Ironically, you cannot choose how comfortable the human’s life is for most products.
There are certifications out there like FairTrade and others that try to make labor less slave-like in the world. Guess you could call that a way of making human life more comfortable
If you put the eggs up your butt at the grocery store, you can choose how uncomfortable everyone will be.
Egg
In France the « bio » label (https://www.bioagricert.org/en/certification/organic-production/ab-france.html) does bot only take into account ecological properties of the product but also many metrics relative to the social quality of the company and well being of its employees.
Okay but there actually is a pretty significant difference between eggs at the store vs buying them from someone who has chickens.
There was actually an egg shortage a while ago, but lots of people who were raising chickens couldn’t sell their eggs because, and I quote, “they were too rich in flavor and texture, so people didn’t like them”.
It was hilarious and sad that high quality eggs was just something no one ever tasted before, so they couldn’t suddenly get used to the flavor.
It’d be like if you drank skim milk your whole life only to find out regular “whole” milk is actually supposed to be creamy lol
I got this from a classic boomer dad of a girlfriend, about chicken meat. He said free range chicken was “more gamy” and he preferred uh…. Chickens raised in tiny cages who can’t move around, apparently. Ok psycho.
It’s what they eat that affects the eggs themselves, and what type of chicken. Plus we treat our eggs which is why they are such a salmonella risk and have to be refrigerated.
From what i understand just a diet more rich in beta carotene will produce a richer looking yolk. Seems like the chicken’s lifestyle would have other effects, too. And yeah, in the US eggs come throughly washed, which removes a layer on the outside that would otherwise keep them fresh at room temp. I think the salmonella thing is more related to the sanitary conditions of the farm - I.e. whether the chickens are infected with salmonella. Farms have cleaned up in that respect over the past couple decades and it’s much less prevalent than it was at one time.
Just because it came out of someone’s back yard, doesn’t mean it’s high quality. So many chickens get table scraps and little else. Not everyone is suited to keeping pets, let alone livestock.
– But it generally does in developed countries as the majority of people going through the effort of keeping chickens in that environment are into keeping chickens. You might get some shitty setups, but the norm is decent quality feed and far less stress than large scale commercial setups.
It’s more of a hobby than a “get rich” scheme.
Reminds me of one time I discussed egg ethics and the number system in europe with my fellow german student flatmate.
Our other flatmate was a syrien refugie and when he came in and we translated the subject he laughed - a whole lot. When he was able to speak after that epic laughter he just said “in syria its people in cages and you fight about chicken.”
Reality had been checked
Yeah, it’s good that we think about solving these types of problems, but I think it’s healthy to be reminded that it’s a privilege to be in a position to spend mental energy on it.
