Friday, April 13, 2012

Sure Bets: Death, Taxes and Problems with Our Food Supply

I happily pay $6 for the dozen eggs I buy every Saturday at the farmers' market. The flavor and nutrition are supreme; comparing conventional supermarket eggs to these gems is like comparing a youth basketball player to Michael Jordan. It's a different universe.

Nicholas Kristof, in yesterday's New York Times, adds another reason to opt for the better-quality eggs: treatment of the hens.
"Supermarket eggs gleam with apparent cleanliness, and nothing might seem more wholesome than breaking one of them into a frying pan.

"Think again. The Humane Society of the United States plans to release on Thursday the results of an undercover investigation into Kreider Farms, a major factory farm that produces 4.5 million eggs each day for supermarkets like ShopRite.

"I’ve reviewed footage and photos taken by the investigator, who says he worked for Kreider between January and March of this year. In an interview, he portrayed an operation that has little concern for cleanliness or the welfare of hens."
Click here to read the rest of Kristof's column ("Is an Egg for Breakfast Worth This?"), which expounds further on the topic.

Click here to read Helena Bottemiller's news story in Food Safety News about the investigation.

Also, here's the video The Humane Society released. (If you are receiving The Delicious Truth via email, click here to watch it.):

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Imagine my delight when my son informed me last week that he is going to install a chicken coop in his backyard and begin "urban" chicken-raising. Just enough eggs for his family and a few left over for friends.
Somehow, here in Indiana this is easier to do. City ordinances apparently did not outlaw this scale of agriculture as happened in other states and cities, so no city councils need to be petitioned or laws overturned. Last September, we went on a "Tour de Coop", a home tour, if you will, of backyard chicken coops. It was so informative and FUN!