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?

When it comes to a chicken versus a woman? You're damn right I'm an 'unfeeling cunt'.

It's a fucking chicken. I'm either going to eat it or it's eggs. I could not care less how it's reared.

Do not get the 'animals are as important as humans' idea. No. They aren't. Or we wouldn't eat them. Or test medication on them. Or a million other things.

Damn right I've never handled a chicken. I'm a graphic artist, not a fucking farmer. I've also never mowed my lawn because I'm a graphic artist not a fucking gardener.

Tee there have been some significant "improvements" to intensive animal farming methods that have increased production in the last few decades. But recently meat prices have been rising faster than most other foods because demand is starting to outstrip supply.

The world population has almost tripled in the last 50 years. If it continues to do so (and it hasn't slowed down yet) we will continue to see significant increases in food prices, and meat, since it uses more resources to produce the same nutrients, will rise more.

So the rich will continue to eat it and the rest of us won't. shrug Welcome to a free market economy.

But don't tell me it isn't sustainable. It's as sustainable as it needs to be if people are willing to pay for it. And they are and will continue to be so.

Especially in other countries where they would give you one of these if you asked them where their meat came from or how it was raised. Most of the world is much more practical than the UK or the US, for that matter, in these issues.

If practical gets us H7N9 then I'm not sure it's such a great thing.

Well yes - it will become more of a luxury item. "Not sustainable" doesn't really mean anything else. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say " our current approach to meat as a staple of the general diet is unsustainable" but that is quite long winded.

It did make me smile a bit to see a poster say up thread that she could afford free range eggs because her riding instructor sold them at £1.50 a dozen...

Well, no. Not sustainable means just that: it can't be sustained, not that it can be sustained as a luxury.

Is MN charging by the word now, you couldn't say that?

HollyBerryBush - there was a big broccoli shortage last year, so maybe there are ongoing problems with supply.

I said "the West's high meat consumption" is not sustainable in the context of population increase. I know there are lots of things you don't do because you are a graphic artist not a fucking whatever, but you could still try to read in context.

Yes. And I said 'they' have been saying that for decades. And then you changed the meaning of what you said by adding more words because you know I'm right. So you actually changed the context, it's not that I misread it.

There will always be meat production. It may become a luxury, who knows? Guess what? The West controls most things. That's not going to change either.

Are you fucking offended by the word fucking? Too fucking bad.

I hope those who think of animal welfare but buying free range or organic also think about other aspect of your shopping.

Persil, Hovis, Flora and many other contain Palm Oil, this damages wildlife-rich forests of Indonesia and Malaysia.

The local egg seller uses a veg stall opposite my house to sell his free range eggs. He used to sell them through our local co-op but because he doesn't frank the eggs the co-op refused to sell them. The co-ops eggs are £1.60 or near that for half a dozen. The farmers eggs are 90p!!!

How proud you sound to be able to be so offensive without compunction.

The West controls most things. That's not going to change either. hahaha. You're not definitely not a fucking economist are you!

And no. I'm not in anyway offended by the word fucking.

@Tee

YANBU but free range eggs do taste better and think of the chickens!!!

why would you be irritated by a subtle reminder to not buy torture-produced food?

I think the worst thing we can do is continue to kid ourselves that "free range" is better than battery - the "oh WE wouldn't use battery eggs" brigade gets on my nerves....

Free range hens have "access to the outside" - but inside the stocking density is still high... (9 birds per square metre) they are still de-beaked with a hot wire, "boy" chicks are still euthanised. Their feed is still laced with growth hormones and antibiotics.

Do people really think free range eggs all come from small stock-holders with a barn and a chicken run??? They come from the same place battery hens used to...

amazingmumof6
a little chemistry lesson : organic means live, living

organic chemistry is based on the four elements found in all living things : Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen and Hydrogen

In chemistry terms, 'organic' relates to molecules containing carbon (although, some carbon-containing molecules are classed as inorganic).

Made, sorry but you're not correct to state that they are treated in that manner. Some may be but many are not.

Ours for instance...

Many farming practices are not compatible with animal welfare tbh.
Animals are selectively bred to produce beef animals that cannot be born naturally, milk cows that produce unnatural amounts of milk, chickens that lay an egg every day, meat chickens that reach gross weights when, by rights, they should still be relatively small. Farming today is, by necessity, unnatural.

If you're going to buy eggs, buy what you can afford.
I know celebrity chefs have sold this image of FR being good, anything else bad, but in real terms, and in most farms, it doesn't make a toss of difference.

Whoever said you can't tell the difference surprised me.
I buy my eggs from a friend who has chickens and they are delicious.
I don't suppose it makes much difference in cakes, but a fresh from the chicken egg from her definitely tastes better.

Roooney, I keep chickens. They have loads of space to free range on. They lay lovely eggs.
However, there is absolutely no comparison between my free range chickens, and intensively farmed free range chickens.
Made is right. Apart from on a few farms, free range chickens are anything but, and the majority of hens have less space than old style battery hens (less than A4 size per bird)

But it is better than battery, still - yes?

I also don't understand why people need to buy so many eggs that it makes a huge difference to their food bill in general.

I have 3 children yet we rarely use more than a couple of eggs a week.