41–50 of 158 posts
I doubt it saves me any money, but it's fun and provides lots of "organic pasture-raised" eggs and compost.
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The color of an egg yolk is based on what the chicken ate and has no bearing on how idyllic their lives were. There are plenty of pasture raised chickens without the deep orange color because the plant material around them (you can get nearly white colored yolks from a hen that has literally miles of pasture around them). If there a lot of capsicum peppers around for instance, the yolks will turn almost red. How firm…
Well, yeah, but I imagine "what the chicken ate" and "how idyllic their lives were" are pretty closely related. In any case, I've never once found a firm orange yolk in my eggs — supermarket, farmer's market, or otherwise. Joel is probably doing something right here. (Or maybe his eggs are just really fresh, I don't know.)
It's so wonderful to now live in a forthright European country that cares for their citizens and doesn't permit this kind of fraudulent advertising of unnatural and unhealthy modifications of foods. Firms like Monsanto are barred from the country as are GMOs in general and you'd be hard-pressed to find anything other than natural eggs from free-range chickens, untreated with any hormones or antibiotics. It seems the…
Which European country is that? Battery cages are banned in the EU, but caged hens are still permitted as long as the space in the cage meets EU welfare standards.
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Why do you support banning GMOs? I don't mean to be snarky, but I don't know of any good scientific case for doing so. In my estimation, GMOs are one of the most promising technologies for increasing quality of life around the world.
There are logical reasons for being against GMOs. Many of them have nothing to do with the fact that the product is GMO: * GMOs tend to promote monoculture and pesticide use. * Studies have shown that the same developments that make GMOs more insect resistant can also make them more difficult to digest. * When it comes to animals, GMOs tend to have much poorer quality of life and tend to be completely incapable of su…
Then again, GMOs and conventional breeding taken to a commercial extreme get tangled so often it's hard to separate them in these sorts of arguments.
"They usually live in aviaries: massive industrial barns" Oooh, industrial barns... "And often, Kastel says, industrial fans that suck..." Oooh, industrial fans. As opposed to the ones that grow on trees. "One of the most common causes of death was pecking by other chickens." You mean we give them more freedom, and they kill each other? I thought 'natural' was meant to mean all rainbows and happiness and shit.
> You mean we give them more freedom, and they kill each other? They are in crowded conditions. Humans do the same things will kept locked up in crowded conditions. What are you arguing is akin to saying that humans need to be locked up in solitary confinement because if you keep them "free" in close quarters they will start committing acts of violence against each other. You would have a hard time arguing that the J…
Many animals do. Goats are downright nasty little shits with each-other, if they have horns (even w/o)
Hens very much have a "pecking order", and can be pretty brutal to one another even with ample space to roam and feed. Don't get me started on most roosters, though we did raise some that were downright gentlemanly to their ladies. Quail in crowded conditions (we raised Coturnix) can damned near skin each-other alive if a sufficiently picked-on bird gets too damaged.
Either bird will pick at open wounds on others. Not certain what that behavior was about, but is ain't good for the birds in either case.
I was shocked to read that eggs generally have pleasing deep-yellow or orange-red yolks because the egg industry spends a lot of money to put special additives into chicken feed just for that purpose. There's no other benefit from those additives. http://shkrobius.livejournal.com/375927.html I think about that now every time I see a pleasing, healthy-looking, tasty-looking deeply yellow yolk on my plate.
Mine have that colour because they eat a lot of weeds and vegetables. The only thing they eat which isn't food scraps or something that's lying around the garden is shell grit, quite literally ground up sea shells to make sure they have enough calcium for their egg shells. Don't always assume that it's an artificial thing, what they're emulating is a natural process. It really is a pleasure to see happy hens roaming…
I've cut down on my calcium supplement usage by drying and crushing the eggshells and giving those to the birds.
> Pasture-raised birds spend most of their life outdoors, with a fair amount of space plus access to a barn. Many are able to eat a diet of worms, insects and grass, along with corn feed...
"They usually live in aviaries: massive industrial barns" Oooh, industrial barns... "And often, Kastel says, industrial fans that suck..." Oooh, industrial fans. As opposed to the ones that grow on trees. "One of the most common causes of death was pecking by other chickens." You mean we give them more freedom, and they kill each other? I thought 'natural' was meant to mean all rainbows and happiness and shit.
Yes, as in "not the red family farm barn they have on the packaging".
> You mean we give them more freedom, and they kill each other? I thought 'natural' was meant to mean all rainbows and happiness and shit.
Imagine a prison where you've replaced all the individual cells with one big cramped holding cell. Violence will break out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are logical reasons for being against GMOs. Many of them have nothing to do with the fact that the product is GMO: * GMOs tend to promote monoculture and pesticide use. * Studies have shown that the same developments that make GMOs more insect resistant can also make them more difficult to digest. * When it comes to animals, GMOs tend to have much poorer quality of life and tend to be completely incapable of su…
Your first two points are good for GMOs, but the other two are the result of breeding efforts rather than lab work. There are no GMO cows and chickens in high commercial production, and FWIW no GMO tomatoes either. Then again, GMOs and conventional breeding taken to a commercial extreme get tangled so often it's hard to separate them in these sorts of arguments.
The description in "The Omnivore's Dilemma" of egg yolks from idyllically pasture-raised chickens is forever stuck in my memory. "Between stops, Art mentioned that Joel’s eggs usually gave him his foot in the door when trying to land a new account. We stopped in at one such prospect, a newly opened restaurant called the Filling Station. Art introduced himself and presented the chef with a brochure and a dozen eggs. T…