

A bit shocked by so many people saying that caged hens are high welfare these days, and even one person claiming that they're better off than free range hens. That's just crap, sorry, and I hope you don't use bollocks like that to justify saving a few pence if you could otherwise afford to buy free range.

Just to clarify - yes, caged hens in the UK are higher welfare than they used to be, but it's still a cruel practise and I don't think you'll find many people who have any idea about these things claiming that it's better for the hens.

i did exactly the same OP and made a cake-it was an awful cake, didnt rise. BAttery eggs do taste bad

Agree with Jesus, I wouldn't be able to eat them but if you do maybe you could make a small donation to a rescue charity - have a look at little hen rescue .

Im outraged that you can even consider such an act. I would build a shrine for them as a mark of respect to chickens everywhere.

make a cake with them

then write to the supermarket asking them to stop stocking battery eggs

Id eat them I know you are trying to be ethical but think the hens laid them anyway throwing them away would be pointless and the hens would have laid them to be put int he bin. I am suprised you bought them though even value eggs you can get barn eggs, eat them

Bake a cake to use them up. Don't see what the fuss is though.

eat them, it's worse to buy them then throw them away

Free range eggs are so cheap I dont think its any longer an issue of 'can I afford the extra'. I cant for the life of me understand why anyone would want to buy caged ones.

I know we're lucky we can pop round the corner to the 'egg house', DS always wants the blue egg

Tesco Free Range Mixed Weight Eggs Box Of 15 £3.09

Tesco Everyday Value Mixed Weight Eggs X 30 £3.10

That's 11p more per egg oldraver. I get twice as many in the value than in the free range box, and it does make a difference. I don't want to. But there are lots of things I don't want to do.

Exactly Rev. I buy the cheap eggs and other stuff because it's what I can afford. I would love to buy free range, organic, all singing all dancing food, but it's just not economical for us at the moment.
I buy the best I can afford - I don't want to hear the preaching about welfare and stuff. I know, but my priority is feeding my family first!

It's a genuine mistake, so don't give yourself a hard time about it. I would eat them, as I don't like throwing perfectly edible food away. I would feel the same if I accidentally bought eggs from cahed hens though.

Jesus - it was me that suggested that caged hens were on similar welfare level to free range hens, and possibly better off under some circumstances (ie. for the chickens at the bottom of the pecking order)
I stand by my comments from having seen many different farming systems (ok, this was a few years ago, but I have seen nothing to suggest things have drastically changed)

I know all the promotional tv footage and photos that have been bandied around to show how much better free range systems are for the chickens, but on a day to day, working level, this really isn't the case apart from on a few flagship farms.

I don't buy eggs, because I keep chickens, but if I did, I would be as happy to buy eggs from caged eggs as I would be to buy free range eggs ( but I would personally not buy either)

And I didn't suggest that any intensive farming systems were high welfare, I was simply pointing out that the general view of free range automatically being higher welfare isn't as clear cut as it should be.