Free-range Phonies - The Egg Issue
The Age
Tuesday March 11, 2008
The ethical dilemma of putting the chicken before a breakfast favourite.
YOU know what's a good omelet? Ham-and-cheese omelet. Hmm. That's a nice omelet. And the great thing about a ham-and-cheese omelet - apart from the fact that it tastes just so super - is that it's great to share with somebody special for breakfast. When making an omelet you can use one of those specially designed omelet makers with the fancy hinges that folds the omelet over, which is a key part in omelet construction.Much better, though, to go old-school and do the omelet in a pan with oil and a spatula. That way you get the satisfaction of having to survive third-degree burns as specks of white-hot oil come flying at you out of the pan. Because breakfast time is fun time.Now, acquiring the ingredients for your ham-and-cheese omelet is where things can get tricky. The ham and the cheese are no problem. You go to the supermarket, you get them off the shelf. Sorted. Eggs, however, are another matter.Eggs used to be a no-brainer. An egg was an egg was an egg. But then the issue of chicken welfare came into the picture. Footage of chickens confined to crowded cages being forced to produce eggs at an unnatural rate shocked us all. We became guilty. How could we enjoy our ham-and-cheese omelet now, knowing that the poor chicken who laid the eggs did so under such duress?The move to liberate the chickens and give them a decent standard of living on the farm before being shipped off to Colonel Sanders got a lot of support. The idea that chickens should be allowed to leisurely lay their eggs in comfort while roaming around the farm doing whatever it is that chickens do with their free time captured the public's sense of what's right - even though uncaged chickens basically spend the bulk of their downtime scratching the ground, eating, clucking and looking at other chickens.The campaign only half-succeeded, however. Thus, when you go to the supermarket now to collect the eggs for your ham-and-cheese omelet you are faced with a difficult choice.You can either buy "free-range" eggs or "non-free-range". The "non-free-range" eggs were laid by chickens under forced labour. The "free-range" eggs were laid by free chickens who had been given the run of the farm. They produce guilt-free eggs. Moral eggs. Peace-of-mind eggs. They also cost a lot more, these eggs.The farmers who produce the non-free-range eggs still have to keep their chickens relatively happy, but they can produce more eggs at lower cost. The free-rangers, however, incur higher costs, due mainly to the demands of the free-range chickens for cable TV and internet access.So, what to do? You want your ham-and-cheese omelet. You want to support freedom for chickens. But you also have a house payment to meet. It's an ethical dilemma.Here's what you do. You invest in one carton of free-range eggs. You use the eggs for your ham-and-cheese omelets, but you keep the carton. Then on subsequent visits to the supermarket you pick up the cheapest eggs you can find and then simply transfer the eggs into the free-range carton when you get home.That way anyone visiting your house will be mightily impressed by the fact that you have chosen to spend those few extra cents in the interests of chicken welfare, even though it is a complete lie. This is called being a free-range phoney and it works a treat because nobody can tell a free-range egg from a non-free-range egg, no matter what they tell you.Just do yourself a favour and don't use the line about omelets being a great breakfast food as a pick-up line, because it does not work.
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