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Do you think
Do you think that chickens should be treated well?
I am not a very big egg fan anyway but when I do eat them, I'd prefer to have free-range chickens. At the store the eggs have numbers on them.
3- They are cooped up in little cages each day.
2- They get to be on the ground which might sound good but you never know how many chickens are in one square foot.
1- Free Range.
We get the Grade 2 chicken eggs. I have tried to make my dad get Grade 1 but they're a euro more and he says Grade 2 is good anyway. Do you think free-range chicken eggs would taste better? I know, I am absolutely crazy (ask Sister.) But what do you think?
submitted by Elizabeth M. , age 12, Germany
(October 4, 2011 - 10:07 am)
(October 4, 2011 - 10:07 am)
Free range chickens DO taste better, but I only know that because my friend keeps them and we got eggs from her. And I say "got" because... I'm 16 hours away now, which puts a damper on the whole getting eggs thing.
The free range = better taste thing is true of anything, I might add. Especially beef. You have not eaten beef until you eat free range beef.
(October 4, 2011 - 7:02 pm)
Now all I need is a way to convince my family of that. *sigh* Sister thinks I am a lunatic.
Free range beef. Wow. That must taste good, though they don't eat a lot of beef here so I have to wait till I get back to the USA to eat it... What exactly is the difference? Is it juicier?
I wonder if free range lettuce tastes better...
(October 5, 2011 - 11:10 am)
Lol! XD I bet free range lettuce does taste better. ;)
(October 5, 2011 - 7:34 pm)
Free range beef is leaner and more evenly marbled, because it takes a lot longer to mature a cow on hay and grass than it does on corn, but on the other hand they don't end up morbidly obese and their livers stay in good condition. There's more flavor in a grass fed steak than a corn fed one, too.
(October 6, 2011 - 11:38 am)
I definitely think chickens should be treated well. I'm allergic to eggs and don't eat chicken, though.
Most non-free-range livestock are treated quite badly, I'm afraid, but that's especially true of chickens. I'm sure there's a reason for that (probably not a good reason but an existent one), but I don't know what it is.
Free-range lettuce doesn't exist, of course, but there is organic lettuce. I haven't noticed a difference in taste between organic and non-organic produce taste (except apple juice, but I don't prefer the taste of either kind; I don't eat lettuce), but my brother thinks organic things taste better in general, so you might, too. Of course, that doesn't improve animal welfare, but it's better for the environment and healthier. I think it' the closest thing there is...
(October 5, 2011 - 9:01 pm)
People often don't use the Roosters and I've heard really brutal stories about how they murder them. I want to raise chickens but I don't think that would work in my neighborhood...
We started drinking 3.8% milk (organic) and it tastes SO much better. It tastes like it's just from the cow. Yum. The other stuff appears really yucky to me now.
I just completely forgot what I wanted to ask... :)
(October 6, 2011 - 12:06 pm)
My parents are both very (excuse the expression) ;) down to earth, so almost all our food is organic, and a lot of it tastes better than non-organic stuff. It is slightly more expensive most of the time, but it's all worth it. :)
(October 6, 2011 - 5:02 pm)
@TNÖ- Corn hurts cow livers?
I am also into the whole organic thing. Problem: I am the only one in my family. i mean we have four vegetarian meals a week and three carnivore but that's not really organic. :)
(October 7, 2011 - 11:01 am)
Carnivore? I think you mean omnivore; carnivore means eating only meat. It would kind of defeat the point to eat 4 meals per week of only vegetables and 3 of only meat; it would be unhealthy, too. It's quite a common mistake, though! (Also, even vegetarians are technically omnivores because that's what our bodies are built for. I think it's fine to call meals omnivore or not, though).
Our garden is completely organic, and we eat a lot of organic things, but if the store my mom is at at a given time lacks the organic version of what we need, she buys the regular version. I'm trying to make it more of a priority with my food, and I think it's working, because she really cares about it, too.
I'm vegetarian; my brother eats meat, but not every day, and only free-range (and/or fish because they don't have horrid lives like domestic meat animals). My parents eat meat, though, and we're fine with that.
I didn't know about livers specifically, but I'd also heard that corn is really unhealthy for cows. Too many people use it, though, and not just in meat, because it's cheap to buy. Unfortunately, that's bad for the corn farmers, too; they're getting poorer and poorer because the price keeps dropping. They also have to keep growing more and more to make any money at all, which is also bad because it takes up space that was once natural (obviously it's not their fault; I don't want them to go bankrupt, but they ought to be given other options!). Normally I'd say that basically, if there's corn in a product that you can't see or taste (because the kind you taste is a different kind without all these problems), I'd say I really don't advise eating it, except that it's in so many things I just wouldn't ask it of anyone. It's insane.
Oh, and I try not to eat much palm oil because it's a major contributor to orangutan habitat loss. My mom never uses it in my food, although if I find some storebought thing really delicious with it in it, I won't refuse it.
As you point out, Ima, I think many people use the term carnivore/carnivorous to describe someone who eats meat, whether or not they eat others things (omnivore/omnivorous) or not.
Admin
(October 8, 2011 - 11:48 am)
Ok. I have a lot to say about this.
1. Watch Food Inc. One of the most scarring documentaries that I have ever seen. It is three or four years old now, but it really exposes the way animals are treated, and also the way the workers are treated, and some of the companies are able to get away with this because the workers are often illegal immigrants.
2. I've seen Food Inc. Twice. The second time was only a few weeks ago, and I'm down to eating meat once or maybe twice a week, and I'm trying to make it less.
3. I'm in our school's Robotics program, which is done by First Lego League, and there's a big competition every year. Each year there's a different theme. This year's is food safety, so all the missions that the robot (my team's is called Finn) has to do involve food or contamination. There's also the teamwork part to the competition, and then the really big one, the research project. The entire group has to participate in the presentation, and the group this year has a lot to live up to because last year, the girls team won 1st. At state. We're doing ours on contaminated honey, and you'd be suprised what there is about it. That's why we watched Food Inc, because of the whole food safety thing.
After my personal experiences...
4. Yes, the chickens should be treated well. Definitely a lot better than the way it is right now. And the same goes for the cows and the pigs too.
5. Part of the problem is that we eat too much food that we don't normally eat. Normally, as in the way our ancestors from long, long ago ate. Our taste buds are wired to look for sweet, salt, and oil. Then we get into other things.
6. In my opinion, there are too many people on the planet. We're almost hitting 7 billion. The cows, chickens, and pigs, can't support that. Part of the reason they're treated so cruelly is because there is a demand for that food.
And then comes my political ideas, but I won't talk about those, because some of that stuff might have been too political, but I don't know....
7. SSSSOOOO, to answer the question, yes the chickens should be treated well. And so should the cows. And the pigs.
8. I don't know what it's like in Germany, but for some of the chicken places, the chickens aren't in cages. They're in buildings. That have no lights. And are not cleaned. And there are no windows. And they step in their own poop all day and night and are literally piled on top of each other.
9. So, the chickens should be treated well.
(October 7, 2011 - 5:41 pm)
I agree. I think some European nations have stricter laws about it than the U.S, though, so Germany could be one of those.
I haven't watched Food Inc, but if there's ever a diet change I want to make for ethical reasons but am having trouble with, I might consider it.
While we're on the subject of food ethics, what does everyone think of genetically modified foods? I basically have 2 opiinions: One, that a study actually be done on the long-term effects of eating them so that we can at least know if they're unhealthy or not, and two, that they should all be labled as genetically modifed--people have a right to know what they're eating, at least! Before a study is done about their effects, I'd rather not eat them, but when a study is done, if it shows that they're not any less healthy than regular food, I won't have a problem with eating them, although I would still want them to always be labeled because some people have other reasons for not wanting them. Those are not enough to convince me that these are bad, but if other people are convinced, they should have a choice about their own food. Granted, I doubt they can be much worse for you than pesticides.
(October 8, 2011 - 12:02 pm)
This is one of the topics that worries me...
Food Inc- on my list of MUST WATCH movies.
Genetically modified food- *shudders*
I'm going to try to start eating only "happy meat" but that would mean giving up things like sausage and pot roast (my favorite way to eat beef)
for the organic, more expensive happy meat.
(October 9, 2011 - 9:52 am)
Free-range sausage exists. My brother eats it. If you can't find any, let me know; I can ask my mom (she's the one who actually buys the food, so I think she's more likely to konw the most) for information. I don't know about pot roast, though.
If you want to make a change that involves giving up a food you like, it helps to do it in stages, having it less and less often until you don't feel the need for it anymore. That's what I did when I became vegetarian.
You'd just need to buy free-range beef to make free-range pot roast. The pot roasting is just the way of cooking it.
Admin
(October 9, 2011 - 2:08 pm)
I guess I didn't explain that I'm also going to give up "mooshed-up" meat and that's why I'm not eating sausage or hot dogs-or bologna. (sp???) I don't even like that anyway!
(October 10, 2011 - 8:18 pm)
I'm a vegan, so I don't eat eggs at all. But at the moment I don't feel like going all animal right activist on you guys, so I won't start ranting about it. :P
(October 10, 2011 - 4:07 pm)