Just wondering if anyone else has seen this? I think it's put me off eggs for good. It's not for those that have a weak stomach. WARNING THERE ARE POPUPS!!



MOD NOTE: WARNING - GRAPHIC PICTURES

http://www.attilahildmann.com/en/no_eggs/no_egg.html

Hope I don't offend anyone, I saw it on another site and it made a real impact on me.

The owner of that site registered here about a week ago.



I hadn't seen that particular section of his site though.



Very strange. The author had to go out of his way to obtain a egg that he knew had been fertilized, and then film every step of opening it. So other than grossing people out I'm not sure what the point was.... Obviously fertilized eggs aren't vegetarian. But the chances of running across a fertilized egg in the store are what, 1 in 100000 if that?

I don't know, but when I worked as a cook at Denny's it seemed like we cracked open quite a few.

wow

Well, I'm a vegetarian and I personally don't eat eggs. I've had no problem finding various egg substitutes to cook with. My husband who became a vegetarian under my guidance was shocked to find out that there are vegetarians who eat eggs. My sister is a vegan and describes eggs as being "40 hours of hell for a chicken", or something like that.



Ok, this is kind of nasty, but I always refer to eggs as 'chicken menstration' because they're shedding their unfertilized eggs just like a human, right? Nasty I know.

^^ your period is the lining of your womb right? not the actual egg. Or if it is the egg, you can barley see it because it's so tiny. They're different, but yeah, I've heard a lot of people say that.

I believe the bulk of a woman's period is the lining of the womb, but I heard in the last day of it the egg also comes out with the last bit of blood, so yeah, it's pretty much the same as a hen laying an egg, only much smaller

But that's just it. I eat eggs - Organic only, because the only problem I see with them is the industry. The way they are normally produced is apalling. The treatment of the chickens is as bad as chicken Meat farms. But being against eggs is like being against a woman having her period. Perhaps it doesn't appeal to you, but does it hurt the chicken?

But organic eggs aren't anymore humane than regular eggs. Even the humane raised, cage free eggs say that the chickens can be debeaked.



Definitions from the Humane Society website (http://www.hsus.org/farm/resources/p...g_cartons.html)



Certified Organic*: The birds are uncaged inside barns or warehouses, and are required to have outdoor access (although there have been concerns about lax enforcement, with some large-scale producers not providing birds meaningful access to the outdoors). They are fed an organic, all-vegetarian diet free of antibiotics and pesticides, as required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program. Debeaking and forced molting through starvation are permitted. Compliance is verified through third-party auditing.



Free-Range: While the USDA has defined the meaning of "free-range" for some poultry products, there are no standards in "free-range" egg production. Typically, free-range egg-laying hens are uncaged inside barns or warehouses and have some degree of outdoor access. They can engage in many natural behaviors such as nesting and foraging. However, there is no information on stocking density, the frequency or duration of outdoor access, or the quality of the land accessible to the birds. There is no information regarding what the birds can be fed. Debeaking and forced molting through starvation are permitted. There is no third-party auditing.



Certified Humane*: The birds are uncaged inside barns or warehouses, but may be kept indoors at all times. They must be able to perform natural behaviors such as nesting, perching, and dust bathing. There are requirements for stocking density and number of perches and nesting boxes. Forced molting through starvation is prohibited, but debeaking is allowed. Compliance is verified through third-party auditing. Certified Humane is a program of Humane Farm Animal Care.



Cage-Free: As the term implies, hens laying eggs labeled as "cage-free" are uncaged inside barns or warehouses, but generally do not have access to the outdoors. They have the ability to engage in many of their natural behaviors such as walking, nesting, and spreading their wings. Debeaking and forced molting through starvation are permitted. There is no third-party auditing.

It depends how the chickens are raised. If they're rasied as pets then I'm sure the chickens are treated fine. But if they're raised on a commercial farm (organic or not) then you can safely bet that chickens are not living a fulfilling life and are probably recieving any number of abuses.

And then when they stop producing at the level that the (commercial, organic or not) farm would like them to, they're killed just like any other chicken. Crammed into small cages (it doesn't matter who gets hurt at that point) and then driven to a slaughterhouse, with all the pain, fear, and abuse that that incurs.

The only way I would ever say it is ethical to eat eggs would be if you had companion chickens (if we ignore the ethical dilema of keeping companion animals) who lay eggs anyway and would just rot if you left them, and even then I still wouldn't eat them, I'd rather give them to my mother or someone else who buys factory farmed eggs to stop them doing that.

A friend of mine told me that our local Whole Foods has started carrying fertilized eggs. Apparently the justification is that if the hens have access to a rooster they're happier.

I haven't had time or money to go to Whole Foods in quite a while so I can't verify that they actually do carry fertilized eggs. Nor am I convinced that fertilized eggs=happy chickens.

Who would buy a fertilized egg?

Hens with roosters are certainly not necessarily happier than hens without roosters. In fact, hens often dislike being mounted by the rooster and try to get away from him. Some just plain do not like having sex at all, such as my hen Kiwi, who is the best mother hen, but hates being jumped on by rooster Frank (or any other rooster) because she has a bad back and legs (some kind of congenital dwarfism). Other hens get jumped on so often their feathers are worn off and they can get bad cuts from the rooster's claws, which can in the worst case kill them.

I wonder if that duck egg was free range...



hmmm...



But hey, it's not born yet right? Which means it's not huma..i mean a duck, so it should be fine to eat, as it is nothing more then an abnormal growth.

You know there is an easy solution to the delemia o not wanting to eat a baby bird when eatign an egg.

Do not buy fertilized eggs.

That depends on how developed it is and whether or not it's viable .

I refuse to eat boiled eggs, or really eggs of any form- scrambled, fried *gag*

I am lacto-ovo however because I still eat cookies and things with eggs in them.

This is so weird to be showing up now. I was having lunch with two co-workers yesterday who were talking about eating fertilized eggs as a delicacy. They are both of Philipino descent and are always discussing foods that the older, more traditional members of their family eat. They were both rather disgusted with the egg thing although one of them said that she had tried it to get her grandfather off her case and it was feathery and beaky and chewy.

It made me sick then and is making me sick now just thinking about it.

I have no freaking idea. I have a hard enough time buy unfertilized eggs (at the moment I only have a couple on hand to feed to the hedgehog).

so sad.. actually brought tears to my eyes

I couldn't depend on the definitions based on the government. I know that the industry will say one thing and do another when the inspector is not around. So I have my own chickens. I know that they are organic and are not caged up. They look so happy walking around and enjoying life.

This video is very interesting and I think I am going to show it to my coworkers. Maybe, I will get some converts from it!!

The author supported an evil in order to hurt it. In other words, supporting the company by buying that one egg will turn many people off to eating eggs, leading to less eggs being consumed and the industry not being as supported as it would otherwise be. It's like what the guy from "Supersize Me" did. He supported a company that he did not like in order to reveal the evils of it. Good for him.

I understand that much. I guess I just don't understand why seeing pictures of a fertilized egg would stop people from eating unfertilized eggs.



ETA: Unless maybe someone doesn't understand basic biology and thinks eggs = unborn chickens. heh

EWWW! is that what I'm really eating when I eat eggs? I feel seriously quesy now. . I mean is the baby bird the yolk part of the egg? im confused or do they sell the eggs before the baby starts developing?

No, the baby bird is not part of the egg. There is no baby developing at all inside of an unfertilized egg.

No, the yolk is the part the bird inside the egg relies on for nutrition. Even if the egg was fertilised, the chick wouldn't develop unless it was incubated.



Some diagrams of bird development that show the difference quite well: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bo...bio/ch2f22.jpg

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bo...io/ch15f33.jpg

Misguided, I think, is the word which best sums up that site for me. (With disturbing coming in a close second.)



"Modern factory farming is bad and chickens are kept in poor conditionshere's a dead baby duck in an egg to prove it."



Cheers!

TJ

The piece of paper arguement works well in my experience. Just the other day at work someone was talking about how sad it is that animals are mistreated on farms, and the subject turned to eggs, so I used the paper example to show the government guidelines for the amount of space an egg-laying hen is required to have. Looking at a sheet of paper folded into an 8x8" square and imagining a chicken being "basically" given only that much space to live is a bit, sad. http://www.eggindustry.com/