Free-Range Morality- What’s the Deal with Eggs?

What kind of chicken eggs does everyone buy? I’ve been thinking about eggs because last time I was in the grocery store there were 47 different versions for sale and I feel like some of them were made up. There were pasture-raised, free-range, organic, ethically treated, verbally abused, vegetarian-fed, cage-free, farm fresh and even white eggs. It’s a pretty overwhelming process trying to figure out which version of this breakfast staple most closely defines me as a person.

Here’s the thing: I want to buy eggs from the most well-treated chickens on the planet. Maybe not the most well-treated, but at least from chickens that aren’t treated really poorly.

But, here’s also the thing: I don’t want to be taken for a ride by some bullshit chicken egg marketing campaign designed to trick hippies and liberals into paying more for the same product.

What’s a conscientious frugal egg-buying blogger to do?

I usually don’t like doing this, but I decided to do some research.

There’s a lot of terms you’ll find on a carton of eggs. If you’re concerned with the treatment of the chickens laying the eggs, make sure the carton has some labels on it. If the carton isn’t bragging about not being dicks to the chickens, they’re probably being dicks to the chickens.

Cage-Free: So, cage-free eggs. Sounds fancy and borderline might put you up for the humanitarian of the year award. Except, it turns out ‘cage-free’ just means they literally don’t lock them in cute little individual cages. It doesn’t mean they get any outdoor access.

Here’s a visual representation of the difference between where cage-free and regular eggs come from.

What about some other fancy-sounding words that you often run across on egg cartons? It turns out, ‘free-range’ and ‘pasture-raised’ were used interchangeably in the past. There was no industry standard for what those words meant. The egg people would just slap those words on a carton and you’d pay $3 more per dozen.

Then along came the Humane Farm Animal Care folks and they were like, “We should probably define these terms.” So they went ahead and did the consumers a solid and separated ‘free-range’ from ‘pasture-raised’ eggs.

This was very cool of them since here’s the USDA’s basic definition:

The USDA’s (and industry standard) definition for “Free-Range” is that birds must have “outdoor access” or “access to the outdoors.”  In some cases, this can mean access only through a “pop hole,” with no full-body access to the outdoors and no minimum space requirement. -certifiedhumane.org

Here’s the full article.

Wait, what?

In order to be considered ‘free-range’ the chickens just need access to the outdoors through a goddamn pop hole? WTF is a pop hole? It sounds hideous. This is an outrage, I’m sticking with the cheap white eggs.

I started to get very concerned for these chickens. But, kind of who cares about dumb chickens, right? In order to combat this complacency I drew a picture of an individual chicken in order to humanize them.

But, it turns out my drawings of chickens end up looking more like ducks, which is why I ended up drawing chickens as yellow circles as per the first picture in this article. But the above picture is the first picture I drew.

Anyway.

So, HFAC fixed the “pop hole” nonsense by requiring at least 2 sq. ft. per chicken and at least six hours of outdoor time per day (weather permitting) in order to be considered ‘free-range.’ Weehoo!

So here’s what those chickens look like.

For clarification, these four chickens aren’t in four cages stuck on top of each other.  I realize that is what the drawing looks like. The squares just represent all the space these four chickens get. Each chicken gets two feet by two feet of space, on average. It’s probably not actually to scale, either. It’s not a great drawing.

Let’s move on.

So, these new ‘free-range’ chickens aren’t crammed into spaces smaller than 2 feet by 2 feet and they aren’t held in cages. Pretty fancy stuff.

Pasture-Raised: In order to be considered ‘pasture-raised’ by the HFAC there has to be no more than 1,000 birds per 2.5 acres. Which, feels like a lot of chickens. But, this comes out to around 108 sq. ft. per bird. Basically, each chicken gets its own tiny house and Seattle hipsters everywhere collectively shrug their shoulders and mutter something about how unfair life is.

Side note: Don’t let the similarity in words between ‘pasture-raised’ and ‘pasteurized’ fool you.

These sneaky bastards are actually out here labeling eggs ‘pasteurized’ in big farm fresh letters with pictures of happy roaming chickens because they know people will buy them thinking they’re buying ‘pasture-raised’ eggs. Pasteurized does not equal pasture-raised. Pasteurized means the eggs were heat-treated to lower the risk of salmonella. Pasture-raised means the eggs come from hens that can frolic around the fields.

Being a pasture-raised chicken is way better than being a free-range chicken, which is way better than being a cage-free chicken, which is way better than being a regular chicken. And all of those are worse than being a duck.

Here’s your standard, pasture-raised chicken in action.

So, free-range eggs can’t come from hens that are in cages and they also must have outdoor access. The outdoors provided don’t have to have any living vegetation. Cage-free eggs can’t have cages, but they don’t get outdoor access. Pasture-raised eggs get everything free-range eggs get, they just get a lot more of it, and the outdoors they have access to has to have some living plants. Eggs that don’t say anything fun on the package don’t get anything. If they were given a present it would just be an empty box. Merry Christmas, regular eggs.

Regular eggs come from hens that are typically kept in cages with a floor area size that’s less than a sheet of paper. Kind of a bummer.

Okay, so let’s look at some other buzzwords.

Organic: When you see an ‘Organic’ label on a carton of eggs that means the hens laying the eggs cannot be kept in cages, and they are raised on organic feed with access to the outdoors. Large corporations don’t always follow these standards, but typically smaller farm operations are in compliance. If you can pay the extra bit, it’s good to get organic with pretty much everything, eggs included.

Hormone-Free vs. No added antibiotics: A lot of packaging says ‘hormone-free’, but it’s a nonsense word. No laying hens are given hormones. You may as well slap a label on the carton that says, ‘Never Fed Dinosaur Meat.’ Which, actually, I would buy those eggs. Hormone-Free is not to be confused with a ‘No added Antibiotics’ label, which means the hens weren’t given antibiotics in their feed or water. This label actually means something, as some hens ARE given antibiotics in their feed and water. But, if a carton of eggs is double the price and the only difference is the label says ‘hormone-free’, then go with the cheaper option.

Animal Welfare Certification Label:  Eggs that were laid from well-treated hens might have an ‘animal welfare certification’ label on them.

Like so.

By ‘well-treated’ I mean the hens weren’t starved to force them into molting, which increases their egg production, and their human owners probably weren’t raging bags of dicks to them.  “The Animal Welfare Approved” program is the only program that certifies that the chickens beaks haven’t been clipped AND the laying hens haven’t been subject to induced molting.  So, if you don’t like beak clipping, make sure it has the label on the left somewhere on the carton. If you’re okay with beak clipping, but not okay with induced molting, then the label on the right will do.

So, Animal Welfare Approved label means the hens’ beaks weren’t clipped in addition to not being subject to forced molting. Other labels (like Certified Humane), mean the hens weren’t subject to forced molting, but they probably had their beaks clipped.

More on Induced (forced) Molting.

So induced molting is a thing that the egg people do. Actually, hens do it once per year on their own, but the egg people do what’s called forced molting, or induced molting. Induced molting entails starving the hens for between 5-21 days so they produce larger, higher quality eggs later.

Natural molting usually occurs around winter time. The hens lose their feathers and stop producing eggs for three to four months because winter isn’t a great time to be popping out baby birds. They use the extra energy to build up their new plume of feathers and to complain about the weather.

Forced molting is a controversial practice. Essentially it artificially starts the molting process when the laying hens are exhausted from doing nothing but laying eggs all the damn time. Hens that were force molted typically start laying eggs again after a couple months. Once they do start laying eggs again the eggs are higher in quality, although the total number they produce tends to go down.

This isn’t fun for the chickens. It’s illegal in several countries but not the United States. If you want to make sure you’re eating eggs that come from chickens that haven’t been subject to induced molting make sure the carton has an Animal Welfare Certification Label.

Wait, beak clipping? WTF?

That sounds just mean. Apparently it’s common practice to clip most egg-laying hens’ beaks when they’re babies. Most programs (like the picture on the right) allow beak clipping (but not molting). The reason for allowing beak clipping is to prevent the hens from pecking at each other with their sharp dinosaur faces. Both ways sound awful. Being a chicken is terrible, even in the best circumstances.

Let's dive deeper into beak clipping.

Apparently chickens are little assholes and if the farmers (or industrial workers) don't trim their beaks they'll use those sharp effers to peck at other chickens. It's not uncommon for up to 30% of a flock to be killed from pecking each other to death when their beaks aren't trimmed. (<-- I don't know if that's true. It was on the internet.) Part of this might be because they are crowded into tiny areas, and part of it could be due to the fact that chickens are basically tiny dinosaurs.

Various animal rights groups have used pictures and videos of beak trimming to outrage the public. You have to be careful when watching propaganda videos of any kind because, shit man, they make it sound like farmers are just out here clipping beaks to be mean. Turns out there is an actual purpose. Chickens will literally eat each other if you don't trim their stupid faces.

I don't know. Maybe some beak trimming is dickish, but you have to look at the why behind it before you make a judgement.

Back to chickens.

Some words don’t really mean anything when it comes to the treatment of animals. Words like Vegetarian-Fed, Farm Fresh, Natural, and Omega-3 Enriched sound healthier for us to eat, but they don’t really mean anything for how well the chickens themselves are raised. In some instances, the eggs might actually be less healthy.

Vegetarian-fed: Chickens aren’t vegetarians. So if you’re getting eggs from vegetarian-fed hens for humanitarian reasons, it’s kind of tricky.

Those chickens for sure don’t want to be vegetarians. Whether or not the eggs turn out healthier is up for debate. What is not up for debate is my artistic skills are best served not drawing forward-facing chickens.

Farm Fresh: Literally means nothing.

Omega-3 Enriched: This one has nothing to do with how well the chickens were treated but it does mean they were fed foods high in omega-3 fatty acids. The eggs that come from these chickens can have up to 5x the amount of omega-3 as regular eggs. You should buy these eggs if you can afford it. Usually if eggs are omega-3 enriched they’re also free-range and probably given lots of pats on the head.

Natural: This also means nothing. You could imagine that it means the chickens just run around doing natural chicken type stuff. Nope. Instead, it just doesn’t mean anything.

Brown vs. White Eggs: Although brown eggs are generally more expensive, they aren’t actually any better. It’s some more marketing bullshit. They aren’t any more nutritious than white eggs and they don’t come from more local farms. White eggs come from white feathered chickens with white earlobes, whereas brown eggs come from brown and red feathered chickens with red earlobes. So the main takeaway is that chickens apparently have earlobes.

If you’ve ever received eggs from a neighbor, chances are they were brown. Chickens that regular people own are generally the type that lay brown eggs. They’re also generally fed better. Better fed chickens produce better tasting eggs with richer yolks. People imagine brown eggs as coming from a cute little family-owned chicken coop where a little girl in over-sized rain boots collects the eggs from the happy farm fresh chickens. This just isn’t the case.

In reality, there’s no nutritional difference between white and brown eggs.

Except…cost. Brown eggs do tend to cost more. Why is this? The chickens that produce brown eggs are larger and tend to eat more, so the cost of raising them is higher. This cost is passed onto the consumer. Slap.

What does it all mean?

So here we are. We know things now. How do you wrestle with the pros and cons of paying $4.99 for a dozen free-range eggs when regular sad eggs are available for $1.19/dozen?  If you’re going to pay the extra money for free-range, how much extra should you pay for pasture-raised?

What are we to do?  Do we ignore the fact that the chickens from the cheap eggs lead horrible lives or do we put the FI-minded money saving piece of our brain on hold because morally it feels better supporting ethical farming practices?

That’s all before we even get into the hypocrisy of the whole consumer mindset.  I can Tweet about what a great person I am for purchasing pasture-raised eggs from my phone that was essentially made using slave labor.

Unless you want to be a hermit, you can’t really get by without a phone these days, and there doesn’t seem to be a free-range organic phone option to be had.  Even if there were, I don’t know if I could stomach paying $3,999 for it when the $200 phone I have is already more than I want to pay.

Being aware of the inherent hypocrisy can have a paralyzing effect.  I can’t weed out my own hypocrisy, so I may as well just save the $4 and buy cheap eggs. Right? Ugh. No. Be a hypocrite.

Do what you can where you can.

There are countless documentaries on Netflix about the mass production of food in this country and the horrible conditions the animals that provide it are put in.  I don’t know how much happier the free-range chickens actually are, but it seems like they can’t be less happy than their caged sisters.

Where does the graph intersect between price and treatment of the hens? At what point is it not worth it for you as a consumer?  I might pay $4.99/dozen for free-range organic eggs and maybe even $5.99/dozen for pasture-raised, but I’m not paying $27.99/dozen. Luckily, that’s more of a thought experiment, because we do have a multitude of options when it comes to our eggs.

What will you do? After doing some research, (which again, feels weird) I think it’s important to buy, at a minimum, cage-free eggs. Better still is free-range, and if you can afford it, go for the pasture-raised eggs. Organic is generally always going to be better for you than non-organic.

Make sure if you’re paying extra for ethically treated eggs you’re paying more for things that actually matter. Don’t pay more for meaningless buzzwords. Some labels mean the hens are treated better, some just mean you’re paying more.

I’m woefully aware of my own hypocrisy, but purchasing eggs from hens that at least get to see the sun from time to time seems like a small price to pay.  Hopefully this article gives you a little more knowledge with how you choose to spend your hard-earned dollars.

Where do you guys draw the line with your eggs?

If you enjoyed this article please share it with your friends and enemies.

Here’s a few more articles you might like while you’re here:

How to Access all that Sweet Pretax Money Once You Retire

Choosing Family Over Finances Part II- an Update and Some Highlights

Doing the Things- How to Get Going When You’ve Lost Motivation