Many of us grew up with a vision of farms as lovely places where animals frolicked in beautiful pastures and socialized with other animals while they ate themselves full. They had places to go when it rained or got too cold, but had the choice to be outside as well.
That may have been the way back then in the ‘good ol’ days’, but now most of our meat and dairy comes from factory farms where there simply is not enough space for the multitudes of animals that are kept. They are kept indoors for their whole lives, some cramped in so tightly with other animals, they cannot ever stretch and some can’t even turn around.
Thankfully, some farms are working toward better practices and higher standards of animal care.
And many small scale organic farmers are doing their best to provide us with healthy food, to take better care of their animals as well, allowing them free-range to the outdoors, and providing veterinary care when necessary – just caring more in general.
Still, most of us buy the cheapest meat, and the cheapest eggs and dairy we can find – this is not at no expense. Animals are living tortured lives so that farmers can get these cheap products to us. As long as there is demand, this will continue.
How many of us would still eat cheap eggs if we saw this picture from ‘Mercy for Animals’ website?
There are better ways to get your eggs-visit a local farm and get them from healthy and truly free-range chickens. Many companies say their chickens are ‘free-range’ but really they are not. Having access to a door you can never get to because of over-crowding to is not ‘free-range’.
Do your research. Be critical. Visit the farm yourself.
There are so many local farms, even near large cities. Do it for yourself and do it for the animals.
Or go vegan and make a delicious tofu scramble – tastes so much eggs it’s hard to tell the difference!
Here’s a great tofu scramble recipe on ‘thevword blog’ I’m going to try this week-end:
http://thevword.net/2012/03/southwestern-tofu-scramble-with-greens.html#comment-6400
veganlivinggirl 
Dear NEWVEGANLLORRELL,
RE: The Truth About Eggs.
Please do not buy into the misrepresentations of small-scale, “family” animal agriculture and their claims of being different in a meaningful way from mainstream animal agriculture. Eggs kill chickens and male chicks, debeaking is often the norm, and after eighteen months or less, egg production falls off to the point it is no longer profitable to keep the hens alive. In the same manner, milk kills calves and their mothers. These are going to happen in both small and large-scale exploitation businesses.
I retained my eBook rights to “This Is Hope: Green Vegans and the New Human Ecology”. It covers these and many other issues related to veganism. I will send you a free eBook copy. Just let me know if you use ePub or mobi (for Kindle). Paperback rights belong to my publisher, so you’d need to order if that is your preference. A donation will be made to greenvegans.org if you use that webpage to order. All the best, Will Anderson, author
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I’d love a copy of your e-book but I’m not very tecchie–I read every day but good old fashioned old fashioned paper books! I will check it out though.
Thanks for your comments-some people around me are trying to make better choices by buying eggs, milk and meat from local farmers – somewhat better than the grocery store although I know for me – veganism is the way.
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