Food ethics… OR …yes, chickens have feelings, too

When I was in college my dear friend Susan told me that egg production was the cruelest form of animal management. I believed her…after all she should have known because she was phi beta kappa in animal husbandry at a very good program with a working farm and everything. And I remember the working farm part because of the cow that stepped on my foot at “ag” (short for agriculture) field day.

Ag field day was a pivotal day for me because it was the day that underlined for me the complete impracticality of my educational choices. I chose a very crunchy sort of a school to attend, one where I could fully express my eccentric, hermitlike, bookish leanings as much as I wanted as well as have my very old room in a stone building with very bad heat. I loved it, but it was not practical. I was studying things like ancient Greek (…I decided on that because I loved the Rosetta stone and my friends, impractical as I was said “cool” and not “are you nuts?!!” when I declared that I would study a dead language…good friends), Dante (infernariffic), Dickens, and “independent study” which involved reading a lot of thick, fat, useless Victorian Novels. So fun. And chock full of people who cared deeply about the fates of cows and baby veals.

Anyway, Susan, who is now a bird keeper at one of the leading wildlife conservation institutions in the world, was learning how to do cool stuff, like how to keep cows from dying, to shear sheep, to manage pigs (very smart animals). Her job now is to keep very important endangered species animals from dying. I write things up and negotiate with other people in how to write them up. Not really substantive.

I remembered what Susan said to me about egg management again when I was flying back from Frankfurt (or possibly Munich—business trip connections—because writing cannot be done on computer and emailed all the time in these confusing times) reading a book by Peter Singer, leading ethics guy and activist-type person. For the first time I am sorry I never tried to attend Princeton (not that I would necessarily have gotten in—it’s highly competitive—but at least should have tried.)

Photo of baby chickens dyed strange colors, but at least not stuffed in a cage with beaks seared off with hot irons.

Don’t get me wrong. Over the years I have read dozens of books on food and food ethics. Beyond Beef, Fast Food Nation, Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Jungle…. And as a relatively rabid Gordon Ramsay fan, I have learned over the past few years about human animal management by watching The F-Word. (Food)

I have stopped eating eggs, then forgotten why and then been reminded of why at least a dozen times. I tended to buy the “cage free” eggs, thinking that I would prefer to have Foghorn Leghorn type chicken eggs than ones from Poindexter-like chicken who would have been happy enough in a cage. Singer explained, finally, why exactly, I had been doing this all these years.

Finally, I am listening to Susan and vowing (now that I live in a city full of Whole Foods Markets) to start making more ethical food choices.

To wit: In the past two days I resisted the urge to buy Hostess chocolate cupcakes—yummy but possibly tainted by slave labor (chocolate not listed on the slave-free chocolate web site) and caged chickens; chicken salad at Bruegger’s Bagels (delish bagels, BTW)—unsure of the provenance of the chicken (of course idiotically forgot what was in bagels then remembered they do not always have eggs—whew); and vowed only to buy European, local organic, and Mexican cheeses because they are from places that are nicer to cows. I bought free range chicken, fair trade tea (twice at local bookstore), and then realized why this is so hard. Even if I do manage to be better about food, I am still possibly buying goods made by slave labor, leather byproducts of various inhumane industries, and let’s face it, I live in a society where my ability to buy organic, fair-trade, and other better things is in fact somehow predicated on the fact that my nation is wealthy and able to exploit other nations to make these choices possible. I therefore turned down a few cunning products from sketchy provenances, and vowed to seek advice from one of my political scientist friends.

But enough negativity.

I was quite excited when I read that McDonald’s had adopted high standards for animal ethics (I do find their cute little burgers to be so delicious), but a bit sad when I realized that even McDonald’s was having trouble controlling its suppliers in the US.

I am now vowing to make at least one ethically better food and goods choice each day, and I will try very hard to list them here on my blog.

Bagel image from National Institutes of Health is in the public domain. Chicken image by nsaum and posted in Wikipedia used under creative commons license.