Chicken Shit

I was reading a post from a woman who claimed to eat only those eggs laid by organically fed, free range chickens. This got me to thinking...

First, I should probably admit that in my younger days I read a great deal of science fiction. In many of the stories I enjoyed, the future was bleak, the earth overgrown with skyscrapers, with trees and wood long gone, and hamburgers and bacon a thing of the distant past. These people ate pills or synthetics, but that was rarely the point of the story.

Anyway, like I said, this egg eating woman got me to thinking. I have absolutely no facts on which to back any of this up, and have never farmed. My notion of "free range" chickens is based on nostalgic whimsy, movies, and some recollections from my mom (who grew up on a farm). I'm a city boy.

I'm sure that egg growers use horrifically efficient methods. I'm sure chickens nowdays live their entire life caged in one cubic foot pens stacked fifteen high and are continually fed chemical laden food pellets. These chickens, I'm sure, have never tasted sweet clover, poppy seeds, or an earthworm. They're little more than egg producing machines, and I think they do a pretty damn good job of it.

Free range chickens, on the other hand, I picture as spending their days strolling around, chatting with their friends, taking long baths is pristine water, and generally primping themselves for rooster visits. At the end of the day they waddle back to a comfy straw nest and lay an egg which some rosy-cheeked girl will pick up the next morning and carry gently in her apron.

So I get to thinking about the poster's proclivity (if that's the right word) for these eggs. There's no doubt they're better and healthier, but I wonder how practical they are, now that we're in the 21st century. I wonder why we don't *all* have these delicious eggs, and it occurs to me that we can't.

There are close to three hundred million people in the US alone. If half of them have one egg a week, that's 7,800,000,000 eggs a year. I have a feeling we've outgrown the ability to feed ourselves through romantic means. Not only do I not know anyone willing to give up their cushy office or technical job to wake up at six to feed chickens, I've met several people who've *had* that life and have chosen, instead, to become assistant underwriters or filing clerks.

We're creating an elitist culture, here, based on food. The only way we can produce enough omelettes and pancake batter, french toast and egg drop soup is to manufacture eggs the way we're doing it. It's fucked for the chickens in the cages, I admit, but last I saw they had a brain about the size of my thumbnail and, after dealing with heart and lungs and producing massive amounts of chicken shit each day, I'm guessing there isn't much brain power left for aspirations and sorrow.

I may not like it, but we no longer have the room or people to individually cater to chickens just so we can eat guilt-free eggs. I remember reading someplace that without the farming efficiencies of the last fifty years, this planet couldn't support the people we have. One of the reasons in the explosion of population is because we can eat.

And to return to a quaint way of farming would be to sentence a billion people to starvation.

So if you enjoy organically fed, free range chickens, fine. I had one at a restaurant and it was tasty, just like chicken. But I think it's absurd to take pride in showing off that you're rich enough and elite enought to afford to eat better than the world allows.