Wednesday 29 September 2010

Know Your Eggs

We continue to get several eggs a day, and with the gift of these delicious eggs from our lucky hens comes an increasing awareness of the misery being perpetrated upon 16 million chickens in battery farms around the UK right now. With the space of only one A4 sheet of paper per battery hen, these girls are only allowed four hours rest a night before the artificial lights are turned back on to encourage extra egg laying. Without room to even stretch their wings, a wire cage floor to stand on, nowhere private to lay their eggs, no perches to roost on at night, the frustration and boredom these hens suffer can cause them to become aggressive and peck out their companions feathers. When the hens reach the age of about 18 months they are considered ‘spent’ as their laying capacity slowly decreases (a healthy hen can live up to the age of 8), and they are taken from their cages where they were placed as chicks and go directly to the slaughter house in tiny crates to be turned into pet food.

Now I daresay I am preaching to the converted and that you already diligently buy your free range eggs and have done for years, but unfortunately those eggs are just a fraction of the problem. It is the convenience foods that we fill our shopping trolleys with that contain the battery eggs that are supporting this vile industry. You will find below a list of just some of the foods that contain battery hen eggs that you may have been inadvertently buying (just like I have) and may now like to stop supporting. The general rule is that unless it specifically says ‘free range egg’ on the ingredients then you can be pretty sure it is a battery hen egg in the food you are about to buy. Right, I shall dismount from my very high horse now and allow you to peruse the list. To remind you of how happy hens should live, I have inserted a few recent pictures of my ex battery girls who are becoming more beautiful by the day. First up is the promised picture of hens sun bathing, featuring to the right Two Tone who is lapping up the warmth:



Convenience Foods Often Containing Battery Eggs:

Cakes/Sweet Snacks:
Almond Slice
Bakewell Tart
Birthday Cakes 
Brioche
Cream Cakes
Cup Cakes
Danish Pastries
Doughnuts
Éclairs
Egg Custard Tarts
Fairy Cakes
Gingerbread Men/Cookies
Ginger Cake
Orange flavour chewy biscuits
Mini Rolls
Victoria Sponge
Many marshmallow type biscuits



Desserts:
Apple Crumble
Apple Pie
Arctic Roll
Bread and Butter Pudding
Cheese Cake
Some luxury ice creams
Lemon Meringue Pie
Lemon Tart
Diet Rice Pudding
Pancakes
Profiteroles
Spotted Dick
Sticky Toffee Pudding
Swiss Roll
Tiramisu
Trifle
Waffles



Ready Meals/Savoury Snacks:
Breaded Prawns
Cannelloni
Cheese and Onion Rolls/Slice
Cornish Pasties
Dumplings
Egg Noodles
Fresh Pasta
Biscuits for Cheese
Lasagna
Mayonnaise (not Helmans)
Quiche (any type)
Salad Cream
Sausage Rolls
Scotch Eggs/Savoury Eggs
Steak Pie

1 comment:

Kate Sermon said...

Yep, and this list is not exhaustive. Basically if it doesn't say it's free range, then it probably isn't. Don't forget any takeaway or restaurants too. And the chicken in these places are more than likely shed hens too. Horrible.