Rose Acre Farms, the self-described second-largest egg producer in the United States, recently recalled more than 206 million eggs that were distributed in nine states _ Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia _ because they may have been contaminated with harmful salmonella bacteria. As of this writing, the eggs _ which came from an egg farm in Hyde County, North Carolina _ have been linked to at least 22 salmonella infections.
If you're experiencing deja vu, you may be remembering a 2010 salmonella outbreak that was traced to Quality Egg in Iowa. That one officially sickened more than 1,900 people, although authorities estimate that as many as 56,000 people may have experienced cramps, diarrhea or other symptoms of a salmonella infection.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, salmonella infections cause about 1.2 million illnesses and 450 deaths every year in the U.S. People who don't want to get sick from salmonella poisoning _ or contribute to animal suffering _ should stop eating eggs and products that contain them.
While not every carton of eggs is contaminated with harmful bacteria, every carton does involve cruelty. There are about 386 million hens being raised for eggs in the U.S. each year, and most spend their lives confined to battery cages, which are stacked on top of each other in tiers inside huge warehouses. Feces from the birds in the top cages constantly fall on the birds below and into the huge manure pits that line the sheds. Salmonella bacteria, which live in the intestines and feces of animals, can flourish in such putrid conditions.
On commercial egg farms, birds aren't able to build nests or engage in natural behavior such as roosting or foraging. Each one lives in a space that's smaller than a letter-size sheet of paper _ it's not enough room even to stretch out a single wing. Many sustain crippling leg injuries from standing on wire 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Farmers manipulate their food and the lighting in the warehouses as a way to force their bodies to produce more eggs than they would naturally. They also cut off a portion of each hen's sensitive beak with a hot blade _ and without any pain relief _ to prevent the birds from pecking at each other out of stress and desperation.
When hens' egg production declines, they're sent to the slaughterhouse, where their throats are cut and they're often scalded to death. Because male birds don't produce eggs and are too small to be used profitably for their flesh, they're ground up alive or thrown into trash bags to suffocate when only a day old.
So, if you pictured a red barn with happy hens outside pecking the ground when you read the words "egg farm" in the first paragraph, you must have been misled by an image on an egg carton or in a children's book. Rose Acre Farms' Hyde County facility has 3 million hens and produces about 2.3 million eggs a day.
After the salmonella outbreak in 2010, many consumers scrambled to buy eggs from "cage-free" or organic farms, thinking that they'd be healthier and more humane, but terms such as "cage-free" or "free-range" are often just more fairy tales. According to a Popular Science article, up to 86 percent of hens on "cage-free" egg farms incur broken breast bones, largely because cages have been replaced with crowded sheds that give birds no access to the outdoors _ hardly an improvement.
But it's not just our farming practices that need to change _ our eating habits need to change, too. Instead of using eggs, opt for Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Egg Replacer for baked goods, or make your own egg substitutes from chia seeds or ground flax seeds and water. Try Follow Your Heart's VeganEgg, scrambled tofu with seasonings and other eggcellent-tasting vegan foods.
