Outraged by the new 'free-range' egg definition? Then stop eating eggs
Jenna Sten
‘Free range’ is a feel-good term that businesses use to make consumers feel kind. In reality, every single egg brand is doing bad things to hens
‘Stop eating eggs. Like, all of them. Every single brand is doing bad things to hens.’ Photograph: A Room With Views/Alamy
@jenna_sten
Tuesday 5 April 2016 10.29 AESTLast modified on Tuesday 5 April 201610.32 AEST 170
If you are one of the many outraged people at the decision made last week to broaden the definition of “free-range” eggs in Australia, I have a solution for you: don’t eat eggs.
The decision reached by state and commonwealth ministers makes it much easier for large-scale farms and businesses to benefit from the free-range label, without adhering to recommendations from the CSIRO – Australia’s science agency – and RSPCA.
Free-range egg definition criticised as soon as ministers announce it
The new national standard for free-range eggs allows farmers to keep a maximum of 10,000 hens per hectare, a significant increase from the 1,500 that many small farms and animal welfare groups consider to be sustainable and humane.
“Meaningful access” to outdoors is required under these new standards, but hens don’t need to leave the barn at all for their eggs to be classed as free-range – a perfect example of an entirely empty commitment.
Before last week’s decision, there was no legally binding set of standards, resulting in misleading packaging and confusion for consumers, who had no guarantee of what free range actually meant.
The number of hens per hectare will now appear on the carton, allowing consumers to discriminate.
Choice is calling for a boycott of the brands that exceed the CSIRO’s Model Code recommendation of 1,500.
Many people have taken to social media to protest these changes, and spread news of the boycott.
That consumers want to vote with their dollar, and don’t want to support businesses that treat hens badly is incredibly encouraging.
A lot of genuinely upset people are unsure how to proceed, now that the definition of free range has broadened to the point of meaninglessness.
It is to these compassionate, driven people, that I address my solution.
Stop eating eggs.
Like, all of them.
Every single brand is doing bad things to hens.
“Free range” is a feel-good term.
Businesses use it to create a generous reputation for themselves, and it makes us feel kind.
But any large or small scale farming system harvesting eggs from hens is not letting them grow old in green pastures once their productivity levels drop, no matter how many nice words are on the box.
Male chicks are routinely killed in both conventional and free-range hatcheries because they do not lay eggs, and are therefore not profitable.
“Debeaking”, a process in which hens have part of their beak sliced off with a hot blade is also standard practice; debeaking prevents hens from injuring one another in the overcrowded spaces they live in, but it also prevents them from performing healthy social behaviours such as preening, and sometimes eating.
The process is, as you might imagine, painful.
Even before consumer affairs ministers broadened the definition of free range, the system was not humane.
Under these new standards, many “free-range” hens will have less space and unguaranteed access to the outdoors.
This is bad for their health and happiness.
You could also say that breeding them to kill them has a pretty significant impact on their health and happiness.
Choosing not to eat eggs is a viable option, and removes the need to “be sure” that the animals are being treated right. Animals + money = profit is a pretty inhumane system to begin with.
A fellow commenter noted that within the structure of capitalism, “ANY food product + money = profit”.
But animals aren’t products.
This may sound like sentimental fiction to some – but animals are people.
They’re rarely granted personhood in our legal systems, and when they are, this recognition is patchy and tellingly tied to our belief in human supremacy (Great Apes are generally favoured here for their similarity to us).
But animals are, nonetheless, ethically distinct from things.
When we turn them into products, and refer to them as such, it distances us from this fact, and turns our relationship with them into something we can comfortably commodity or wilfully ignore.
This kind of cognitive dissonance is not something we should be proud of.
It’s the same empathy deficit that allows us to respond with indifference to many oppressed groups whose experience we deny.
In the hierarchy of privilege, we push animals hard to the ground.
A backward slide in free-range egg standards is not our biggest problem.
If you’re comfortable with the idea of animals as uncomplicated property, continue to use your dollar in line with your values in whichever way you see fit.
If you feel strongly about animal welfare reform as a means to an end, support the companies you still have trust in, and campaign for the new standard to be changed.
But if your attachment to free-range eggs is tied to a belief in the sentience of hens, consider not eating them altogether.
