To be mildly irritated at being told to use free range eggs

[Kungfutea]

So many recipes sanctimoniously say to use free range eggs. Nothing else is free range and there seems to be no concern for the welfare of any other animals.

Obviously eggs from caged hens would work just as well, people don't buy free range for the flavour (at least I don't notice a difference).

I know, not a big deal (and as it happens I do always buy free range and we try to buy humanely farmed other animal products) but I do find it a little irritating and a bit hypocritical for a recipe to specifically state that free range eggs should be used. Leave the ethical decisions to me, thanks. Aibu?

[StealthPolarBear]

I am currently making a recipe which requires "extra virgin olive oil". Fine, but that's in addition to "olive oil".
Are they really that different?!

[StealthPolarBear]

Oh just pop her in the bouncy chair and she'll gurgle happily while watching you.

Hey, are they free range?

[RoooneyMara]

No, I very rarely bake for my children. You try it with a small baby on one arm. It's a bit hazardous.

[StealthPolarBear]

Right so organic eggs tend to be ok? When I find someone locally who keeps chickens then I buy eggs but at the moment there's no one

[KobayashiMaru]

you only use a couple of eggs a week> Don't you bake for your children? Tut tut.

[WMittens]

PrincessTeacake

Plus if you go to America where so much produce is factory farmed, you can see it before you taste it. The shells on the eggs are white,

The shell colour is down to the breed of the chicken that laid it, not the quality of the egg or the quality of the care they've received.

[PoppettyPing]

So just because we "matter" more than animals, we don't need to give a flying fuck about how they're treated? Why is it so hard to have a scrap of compassion for another living creature?

[PrincessTeacake]

Uh, I could weigh in with my own perspective but methinks its a moot point, I'm irish and around my area at least I can see the animals I'm getting my milk, cheese and eggs from by looking out my bedroom window. They look happy enough as long as I'm not taking shortcuts through their fields.

Free range and organic eggs do make a palpable difference to the quality of your cakes. The few times I had to use cheap eggs in a pinch, my cakes came out paler, tougher and went stale faster.

Plus if you go to America where so much produce is factory farmed, you can see it before you taste it. The shells on the eggs are white, the butter is beige and runny and tastes of nothing, the cheese is like plastic. They put cilantro on everything to cover up the taste of banality.

[ParadiseChick]

Perspective. Get some.

[RoooneyMara]

I should never post when sleep deprived. It all made so much sense when I had just woken up

[RoooneyMara]

Chunderella, reading this back I have to agree with you I sound like a twit. Sorry

[ohnoudidnt]

Yes Paradise. Disgraceful.....being that we are discussing this issue

[ohnoudidnt]

When I was at my local supermarket on Friday, a woman had a trolley overflowing with branded goods....radox , cathedral city cheese, etc and then chose the cheapest eggs.... I honestly thought why could she not swop just one item out of that mountain of a basket and pay a little extra towards eggs that the bird has had a little better life? Some people.

[sweetestcup]

Oh here we go.

[ParadiseChick]

Disgraceful? I would suggest keeping the insults for those who deserve them, like proper nasty people, not this choosing different eggs than you.

[sweetestcup]

I'm sure it is, but budget trumps that I'm afraid. Generally I buy large packs of chicken breasts out of the cash and carry monthly and if I run out then I would buy the value ones form Asda etc. Taste fine to me.

[ohnoudidnt]

Some people are just disgraceful.I started a debate about this a few years back,and it is very sad to see some folk have not changed one bit.... Putting a few pence before the quality of a life towards a living creature.Makes my blood boil,especially when they could easily substitute another item and pay the extra but no....which says quite clearly to me it is nothing to do with being hard up,just that they simply do not give a shit.
Completely agree with Rooney.....

[ParadiseChick]

Recipes should tell you what to do, yes, as in mix this with that and chuck it in the oven for 35 minutes.

Recipes aren't there to reconfigure your moral compass.

[BaconKetchup]

They aren't pets to me either, but I still think it's sad how they are treated.

[sweetestcup]

Chickens arent pets to me, they are food.

[sweetestcup]

If you say so.

[BaconKetchup]

Surely a recipe in itself is 'telling you what to do'

[EugenesAxe]

YANBU - any inanimate object telling me what to do tends to evoke a 'fuck off' from me.

Only yesterday I read a recipe that said 'try to use organic or responsibly sourced salmon'. I would always use the latter, but I did begrudge being told I should.

[BaconKetchup]

How unfeeling of you