Eggs

Out of respect for my Dead Dog Dancing in the Sky, dear Nichol-bubba, and out of concern for all of us, I've got to comment about eggs and Salmonella. Reports of contaminated eggs have rung from the television and internet with a slightly hysterical tone. "Be afraid," they seem to me to say, "Be very afraid of your food."

The scoop: 228 million eggs were recalled for suspected Salmonella contamination. All the eggs in question were produced in Galt, Iowa by Wright County Egg. Today, in our gas-guzzling food production system, those eggs have been distributed far and wide under more than a dozen brand names – including Lucerne, Albertson's, Farm Fresh (fresh, I doubt it), and many more. And yes, we should be afraid of industrial eggs. Science shows that forcing hens to suffer inside cramped cages increases Salmonella risk compared to keeping hens in a cage-free environment. Each of the nearly 280 million caged hens cannot even spread her wings, living in less space than a sheet of paper.

This is the reason we began our home-grown chicken project about seven years ago. We wanted fresh eggs from healthy happy hens. The healthy part's a no-brainer. Who wants Salmonella or other contaminants in their food? Unhealthy hens cannot make healthy eggs, period. In addition, I firmly believe that suffering comes right up the food chain to us one way or another, just as life and beauty can come bountifully our way along with protein, vitamins, and minerals.

Nicholai seemed to hold affection for his chickens. He protected them, like he protected us, waking us at night if he heard any disturbance. For a time we kept a couple of roosters and Nicholai was all about keeping them in line (one of the guys was a bully, the other a soft-touch). One day, I heard the bird-boys fighting and rushed into the run, failing to latch the gate behind me. Nicholai followed at my heels and rushed past me, past the cowering hens, and jumped on the offender, holding him down till I arrived. Momentarily I panicked, thinking my good boy was going to murder the cocky rooster. But in a second I could see he was merely holding him down, insisting he surrender; when a hundred pound dog pounces on a bird and doesn't hurt it, you know he didn't mean to.

Nicholai quickly put two and two together and deduced that yummy eggs came out of the chicken coop, whether he knew the hens made them, I don't know. But on many a nice evening, chickens and dogs would gather around the outside table hoping for (and getting) scraps from our dinner. While Nicholai chomped his Sunday afternoon recreational meaty bones in the back yard, the hens would putz around, pecking delights from the grass nearby.

Chickens are meant to have chicken lives, not live as perpetual prisoners, suffering every day of their lives. No wonder eggs become contaminated. And labels so often tell a half-truth, if any truth at all.

But we have other options. We don't have to be afraid of food but we should be afraid of our current food system. We can do a smidge of homework, know our farmer, visit the farm, have our own chickens. We can make it different for all the dogs like Nicholai who will die untimely deaths from cancer.

We can make it different for all of us.