This makes me really angry: According to a new post on the Austin Fresh Daily blog, H-E-B is selling eggs that fail to conform to The Cornucopia Institute’s recommendations for ethically produced organic eggs. This is really upsetting, because Celebrity Intern and I have always made a point of purchasing Eggland’s Best eggs, under the assumption that the labels indicating that these eggs were better for our health. Despite the labels “cage-free” and “organic,” these eggs have been found by the Cornucopia Institute’s ratings to be neither.
As per the detailed description on Cornucopia’s website:
Eggland’s Best misleadingly tells its customers that the company “adopted very stringent welfare regulations.” However, the only third party certification they adhere to for their caged hens is the United Egg Producers Animal Welfare program (the industry trade/lobby group), which only guarantees that hens have access to feed and water—the standards do not even require that hens have enough space to stretch their wings. In fact, the standards are so lax and industry-friendly that they even allow cages—which are of course prohibited in organic production.
More disturbingly:
One of the twelve suppliers for Egg‐Land’s Best Organic eggs is Cal‐Maine, the largest egg agribusiness in the United States.
Indeed, Cal-Maine is cited in the Austin Fresh Daily article as having the following unsatisfactory conditions:
Birds laying eggs on top of rotting corpses of other hens were discovered. The Humane Society’s investigation team also documented eggs covered in feces and blood as well as birds confined in cages so small, they were unable to spread their wings.
Grossed out? It gets worse: Cal-Maine’s eggs were recalled last August, thanks to salmonella infections of thousands of Americans. Factory farming produces bad eggs, through these utterly negligent practices. The proof is in the pudding, as they say… or in the salmonella-poisoned eggs produced by this agri-business that claims to produce a more healthful alternative to other, less expensive eggs.
If this bothers you, as I’m sure it does, here are a few steps to take to fight back:
- Send H-E-B a message. Tell them you don’t want to eat faux-organic eggs, and that you demand better. Ask them to stock their shelves with choices from the 4 (or better yet 5!)-egg rated eggs, from this list: http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/index.html
- Sign Slow Food’s petition to prevent legislation that would make undercover journalism–the kind that uncovers these types of abuses and exposes agri-businesses’ false claims–illegal. We need to know what’s in our food, how it’s produced, and that responsible parties will be held accountable for the health of their product and the animals that produce them.
Want to email H-E-B, but not sure what to say? Here’s a copy of the letter I sent them, which you can feel free to copy and paste:
I recently discovered, via the blog Austin Fresh Daily, that ALL of the eggs H-E-B carries have failed the Cornucopia Institute’s organic scorecard. This includes a brand named Eggland’s Best, which I have been purchasing based on false and misleading advertising which leads consumers to believe that the brand is ethically better, as well as more healthy to consume.
This angers me a great deal, and I would like to see changes made in egg purchasing at my H-E-B, to include 4 and preferably 5-egg rated eggs, as listed here: http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/index.html
Please let me know how you plan to remedy this situation in Austin, as I do not wish to purchase faux organic eggs that are harmful to my health as well as the health of the chickens that produce them.
Thanks for your attention to this matter, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
A disappointed customer [your name here]
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Tags: Austin Fresh Daily, bad eggs at H-E-B, cage-free eggs, Eggland's Best eggs, ethically produced organic eggs, Humane Society investigation, organic eggs, petitions, salmonella, Slow Food, The Cornucopia Institute, what's in your groceries?
Great letter to H-E-B. Let me know how they respond. I would be THRILLED if we could prod them into offering eggs that measure up to the standards mentioned at Cornucopia. *thumbs up* Pam
thanks for sharing this information. i shop at HEB because i was sold into the idea that a) it’s local therefore b) local produce is bought by HEB under abidning terms. i’m so disappointed to hear about this. i just bought a dozen of their eggs from their “organic” line (brown eggs) and have been for several months now. and since you said that all their eggs didn’t meet the standards, im guessing the eggs i purchased fall under the same category? ]=
/end rant
Ethical Egg Production: The Ultimate Oxymoron
Can You Tell The Difference?
“Free-Range” Hen
• Debeaked with a hot bloody blade at one day old with no anesthetic.
• Force molted (intentionally starved to shock the body into another laying cycle).
• Violently packed into a semi and trucked hundreds of miles to an agonizing slaughter when considered “spent” (unable to keep laying eggs at a fast enough pace).
• Denied the opportunity to live a natural life in truly humane care.
• All of her brothers (roosters) are brutally killed as baby chicks simply because they can’t lay eggs.
Battery Cage Hen
• Debeaked with a hot bloody blade at one day old with no anesthetic.
• Force molted (intentionally starved to shock the body into another laying cycle).
• Violently packed into a semi and trucked hundreds of miles to an agonizing slaughter when considered “spent” (unable to keep laying eggs at a fast enough pace).
• Denied the opportunity to live a natural life in truly humane care.
• All of her brothers (roosters) are brutally killed as baby chicks simply because they can’t lay eggs.
Thanks, Pam! They responded with their usual “Thanks for your comments; we respect your opinion” boilerplate, so I doubt they’re going to do anything. But maybe if I keep on sending the same email every single day, they’ll start to get annoyed…
Gabby: H-E-B is definitely not “local.” They’re a very large chain, which also owns Central Market and Fiesta (so don’t be fooled by their claims, either), and while they may be based in Texas, they’re only out for profits. While I suspect Whole Foods may not be much better, given some of the greenwashing products on their shelves, Whole Foods (and, oddly, even Wal-Mart) do offer truly organic alternatives to H-E-B’s eggs. I don’t know which brands they stock, offhand, but this was mentioned in the Austin Fresh Daily blog, so you may want to ask about that.
Michael: The term “organic” used when referring to eggs actually does something, while “free-range” does not. Let’s not confuse this issue with more misleading rhetoric.
“Organic,” according to the United States Department of Agriculture, means “the laying hens must have access to the outdoors and cannot be raised in cages. Organic egg producers cannot use antibiotics except during an infectious outbreak. Only natural molting can occur within the flock; forced molting is not allowed. Organic certification also requires maintenance of basic animal welfare standards.”
Shoestring:
You miss the point. Exploitation of a sentient species can never be ethical.
In any egg production system, the brothers of the laying hens will be killed simply because they cannot lay eggs. When the laying hens are spent they too will be killed.
http://www.peacefulprairie.org/letter.html
Michael: We’re not going to argue about ethics when it comes to eating animals. We eat animals, you don’t. Telling people that the only option for “ethical living” is veganism is absurd, not to mention incorrect. You’re welcome to your views, but your preaching is NOT.