Hello Farm Friends,
I wanted to take a moment to try and answer a series of questions that we typically get from our farm friends. For starters, why is there such a wide range in the price of a dozen eggs? What is the difference in quality? Why can we go to the supermarket and purchase them for $2 a dozen and yet some small
farms charge as much as $1 an egg? I am confused about what to purchase and how much I should spend when I do. Would you please address these questions?
You may have heard the saying, "You are what you eat", but you are actually what your
animal eats. Therefore, it becomes very important to understand what God created a chicken to eat and how we can best feed and house these valuable creatures.
In past centuries, Fowl of all kinds simply ate the grasses and herbs of the
field along with what small insects and worms could be foraged. The diet of these animals was truly natural; defined as what God provided for them to eat apart from man's intervention. The people who ate eggs or flesh from these birds had little concern for the impact the animal's diet would have on them. It was a perfect system!
As we learned to pen up and raise our own meat and eggs, all remained well as long as we abided by the laws of the nature God created. But as time went forward, the desire to increase profits drove us to take short cuts. A mono-crop of small grains, sprayed
with a smorgasbord of toxins to provide cheap feed became the norm. The grass, the bugs, and the fresh sunlight, became unnecessary and therefore were done away with. The end result was a compromised product damaging to our health and the environment we all live in.
The world we live in today is anything but natural. The feeds that are created for these chickens are full of GMO's - genetically modified organisms. These new seeds are created in laboratories and are wreaking havoc on the health of the animals and the people that eat the eggs that they lay.
In most cases, these eggs are produced by chickens that are confined to small cages where literally the group of chickens that are packed into these cramped quarters cannot all sit down at the same time since space
is so limited. The pens are equipped with sloped floors so that the eggs roll out onto a conveyor, no nesting material, no fresh air and no ability to scratch in the earth. The animals are treated as machines to crank out eggs and the quality of the product is horrendous. Garbage in, garbage out! But if you want $2 a dozen eggs this is how you achieve it.
But what about non-GMO eggs? Since GMO's came onto the scene in the late 90's, those of us that are health conscious have worked very hard to restrict them from our diets. That is certainly commendable. However, the commercial food has been unhealthy long before GMO's ever showed up. I am not saying that we should not be
trying to get the GMO's out, I am simply making the point that GMO's are not the only problem. So, if we focus on purchasing eggs that are non-GMO it sounds like we now are left with a healthy product, but that simply is not true.
Non-GMO chicken
feed is touted as today's healthy feed, but this is nothing more than yesterday's (pre-1990's) commercial chicken house ration. This feed is full of antibiotics and grains that are grown with all sorts of commercial fertilizers and insecticides. These are not the ingredients for heathy eggs and just because we are trying to avoid GMO's we should not be forced to accept all of these other poisons as a healthy alternative. If you would like eggs for $3.50 to say $6.00, this is generally what you
are getting.
