Hey Sorry ‘Bout That Whole Egg Thing…
Remember that little egg recall thing a few weeks ago, about a couple of cartons of eggs being recalled for being just a little over-ripe? And by “a couple of cartons”, I mean, HALF A BILLION eggs, and by “a little over-ripe”, I mean “covered with salmonella”? Yeah, the egg farmers are real real sorry ’bout that.
The piles of manure heaped so high that doors couldn’t be shut, the dead animals and flies lying around too numerous to count, the loose birds allowed to roam around and track feces all around the farm. Yeah, whoops, said the egg farmers. Gee, do we feel embarassed about that little mess.
During a hearing investigating this outbreak, the egg farmers tried to blame the rapid growth of their business on the unsanitary conditions. Because hey, it’s easy to overlook innumerable rotting dead animals and massive piles of manure choking your farm when you’re making so much money you can make a tailored suit out of hundred dollar bills.
I’m not really sure how that’s supposed to be a viable excuse. “We got so big, so fast, that we let our food become contaminated”. Really? Greed is an acceptable excuse for illegal and dangerous behavior now? So if I rob a bank and shoot the whole town up doing it, when I get caught, I can just say, “Hey! I really, really, REALLY wanted a lot of money.”
The bottom line is, this massive industrialization of farming is going to inevitably lead to violations like this being more and more common. You just can’t stuff zillions of chicken in a little space and then be surprised when chicken poop is all over the place.
Of course, this doesn’t let the companies off the hook- if you want to sell food, you have to do it safely. I’m just saying that the bigger these “farms” get, the more likely that they won’t be able to keep up with sanitary or healthy conditions.
I put “farms” in quotes because these huge farms don’t look like what most of us think of as farms. They look more like factories.
If you haven’t seen it, a great documentary on the subject is “Food, Inc.”, and I highly recommend you watch it. It’s a real eye-opener into how food is actually produced in America. You can check out their website here.
Stay healthy!
Thanks for keeping us informed! great great info!