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?

[Tee2072]

£14.90?

£1.49 I presume?

[TheDeadlyDonkey]

Sadly for chickens, they thrive in all sorts of horrendous conditions.
If someone is buying supermarket eggs, whether thy are FR, battery or barn, they are still reared in cruel conditions - huge numbers of chickens kept in ridiculously small areas.
Free range systems offer the option of outside, but apart from a few new farms, in reality, the majority of chickens don't really benefit from it.

Shoppers needn't feel sanctimonious for buying free range eggs, (or FR chicken breasts etc) as they are still buying from a horrifically intensive farming system that is cruel to the chickens.

There are ongoing exposès into the welfare of dairy herds, pig farms and free range chicken farms (eggs and meat)
The new enriched battery cages in many cases actually provide chickens with a happier life than many free range farms, as they are kept in more natural flock sizes and tend to have more space than the majority of FR birds.
(FR systems calculate space per bird including outside space - in most farms, the pop holes are still small, and are guarded by higher ranking hens in the pecking order, so for the hens inside, which could be thousands, conditions are worse than in an enriched battery cage)
Of course, these farms are never the ones shown to Jamie Oliver and Hugh FW.
As far as I've seen, organic systems offer higher welfare that actually reaches more chickens.

Life for a chicken isn't as the Happy Egg company advertises it.

[Lweji]

Just be thankful you are not told to use a hand whisk.

[StealthPolarBear]

or a "scrupulously clean" bowl

[StealthPolarBear]

Oh this one only had the Yorkshire pudding mix in from last week, it's had a quick rinse in the tepid washing up water from yesterday, it'll do

[RichManPoorManBeggarmanThief]

I don't undrstand why people think feeding their kids chicken that's been pumped full of antibiotics and hormones or eggs from those chickens 'healthy'. You'd be better off feeding them a veggie diet if money's an issue.

[saintmerryweather]

that is scrupulously clean when you dont have enough bowls

[Tee2072]

These days veggie isn't much cheaper than meat, actually. Have you seen the price of a cucumber or some tomatoes?

[BrienneOfTarth]

Agree with you it's annoying if it's in a recipe book where the ethical background of other animal-based ingredients isn't stipulated.

However, if it's in the context of a vegetarian cook book then it's different - the vegetarian society only endorses as vegsoc approved products that (if they contain eggs at all) only use free range eggs. Anyone who is a vegetarian for ethical, rather than health, reasons would almost certainly want to exclude battery eggs from their diet. So, I would think it completely reasonable for a vegetarian recipe which contained eggs to specify that they should be free range, to keep the whole recipe veggie-friendly.

[SanityClause]

If you're a vegetarian for ethical reasons, how can you justify eating eggs at all? After all, what happens to the male chicks? They don't fill the world with scraggy old cockerels living a natural life span.

[Tee2072]

I would assume, as the OP mentions they don't seem to care about the welfare of the meat, that it's not a vegetarian cookbook.

Also, what Sanity said.

[HollyBerryBush]

I spend £30 a week on fruit and veg - and probably £15 on meat - veg is far more expensive (and I usually shop in Lidl)

What is it with broccoli at the moment? Is there a national shortage of the stuff? Its so expensive.

Eggs however remain cheap.

I really don't know where this illusion that veg is cheap comes from

[Jenny70]

Wouldn't it be better to make caged egg conditions humane (or banned) and then you can choose the rggs you want without worry?

But it is preachy in recipe - but some authors/cooks are preachy >

[marriedinwhiteagain]

kungfu if I wanted to be really pedantic "free range eggs" as a phrase isn't really specific enough. It should really be "free range hen's eggs" - there are other eggs out there - quail, duck and goose more commonly. I haven't had a duck egg for years though but you could probably bung one in a cake mixture if you had one.

[JoyMachine]

Ogodness deadlydonkey- tht sound horrible!

We're lucky that we can afford organic eggs, but they are v expensive- I buy them infrequently due to cost- surely if something's expensive, you just eat less of it!

[Inthebeginning]

Free range eggs definatly taste better than caged. I really notice the difference if we eat eggs that haven't been laid by our chickens (egg bore)
I think that's why they write it. Because if they tell you to get the best quality ingredients and you don't, you can't blame the recipe for it not being as nice. Like when they say 70% cocoa chocolate, or butter rather than stork. They dont care about the welfare standards but they care about if you like their recipe.

[diddl]

But in UK, there are no more caged hens-as in battery- are there?

[WitchOfEndor]

I don't mind, any more than I mind when they tell me to use a specific cocoa solids % in the recipe. I don't assume they are judging me for the cost of my ingredients but are advising what works best in their experience.

But maybe that's because I always buy free-range eggs

[EmmelineGoulden]

The price of general veg is irrelevent to the cost of being vegetarian. For a healthy omnivorous diet you need broccoli and tomatoes etc any way, whatever meat you're buying. If you want a cheaper healthy diet you replace the meat with beans and pulses, which are cheaper than eggs and meat.

If intensely farmed (and the cheap ones will be) it's still not necessarily that kind to the environment or the animails that (would have) lived where they are grown. But it's kinder than intensive meat production and we have a lot of mouths to feed in the world, the West's high meat consumption is not sustainable and intense farming methods are necessary to make sure everyone has enough to eat of even a less meat-based diet.

OP YANBU. It's preachy.

[TheRealFellatio]

I hate this too, and I buy free range eggs given the choice! same with specifying organic things, or very expensive niche items when a more readily available cheaper version would do just as well.

But the thing I REALLY hate is when recipes (usually American) tell me to use low fat cream cheese, mayonnaise, cheddar or skimmed milk or whatever, when I know that the original recipe would have called for a normal, full fat version, but the writer is taking it upon themselves to adapt the recipe for the supposed benefit of my health, even if it's to the detriment of the taste and texture of the end result.

They know nothing about me, or my health, or my eating habits, and I am capable of deciding whether or not a recipe has more calories or fat in it than I can be trusted with, thanks very much!

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

There are. The cage sizes have to be slightly larger now though.

And you don't have to feed your family meat/eggs. In season/canned fruit/veg/pulses etc are cheap so you can be ethical and feed your family.

[Tee2072]

Emmaline we've been being fed the 'meat production is not sustainable' line since I was a child.

So over 40 years.

At what point is the sustainability actually going to stop?

The issue with world hunger is not production. It's distribution.

[TheDeadlyDonkey]

Diddl - they are now in enriched cages. They have slightly more space, nest boxes, perches etc, so they can live slightly more chickeny lives.

There is definitely a taste difference between genuine FR hen's eggs and intensively reared ones, but free range units producing eggs for mass sale are every bit as intensive as caged and barn units.

[RoooneyMara]

I often see people complaining on here that women are treated as 'walking incubators' and are only valued, by some, for the child they are growing inside them.

There is rightful outrage about this.

Yet when it comes to your fellow female animals, you're a bunch of unfeeling cunts, for want of a better word.

We keep chickens and they lay the most beautiful eggs. We are grateful and we thank them and we give them to neighbours for free - we don't eat many eggs ourselves. They all say, without exception, that the eggs taste nothing like the ones you can buy in the supermarkets.

Have a think before you condemn chickens to merely a 'thing' which can be exploited to produce stuff for you to eat.

As for eating anything other than free range chicken - have you ever SEEN a chicken close up? Felt it, cared for it, pulled maggots from its flesh with your bare hands? Then you might have an idea how minging they are, and how much worse when they are kept in cages and fed a cocktail of antibiotics till they die of various infections.

[quesadilla]

YANBU. I actually do always buy free range but I loathe that nanny state food sactinoniousness. Don't get me started on organic.