Organic Eggs: What's the Big Deal?

Warning: This opinion article contains some slightly disturbing information about the meat and poultry farming industry.

We've been buying an organic brand of eggs for roughly a year now. This week, when my husband went to grab them from the refrigerated section of our local Marsh store, he was confronted by another customer. The man started asking my husband why he would bother buying brown eggs. "What's the difference between the brown eggs and the white ones?" the man asked. My husband said he mumbled out that these are simply the kind we prefer. "What do you think they're eating when they're out walking around?" the man replied, in a tone that my husband said was annoyed and irritated. My husband walked away, wondering why the act of a stranger buying organic eggs could tick of another random customer. I've wondered about that a lot lately. The very word, "organic" seems to irk people. Especially when it comes to food.

There seems to be some kind of invisible line between people who buy organic and people who seem to be anti-organic. There's some random stigma that anyone who buys organic food is a commie-loving hippie, who hates America and just can't get with the times. (Trust me, living in the mid-west, I've heard it all.) What I see when I go to Farmer's Markets are Americans. Local farmers, people wearing coveralls instead of business suits. People who take pride in things they've grown or meat they've processed themselves, or eggs they collected that morning. People who take the money you give them for their homegrown goods and put it into their house or their farm. What could be more American than that? How could buying local or organic have gotten such a bad rap?

The truth is, we don't buy the eggs because they're brown, we buy the eggs because we're sick of chemicals being in our food. Sure, chemicals are everywhere. No, we can't eliminate all of the pesticides and hormones that we ingest. But does that mean we shouldn't even try? No way. Let me just say the following. I'm not a vegetarian, I'm not an extremist, nor do I eat exclusively organic food. I'm not anti-hunting. I'm not a member of PETA, and I'm not an animal activist. But I have seen some disturbing reports. Reports in my local news, reports at the national level, and reports on the nightly news over the past several years. I believe that everybody has the right to know where their food comes from, what the farms are like where the animals are kept, and what goes into those animals that we will later be eating. When I started investigating, I realized just how sick the meat industry has the potential to be.Chickens are often kept in tiny cages, have their beaks cut off (without sedation) so they can't peck at each other, and are regularly injected with all kinds of chemicals and hormones.

My biggest question is, "Wouldn't it just be easier to have a regular chicken farm? Wouldn't it be simpler to just run them the way they've been run for thousands of years? With the chickens just roaming around, eating what they would in nature, and producing eggs on their own timetable?" Easier? Yes. Profitable? Probably not. You see, it's all about money. The more hormones and antibiotics they inject into our chickens and our livestock, the more meat they can ship out, the longer it will keep from rotting, the more money they get. You may be thinking, "What's the harm in a little productivity?"

But you have to understand at what cost that productivity comes, and I encourage you to investigate your local food and farm scene. When you go to the grocery store, where is your food coming from? Find the farm, Google it, or even visit for yourself. Then find local farmer's markets. Go and see the difference. So even if you don't care about those mutilated little Frankenstein chickens living out miserable lives for your breakfast, then you should at least care about your own health.

I think that someday the food industry should be put through its paces the way that tobacco companies have been. I think the FDA should have tougher more specific regulations, because if it's one thing that this country deserves, it's a little quality control. No matter how small or large the operation may be, even if it's just for eggs. It would be nice if the American people would pay their own local farmers, and put money into their local communities to get fresher food that's kept in a humane way. I'm not insinuating that all large farms are evil or treat their animals in an inhumane way. I'm just saying that if you have the choice between eggs that come from tortured antibiotic injected chickens or chickens that live free on a farm and eat a natural diet, well, that's not much of a choice, is it? Sure, it might cost you an extra dollar, but what will you gain over the long run? Pride in your local community, slightly better health, and far better tasting eggs.