To be pissed off over eggs?

[cricketmum84]

Ok I know this is totally a first world problem but I'm feeling rather pissed off today so this could be the last straw lol!

My DH went to the supermarket this morning and I had put "free range eggs" on the list. I'm a vegetarian, almost vegan but not quite given up cheese yet. I'm quite hot on animal welfare.

He came back from the shops with eggs from caged hens. Doesn't see anything wrong with this at all and says because I don't eat eggs I don't get a say. I say that I don't want eggs from caged hens in my house and I don't want my family contributing to the survival of that industry.

Am I just being a moody cow today or do I have a point??

@DerrenBrownings chickpeas and spinach 😂😂

Love how OP is studiously ignoring the several people who have pointed out that her free range egg rule is basically arbitrary, if she actually cares about animal welfare. She just wants the high horse with her husband- god forbid it might inconvenience her. Unless she's normally getting eggs from a neighbour with a few backyard hens, animals are suffering (and even then, if you buy the hens to raise, the chicks still came from awful conditions and their brothers were all tossed alive into the meat grinder).

Free range is a con, their 'living' conditions are not much better than caged hens.

Oh really? Here's where I buy my eggs:

www.farmdrop.com/producers/1002/New-macdonaldsfarm

Please don't perpetrate this nonsense that there's no alternative to caged hens.

The point is that we all have different standards and different priorities.

You’ve kicked off about caged hens when bees are being destroyed by pesticides.

There’ll always be something suffering somewhere. And it’s great that you want to do your part but you can’t be evangelical about it to the point where you’re lashing out at your dh. Because none of our bibs are entirely clean .

Unless he brought home something that presented a danger to someone in the house, I don’t think you should complain. So if someone has a peanut allergy and he buys peanut butter, raise holy hell. The brand of eggs is something he can choose to disagree with you about. Feel free to explain your position, but this isn’t a hill to die on.

The obvious answer is to get your own chickens. Re-home ex battery hens for extra points.

I'm neither vegan nor vegetarian and I will not have caged hen eggs in my house. YANBU

How were the yorkshire puddings OP?

I would have told you to go to hell if you told me what to eat. And you sound a bore with all your veganism. Hes right , you dont get a say. Seriously stop being a hypocrite and do get over yourself.

Free Range doesn't equate to high welfare, it usually means the hens have access to outdoors. They are still crammed in together and forced to lay artificially high numbers of eggs.

This... you're better to get organic.
www.soilassociation.org/organic-living/what-is-organic/organic-eggs/

Or can you rehome some ex battery girls and have your own eggs!

@AlaskanOilBaron good for you, but free range SUPERMARKET eggs which are the vast, vast majority are, indeed, basically a con and if your special farm doesn't consist of re-homed battery hens, they're still part of the problem and therefore so are you.

@Snuffalo I'll presume you haven't read the full thread and missed this response from me earlier.

we've got a farm shop nearby that I'm going to try, last time I went the hens were all out in the front field and looked very well looked after

www.soilassociation.org/organic-living/what-is-organic/organic-eggs/

Welfare standards for organic chickens/ eggs are better than those for free range.

@speakout well they rose well and the kids snaffled them pretty happily!

You should buy organic eggs. The free range hens have the top beak cut off to prevent pecking each other. Organic hens don't.

I would really struggle to respect my partner if he thought it was ok to buy eggs from caged hens.

Ditto

DerenBrowning

"Honestly just eat cheese. It's fine".

Bloody well not fine for the cows and calves! I'd sooner eat meat than cheese. Dreadfully cruel industry.

Keep going OP with what you're doing and remember that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

@AlaskanOilBaron bless you 😂

1. Where did I say there was no alternative to caged hens?
2. Are you sure those 500 chickens only lay 20 eggs per year like the average chicken? Or are they being fed high protein feed to produce more? 10000 eggs a year doesn't sound like enough to keep their business running

Well I hope you have done your reasearch on how free range, your free range eggs actually are. You might be surprised.
Also look up the dairy industry. A lot of the information you find might be the kick you want to give up cheese.
I'm not vegetarian or vegan.

I also try to avoid large eggs, as I gather they are harder for hens to lay.

I think some hens just naturally lay larger eggs. You not buying them doesn't change that fact.

Do you 'allow' meat in your house?

Doesnt matter how well the live chickens are kept for free range or organic. The industry will still be routinely killing the one day old male chicken as they have no value. No good for eggs and no good for meat. They are treated as a by product of the egg industry so are culled and a small percentage used in making reptile food.

I think there is a difference in the debate about eggs and cheese. In the case of eggs, it is fairly clear cut that higher welfare eggs are better - better for the chicken most importantly but also better tasting I would say. The difference is in the price and while that’s obviously important if you’re on a budget a lot of people could easily afford an extra pound or so for half a dozen eggs.
With cheese it’s less obvious - I’m not convinced that ersatz products based on coconut (food miles!) or cashew etc. are better for the environment. If you can buy organic cheese the animal welfare standards are higher.

to be fair here, battery hens are illegal in the U.K. caged hens have a standard, which is they must have space to roost and scratch, and although not as high a standard as free range, they are not far off and are way better than battery hens and closer to free range in ethos.

I wish people would stop calling the OP a "hypocrite". It's a word that's bandied around far too frequently. Anyone who has any kind of moral standards sometimes lets them slip - the only people who are never hypocrites are people who don't have any moral standards in the first place.

I would add one point about eggs, though: the major cruelty is not the conditions in which they keep the hens, but the fact that all male chicks are killed at birth, either by being gassed or being put live into a mincer. You don't get round that by buying free range, unfortunately.