Kinda true when you think about it
What, are they all battery farmed in the great People’s Republic of China?
I mean, it’s still a largely rural country, I imagine in the majority of the country (geographically) people or their neighbors raise the chickens that lay the eggs they eat
I mean, it’s still a largely rural country
Not so. Wikipedia has a decent article but here’s the crux of it:
By the end of 2023, China had an urbanization rate of 66.2% and is expected to reach 75-80% by 2035
The cities are massive and really densely populated. Shenzhen and Guangzhou are about 90 minutes apart by car if memory serves and account for about 35M people. Hong Kong is an hour south of Shenzhen by train and that’s another ~8M.
That still means there are about 500 million people living in rural areas of China.
More than a third of the country by population, especially when that population is in the billions, is still pretty large. Not majority rural obviously, but still a large percentage.
But I was speaking geographically. Isn’t half the country almost completely empty? Or am I confusing something I read somewhere?
I don’t know but one can make guesses based on this.
I’ve spent a decent bit of time there on a few work trips. Never saw differentiation of eggs in supermarkets (or restaurants). Eggs be eggs.
A huge number of folks are just coming into non-poverty since the turn of the century so it would seem entirely plausible to me that chicken comfort wouldn’t be a thing there just like it wasn’t in the west until comparatively recently and still isn’t for a huge part of the population.
Apart from that it’s really very different culturally. They just view things through an entirely different (and interesting) lens.
Eggs be eggs.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. A Chinese buddy of mine sent me this a few years ago. Apparently counterfeit eggs are an actual problem in some parts of China. I cannot possibly fathom how this is cheaper than an actual egg, but apparently it’s a thing and can make people sick if they eat them.
I have actually heard about that. Google “gutter oil” if you want some nightmares. They are working on food safety hard though.
The first section looks a lot like alginate spherification. It’s a fun demo to make a fake egg with it but it would be very obvious it isn’t an egg when you cooked it. It wouldn’t set or act like an egg at all when heated. I’d also be very curious to see how they make the shell if it really is a fake egg.
For the second section, those are previously frozen eggs. Freezing them turns the yolk rubbery but doesn’t do much to the white.
I remember a story of someone adding plastic noodles to their cheap noodle packs. I also thought that there was no way in hell they were saving money by doing that - the only way it makes sense is if the market is growing faster than production, so there’s a “demand” for totally fake product, which I suppose has been true of most of China for the last fifty years. It’s why the current government makes anti-corruption into such a big deal.
Ironically, you cannot choose how comfortable the human’s life is for most products.
If you put the eggs up your butt at the grocery store, you can choose how uncomfortable everyone will be.
In France the « bio » label (https://www.bioagricert.org/en/certification/organic-production/ab-france.html) does bot only take into account ecological properties of the product but also many metrics relative to the social quality of the company and well being of its employees.
There are certifications out there like FairTrade and others that try to make labor less slave-like in the world. Guess you could call that a way of making human life more comfortable
Not how comfortable their life is, how much you buy their industry’s marketing spin about the option for a chicken to stand in a pool of chicken shit, hormones and antibiotics or to be forcibly laying in it for the entirety of its life.
Eh, there’s also substandard:
- conventional - absolutely horrific - stuck in cage
- “cage free” - regular horrific - able to walk around, but they’re packed wall-to-wall
- “free range” - substandard - can go outside and walk around, but still usually overcrowded
The best option is to raise them yourself. But almost nobody does that, so I guess you pick how much you want to spend for the chicken to have a better life.
“Go outside” for free-range is also a tiny little pen that chickens don’t really know how to use.
There’s another option: Pasture-raised, certified humane. They have >100SF of outdoor space per bird, shelter, and eat a mix of insects and supplemental feed.
Aldi sells them for about 75% more than conventional eggs.
This is obviously something you saw on Reddit and didn’t bother fact checking.
If you buy from any producer of chicken, there is no such thing as cage free. All the chickens get transported to the slaughterhouse in cages. That being said, conventional chickens are not stuck in cages. Maybe some mom and pop shops do this? Not the major producers, the sheer amount of cages needed would be profit prohibitive. They’re raised in a chicken house but they are packed in side by side.
USDA defines free range as 2sqft per chicken. A chicken is give or take 30x smaller than a human so equivalent is if you grew up with a 60sqft personal bubble. Pasture raised is 108aqft per chicken, but the thing to remember is chickens are a family pack animal, so even if they have all the space in the world they won’t use it. They’ll stay near their home.
Chickens are essentially a brainless animal and their body can continue to function without a head. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
Also the species of chicken has a significant impact on quality of life and taste. I don’t know if there is any actual data but modern broilers cannot live long just due to their genetic breed. They’re a generic breed that grows super fast and has health issues as they age.
Chickens don’t live a great live in any production arena, but the worst is the transport and the slaughter which doesn’t change regardless of their free range designation. If it’s really something that bothers you, the only real solution is just to stop eating chicken products.
Eh, good thing factory chicken is a thing of the past in The Netherlands, it’s okay vs decent vs good.
Rondeel is decent: https://youtu.be/zwleQLKU-UI?si=kh7T6b_bV0HMXjzO
Label Rouge (France) is good: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aHlCEIAOpEk
Yeah sure it’s €4 to €5 per 10 eggs instead of €2.50 but there’s a big difference in quality. You get watery whites, tasteless yolks and paper thin shells with the cheapest eggs. Same for chickens, the Label Rouge ones are really small at 1.5 kg in comparison to faster growing ones.
Maybe in the US. Here you get what you pay for. You CAN get good eggs from “happy” chicken. They just cost a lot more. Like 5-10x. Only thing missing is like the name of the chicken that shat out your egg 😁
I suppose “here” isn’t the EU then. 😬 https://food.ec.europa.eu/animals/animal-welfare/eu-animal-welfare-legislation/animal-welfare-farm/laying-hens_en
It is the EU. And while it’s not perfect, it’s surely better than nothing. Also you’re not refering to organic food. And in there are also very very specific ones that are the best possible exploitation of life.
If people buy caged hen-eggs, then it will always stay. People don’t care. The majority at least.
We, personally, pet the hens more than the eggs we buy there.
hormones
As fucked as the poultry industry is, that’s not really a thing for a couple reasons. First is the FDA banned that practice, so in the USA at least you’re not going to find any poultry products where hormones or steroids are used – “hormone/steroid free!” is marketing BS stating they’re not doing something illegal.
Second: we’ve selectively bred chickens (broilers) that grow so freakishly fast and big you don’t need to give them hormones or steroids – their bodies naturally produce excessive amounts. These are chickens that need their food supply controlled because they will literally eat themselves to death if allowed to. They grow so large and quickly it’s common they develop leg issues leaving them immobile, and most will “naturally” start to die of heart attacks if they aren’t killed after 8 weeks.
I mean its nothing but a marketing spin all chickens suffer harshly in the egg industry. Even a true CCP devotee wouldn’t be surprised and would probably expect meaningless marketing differences to get a leg up on competition.
I can’t talk for the US, but organic labels usually have pretty strict requirements. Enforcement is often lacking though, but it is definitely not just a marketing spin and guaranteed suffering.
AFAIK, “Organic” usually just restricts what the chicken has been eating/injected with, not it’s living conditions.
In the US, maybe. In Europe there are many restrictions regarding living conditions as well, meaning “organic” is usually the best option if you prioritize animal welfare.
sure, but at least where i am, free-range chickens have a minimum of 1 sq. m. of space, which is 0.9 sq. m. more than otherwise
Certified humane (pdf): https://certifiedhumane.org/wp-content/uploads/Standard_LayingHens-2023.pdf
E 18: Sufficient freedom of movement.
a. All hens must have sufficient freedom of movement to be able, without difficulty, to stand normally, turn around, and stretch their legs and wings.
b. They must also have sufficient space to be able to perch or sit quietly without repeated disturbance to other birds.
That’s, without meaning to sound cute, paltry.
Ah, I should have specified the pasture-raised standards:
R 1: Pasture area
a. Must consist mainly of living vegetation. Coarse grit must be available to aid digestion of vegetation.
c. The minimum outdoor space requirement is 2.5 acres (1 hectare)/1000 birds (~109SF).
g. Birds must be outdoors 12 months per year, every day for a minimum of 6 hours per day. In an emergency, the hens may be confined in fixed or mobile housing 24 hours per day for no more than 14 consecutive days.
Free-range are only required to have 2SF and don’t have a mandatory outside time.
