I understand your upset, however I don't think Megan was actually meaning happy chickens in a literal sense. I think she was just looking for chickens that she can be sure aren't being crammed into cages where they are unable to move and stuffed too fat to stand on their own feet. Most of us don't know how to tell, as she points out, what our food has to go through before it gets to us so there's no reliable way in telling the difference between a chicken that lead a miserable horrendous life with Farmer Dick, and one that lead a decent chicken life with Farmer You. The point is, as consumers, our best option to fight against animal abuse is to support and purchase from those who have humane farming practices, so to some of us it's not necessarily the taste that matters.

Oh!No! I'm not upset, only amused by the silliness described in trying to identify which carton of eggs to purchase.

The picture you have of the horrendous conditions for that poor chicken is a bit over the top. That chicken in the laying hen cage is not being abused. She has feed and water, shelter from the elements, and is structurally sound for the purpose of laying eggs. That is a whole lot better than the conditions I described for those chickens on the nostalgic family farms of yesteryear. Neither man nor animal, in those days, had access to much of the modified environment we have today.

Natural environments in nature can be very cruel for both man and animals.

I don't support the system that has led to the mega sized production units for animal, vegetable, or grain production. Why? The truth is; The animals and plants are often more humanely treated than the human workforce in the operation. That isn't saying that all large integrated agricultural entities mistreat their workers. But, many do and that should be as great or greater concern when you are choosing what brands of food you wish to purchase instead of assuming accuracy of what you have heard about those horrendous conditions the animals are living in.

Ken, clearly you missed the slight sarcasm of the happy chicken image. No, I don't think chickens are "happy" in the sense that people are. As Taylor so succinctly said, I want to know that my food--whether it be eggs or tomatoes--comes from a place that was conscious of the way we treat the earth that nourishes us. As someone who knows about this process intimately, you probably know more than I do about the delicate, complex relationships between soil, food, and body. And I'm sure you can side with me on the utter ridiculousness of plastering a carton of eggs with empty phrases like "hand-raised" ad nauseum. Why should there be the opposite of hand-raised animals?

And, actually, I've heard of being able to tell the difference in taste between an egg that came from a naturally-raised chicken and a processed one...I believe Michael Pollan writes about it in the Omnivore's Dilemma but I don't have a copy in front of me. I've never tried a taste test myself and my palate probably isn't that refined. But I do know that naturally-raised/naturally grown food (even here I struggle with what to call it, thus the "happy chicken" ) is higher in antioxidants, lower in fat, higher in vitamins and minerals, etc.

I'm not just talking about animal abuse, although that's important to me. There are myriad health and environmental concerns when animals are raised in concentrated feedlots. I'll name two: Laws do not protect against feeding bovine brain and spinal matter to chickens and pigs. BSE cannot now--for all we know--be transferred from cows to chickens to humans, but it may one day be able to. Pesticides and fertilizers used on industrial farms lead to runoff that flow into the Mississippi River and have caused a dead zone where no fish live.

So this is about far more than just the life of a chicken--we're all connected to what happens on farms whether we consume food from them or not. The "happy chicken" is just one way to gauge the impact there, and it was a tongue-in-cheek way to describe the way I want my food raised because all the other terms have become meaningless. It's deplorable we even need to certify our food as safe and humane--why should it be anything but?

Ken, you know I respect your opinion (and you), but I think you may have not fully understood Megan's dilemma. Let me try to explain as I actually share Megan's conundrum myself!

Like you, I used to raise my own chickens. Your description of your chickens - according to my book - were happy chickens of the sort that Megan is probably talking about. That is - they have fresh air, fresh bugs, dirt and space to wander in, and - above all else - they pay "no nevermind" to the strutting rooster that waves his wings around and tries to impress them. I'd say, these are happy hens indeed.

Recent research has shown that eggs raised in the huge antibiotic-growth-hormone-crowded-corporate-chicken-farms offer less healthy eggs. Here's why - the corporate eggs lack Omega-3. Omega-3 is a type of fat that is essential to human (and chicken) growth and health and is offered to humans (and chickens) when they (we) eat foods that are: 1) whole green forage foods, or, 2) meats from animals that ate whole green forage foods. Therefore, if chickens eat a combination of green stuff and insects (not strictly corn), they are manufacturing and benefiting from Omega-3. If we eat their eggs, we will too.

The kinds of eggs that you raised, Ken, and the kind that I raised were full of Omega-3s. And, as you are aware, they were not full of antibiotics or growth hormones, which are known to be bad for humans and - the latter - particularly bad for women.

I actually have the same challenge when I'm at the egg counter that Megan does. I want my Omega-3 eggs to have orange yolks that stand up tall because this tells me that the chickens are as normal (back to nature) as possible for store bought eggs. I don't buy the ones that say "vegetarian" fed because that's silly. I want my chickens to eat bugs!

Oh, and by the way, I did find a gal in my town who delivers her yard eggs (they eat bugs too and have orange normal looking yolks!) to me once a month for $1.75 a dozen. They're small but tastey! ;-)

By the way, everybody, one of the things that I like most about this blog, Everyday Citizen, is that it brings points of view together in one place that might not otherwise be seen together. It builds bridges in this way - across age barriers, across geographies, across genders, gender-preferences, across ethnicities and as here - across the barriers between rural and urban. I love that! It's good stuff!