Most people eat eggs - usually lots of them. The cartons that I get each week call eggs “Nature’s Convenience Food”, and for good reason. Run out of leftovers to eat? Crack an egg. Need to add volume to your dessert? Whip up an egg. Need more protein in your diet? Eat two eggs for breakfast. For something that we eat so often and so much of, people give surprisingly little thought to the origins of the eggs that make it to their plates.

Not all eggs are created equal. There are four categories of eggs that you can typically buy from the grocery store. Standard (factory-farmed), cage-free, free-range, and pasture-raised. Factory-farmed eggs are so cheap because they require the least space and the least care for the chickens. Chickens are packed into cages and given no space to move around. These cages are not cleaned and the birds are forced to sit in their own filth for their entire lives. Cage-free is theoretically a step up, but the only difference in reality is that the individual cages are swapped out for one large tent under which hundreds and even thousands of chickens are packed together, resulting in a situation that is not much better than the standard factory farm method. Free-range chickens are given this designation as long as, according to the USDA, chickens are given “access to the out-of-doors” for over 51% of their lives. This is only marginally better than the last two classifications because access to the outdoors can mean as little as allowing a chicken to stick its head out into the fresh air without ever being able to step foot out of its coop. There isn’t even a per-animal space requirement, as long as the chicken can “access” the outdoors. Pasture-raised is both the best and the trickiest designation because it is not monitored by the USDA, but it is accurately approved by Certified Humane. Pasture-raised chickens are given unlimited time outside and given the freedom to roam and scratch for their own bugs in addition to the food they are fed. Each chicken needs to have at least 108 square feet of space and are required to have shelter and be able to go outside at any time except at night (for protection from predators). The chickens are unequivocally happier, healthier, and better treated in a pasture-raised environment. Just make sure you also look for the Certified Humane label, otherwise you might just be getting a different classification of eggs labeled with the pasture-raised identifier, since the USDA doesn’t regulate this particular phrase.

Eggs from chickens that are raised better are generally more expensive. Pasture raised eggs will often be the most expensive eggs at the market because these chickens get more space and usually better feed and, as any rent-paying human knows, better food and more space cost more money. This price difference makes it easier for us to talk about how we value the animals that produce the food that we eat. In New York City (as of October 2022), I can find pasture-raised eggs for $7 a dozen at the grocery store while standard factory-farmed eggs will typically be around $4 a dozen. Let’s say you’re like me and eat about a dozen eggs a week. By choosing to eat pasture-raised eggs instead of factory-farmed eggs, you would spend $3 more a week than usual, which comes out to about $156 a year. So now we’ve put a price on the welfare of the chickens - the living creatures - that produce your eggs. By choosing to eat factory-farmed eggs, you’re actively making the assertion that the lives of the (at least) 3 or 4 chickens that laid your eggs that week are worth less than your $3. You have chosen to say that the lives of animals that are alive and breathing and constantly producing food for you to eat are worth so little that $3 is more important than supporting the farmers who treat their animals with respect.

The quality of a chicken’s life is not a matter of opinion. These are facts about the animals that produce one of the most popular ingredients in the world and each individual carries a responsibility to living things to internalize this information and make the right decision for the welfare of creatures that can’t speak for themselves. The question is not a complicated one: how much do you value the life of another living being?

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