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Free-Range Eggs and Meat: Conning Consumers?


In recent years, there has been an increase in the demand for free-range products by a public that is becoming more aware of both the health and moral implications of eating factory-farmed meat and eggs. While free-range products command a high price in supermarkets and delicatessens, and many people are willing to pay for improved conditions on the farms, the reality of ‘free-range’ farms does not live up to the marketing hype.
Free-Range: Fact or Fiction?
Most consumers believe that the hens who produce ‘cage-free’ or ‘free-range’ eggs spend much of their lives outdoors, warming themselves in the afternoon sun, enjoying dust baths and laying their eggs in individual straw nests. But to British egg producers, ‘cage-free’ and ‘free-range’ mean something entirely different. ‘Cage-free’ means only that the animals are not in cages; beyond that, anything goes, and the animals are often crammed inside faeces-ridden sheds, with no ability to engage in any natural behaviours, for their entire lives. ‘Free-range’ birds also generally spend the majority (if not all) of their lives inside a dark shed with thousands of other birds. These sheds have ‘popholes’ which allow birds access to the outside and the producers to label their eggs ‘free-range’.(1) However, because birds are territorial, the stronger ones monopolise the area around the popholes, while the weaker ones may never cross these territories to get to the exits. These weaker birds may never get outside at all. The areas around the popholes are, not surprisingly, the most desirable areas of the shed, and consequently fights break out amongst the congregated birds. Because aggression, injuries and even cannibalism are rife under these stressful conditions, free-range hens may still be debeaked, a painful practice in which the ends of the birds’ sensitive beaks are sliced off.(2)

In their natural environment, chickens can live into their teens and form friendships and social hierarchies.(3) But hens on commercial free-range farms are ‘spent’ or unable to produce enough eggs to remain profitable within two years.(4) Instead of being allowed to retire, these worn-out hens are usually sold to slaughterhouses, where their bodies are turned into stock cubes, soup or baby food. The hen who laid your ‘humane’ free-range egg yesterday could easily be shackled upside-down and headed for the scalding tank tomorrow.

Don’t be fooled by the label ‘free-range’ or by Freedom Foods. Birds reared under this scheme do not necessarily have access to the outdoors, either, but instead may spend their entire lives in a shed, rather like a broiler shed, with no fresh air, sunlight or space to carry out their natural behaviours. There is one scheme that does ensure all the birds can walk around outdoors, dust bathe and enjoy the fresh air. That is the Soil Association’s scheme, and they stamp their approval on the egg boxes. However, these birds, too, are sent for slaughter after just two years, ending their vastly improved lives in the same terrifying, violent manner.(5)

There is yet another sordid side to this industry, a side that is rarely revealed: the fate of the male chicks. Egg-laying birds must be female. But 50 per cent of the chicks hatched for the egg industry are male, and these financially worthless male birds are slaughtered soon after birth.(6) This is the same for all male chicks, whether they are hatched into the battery, barn or free-range systems.
Organic Meat: A Product of Cruelty
Organic meat, milk and eggs are produced by routinely feeding the animals food that contains no pesticides or antibiotics. Because the animals are often untreated even when sick and because these farms are often quite small and may keep sick and ailing animals around longer, cruelty on such farms can conceivably be worse than on the huge factory farms. The exact definition of organic will depend on which organisation or scheme accredits the particular product, and conditions for the animals can vary greatly. Regardless, all the animals are still rounded up, loaded onto a truck and driven to the slaughterhouse where an agonising death awaits them. Herded in, stunned with an electric current or shot with a captive bolt into the brain, shackled and hoisted up, their throats are slit. They remain upside-down as their failing hearts pump the lifeblood from their bodies. There is no such thing as ‘cruelty-free’ meat.
‘Exotic’ Animals on the Plate
While some people consider it ‘adventurous’ to eat ostrich burgers, kangaroo fillets or crocodile steaks, many consume non-traditional meats because they believe these animals are reared more humanely than cows, chickens, turkeys or pigs.

Ostriches are native to the hot, dry plains of Africa, where their excellent vision and powerful legs are perfectly suited to the environment. When they are brought to damp and rainy Britain, the birds can run from one side of an average-sized paddock to the other in just a few strides. Skeleto-muscular problems are common as their rapid growth puts tremendous pressure on their bones. This can lead to dislocated joints and fractures, which are caused by chicks’ running into obstacles they wouldn’t normally come across or losing their footing on the slippery muddy ground. Lameness, loss of appetite, depression and even death can follow. According to the Council of Europe, ostriches succumb more often to disease and have a higher death rate than domesticated farm animals.(7) The only regulations in the UK governing ostrich slaughter are that the animals may not be drowned or suffocated.(8)

The Australian government permits the slaughter of more than 6 million kangaroos a year.(9) While there are laws governing the killing of kangaroos, there are still serious problems with ‘weekend hunters’, unlicensed shooters who often view kangaroos as ‘pests’ and have no regard for their suffering. The preferred method of killing joeys whose mothers have been slaughtered is, according to government code, decapitation or a ‘heavy blow to destroy the brain’.(10) On their own property, landowners can do whatever they want to kangaroos without fear of repercussions.
In the wild, crocodiles are either shot or captured and taken to overcrowded ‘farms’. The females are impregnated and their offspring killed at just 3 years of age. Shooting at point-blank range is the recommended form of slaughter, but where shooting is disregarded for financial reasons, the ‘nape stab and pith’ method can be used. This involves having workers stand on the head and tail of the crocodile to immobilise him or her; a sharp chisel is then forced between the base of the skull and the first vertebra. When the animal has been stunned, a rod of about 3mm in diameter is used to probe and destroy the brain. In one PETA investigation, slaughter of alligators by bludgeoning them and stabbing them to death was caught on film.
The Unhealthy Option
Whether it’s ‘exotic’, ‘organic’ or ‘free-range’, meat is completely devoid of fibre and contains high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol that are associated with hypertension, stroke and heart disease. Meat is still linked to cancer, kidney stones, osteoporosis and a whole host of other conditions, diseases and illnesses.

The same is true of ‘free-range’ eggs. They have no fibre, and the cholesterol in them contributes to the furring of the arteries and premature death by stroke or heart attack.
Doing the Humane Thing
From the ‘free-range’ hen who smells fresh air for the first time only on her way to the slaughterhouse to the ‘humanely-reared’ dairy cow whose day-old male baby is taken from her and sold to veal farmers, all animals raised for food suffer and are exploited. The only truly humane alternative to this suffering is to choose alternatives to eggs, milk and meat.


Original Source - http://www.peta.org.uk/

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