Ben & Jerry's go cage free for their eggs

http://www.happynews.com/news/927200...-ben-jerry.htm

OK, the skeptics amongst us we might say that this is a publicity stunt, but I reckon that any move towards using free-range and organic ingredients is a good thing. It's easy enough to get free range eggs and organic milk when out shopping, but harder to spot the hidden eggs and dairy in things like cakes, biscuits, cheese, etc.

Great news also that the EU has banned the 'barren' battery cages from 2012.

Hi e-ma, that is great news. There is a way of thinking that suggests that the foods you eat are affected by the vibrations of the animal that you either may be eating or it's offspring, such as in this case, the egg. So, were an hen to grow up in a squalid environment such as these cooped-up cages, they would be very miserable and those vibrations would pass into the eggs that they produce. I imagine you already know that theory and it does make sense to me.

Thanks for putting up this link. As well as drawing our attention to a very good story, I have also bookmarked the site...happy news, good stuff!

I do have one question for you though e-ma.

What do you mean by 'barren' battery cages?

Thanks, Kundalini.

Heya Kundalini,

Ah yes, I too was really glad to find the happy news site. I'm sure that there's always tons more good stuff happening in the world than bad.. but the good never makes for addictive scary panic fodder, does it?

I wholeheartedly agree about the vibrations that go into our food. Now when I think about the violence in the slaughterhouses and indeed the violence and fear that a typical factory-farmed animal will suffer throughout its life.. I think 'what on earth good could that food ever do?', I cringe to think of the violent and negative food I have consumed.

The barren battery cages are the battery cages that are in use at the moment. They are about three-quarters of the size of an A4 sheet of paper and the hen has no way to stand up or move around. The bottom of the cage is all wire mesh so the feet go straight through and the hen suffers from muscle pain because it cannot ever use its muscles. All that there is to do is take out some of this pain and aggression on the hen next door, so all the hens can do is peck each others' wings and bodies through the wire, which is why their beaks are burned so that they do less damage to each other.

Ahh, I'm going off on one of my ranting sessions but hope that's okay, since this is the vegetarian and vegan forum

The barren cages are the ones that are used right now with absolutely nothing inside them, not even room to stand up. In 2012 these will be made illegal and the hens will have a larger cage with, check this:

A perch
Room to move
A scratching pad

Which, to me, sounds pretty good compared..

Far out!

Still, it is incredibly inhumane to treat something that is alive in that manner. I do not blame you for going off on a ranting session. It is perfectly natural to express emotions...you just have to remember to keep those emotions in check sometimes!

Well, it's good news too, that they will be banned in 2012. Still, I wonder why they are waiting until that particular year to completely ban them? Why not do it sooner, rather than later?

Yes, the news does focus on negative stuff far too much. Maybe that will change one day.

Kundalini.

As with we humans, what we do and eat is relative to what we pass on to our offsspring. If this system was practised long enough, surely these birds would lose legs altogether as they do/ would not need them.
I presume that they are also fed to some degree on their ancestors, as they did with (mad) cows, (supposedly), vegetarians fed on sheep with scrapy. and of course fish farming no doubt. Do they really have disease or is that to stop activists releasing them?

They know that the human race begins to ascend in 2012 and we will want to change all that.

Yeah, I think the EU got together and said, 'hey, have you heard about that ascension stuff? We'd better get those battery cages sorted by 2012 or God is gonna kick our ***...'

20-30 years ago I remember hearing that 1 in 3 chickens in these places had cancer. I wonder what the stats are now?