The ethical impact of eating Eggs?

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Lucky 1

.........enjoying my scrambled eggs and oatmeal this morning!

That sounds so American.. LOL. When I was in the US we were served scrambled eggs every morning. Oh God the smell.. it made me nauseous. I don't really like eggs in general though, sometimes I feel like I want to have a baked or cooked egg, but that's not often..

[Lucky 1]

Originally Posted by Altair

That sounds so American.. LOL. When I was in the US we were served scrambled eggs every morning. Oh God the smell.. it made me nauseous. I don't really like eggs in general though, sometimes I feel like I want to have a baked or cooked egg, but that's not often..

You gotta put hot sauce on them! Thats what makes them good!

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by Gem

On the 'Indian culture(s)' thing. When I trained in Buddhist meditation the diet was vegetarian. Eating eggs was forbidden because they considered an egg to be an animal. They were pretty big on dairy - lots of yogurt!

I use to live in a city in which almost everybody was Buddhist.
What amazed me was the motorcycles which would deliver a huge number of eggs (I would say at least 100 dozen eggs) on the back of their motorcycles. My Mother-in-law is a vegetarian and a follower of Kwan Yin. As a 'vegetarian' she is allowed to eat chicken and fish. Figure it out, I never could.
My wife and daughter are Buddhist. When I buy eggs for them, I generally
buy 4-6 dozen. My wife goes thru them so fast that she doesn't ever put them in the refrigerator.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

As a 'vegetarian' she is allowed to eat chicken and fish. Figure it out, I never could.

Some cultures and some people think fish and shrimps are vegetarian, like some Asian countries. It's strange, considering East Asian countries are influenced by Buddhism you'd think they at least have some notion of what vegetarianism is about. Vegetarianism simply means not eating animals.

And not just there, across the world you have those that separate fish from other animals. I don't know how even the chickens ended up on a vegetarian menu...

What may be happening here is there's a strange notion of what 'animals' are. If you check some commentaries on scripture it's not uncommon to see guru's and people mentioning ''the beasts of the world, the insects, the animals, tiger, and the birds'' - or similar sentences. But these are all animals, so it's quite illogical to talk in such a way..

[BigJohn]

but then, if you look closely at Buddhism, it was Asoka who introduced vegetarianism.

[Altair]

Some more information about environmental benefits of egg eating (non-commercial!!).
It's a protein source that has one of the lowest environmental impacts..

How Sustainable Are Chickens?
https://permaculturenews.org/2017/01...-are-chickens/

Why Raising Chickens Is Great For The Environment
https://www.backyardchickencoops.com...he-environment

[Debrah]

Originally Posted by Altair

Ha Debrah.. good to see you back here..

We have to disagree on this matter, and that's okay with me. You see, I don't support the mass consumption of eggs that you refer to. I am thinking of small scale chicken farming and garden chickens, which really aren't unsustainable, especially not if the chickens are fed with seeds (and not soy beans!)..

You mention how buying a chicken pet makes their brothers still going to be slaughtered, but that is a choice of both farmer and consumer (that buy chicken meat). The farmer could find another purpose for the roosters, or the person wanting chickens pets may also buy the rooster, etc. There are many possibilities. If we buy milk we also say we support milk consumption, not slaughter of bulls. It's a consequence of the modern technology that bulls are no longer used in the fields! This is NOT the fault of milk consumers! In India they just release the bulls. Not ideal either, but the key is.. buying milk or eggs does not mean you support slaughter of male animals. Technology and farmer's choices are responsible for that. Why don't they find a purpose for their roosters and bulls..??

And if eggs are consumed, or if roosters are separated from the hens, there won't be a surplus of chickens. True, it's not perfect and we need to figure out how this can be done better. The same applies to cows and milk consumption..

I know you're a vegan and we just aren't going to agree on these things, and that is okay. I see a purpose for chickens in gardens and for cows in the grasslands here, fed on diets free of soy beans. I disagree that eggs can't be ethical. I've seen it myself, it can be done..

Hi Altair, You're right, you and I aren't going to agree on much. For example, your diet, your choice of food is your tacit agreement to whatever treatment those animals are getting, because you've rewarded all the parties involved, by paying them. When we disagree with something, we boycott, when we agree, we support with our words, deeds or cash.

The chicks mentioned that get ground up alive, are the brothers of the egg laying hens. 'Meat' birds, doesn't matter the sex. And for those 'meat' birds, life is a whole different kind of suffering, but equally horrible. So if you buy a hen chick for your backyard, or if you buy eggs from the supermarket or at the farmer's market, there were an equal percentage of male chicks who got tossed in the grinder while alive. You the consumer subsequently are a participant in my opinion, in that violence.

And no one wants to buy roosters. For several very good reasons, they are aggressive, they fight and they are noisy and it starts at the crack of dawn. So there are no possibilities for becoming pets to justify the eating habits of people.

I'm sorry, but there are no arguments that support the consumption of eggs. Not if you choose to not be part of a cycle of horrible violence and abuse. Abandoning animals to starve or be injured in traffic(as happens to the old cows in India is inexcusable and doesn't justify their use of milk. And as a point of interest, more usually the young bulls more often get sold off to be worked to death or sent on 'death marches' to where they can be legally sold for meat and leather in other countries across their borders).

Just because we have a 'use' for animals doesn't change the fact that they didn't come here for us. They may be born because of us, but they are individuals who have the same needs and feelings that you do. They feel happy, they love their babies and friends, they become afraid and feel pain and hunger and heat and cold......just like you and I. Their experience of life may be from a different perspective than yours or mine, but they are as aware as any of us. Us having a use for them, ignores their 'beingness' deliberately. And when we ignore that, it becomes easier to ignore their fear and suffering.

Humans have manipulated and wrecked hens natural bodies so that they will lay eggs every day and they get sick and suffer and die young because of it. We grind up half their families as chicks, mutilate the remainder very often, then kill the older adult birds when they aren't producing enough eggs. And sometimes that end comes by gassing in bunches or in extreme culling situations, by burying them alive. And all because people want to eat eggs that they don't need to.

I'm sorry if any of this offends you Altair because that's not my intention. My intention is only to make people aware completely, of what animal product consumption results in. There is nothing benign about it, there is nothing about it that makes it justifiable and especially as we have so much new nutritional information at hand now. And equally, we know what animal ag is doing to the environment as the #1 cause of GHG emissions.

And I think if anyone is going to eat animals or eggs or milk, you have an obligation to understand the realities and the various myths that those animal ag industries have built up around their activities. Humane meat, happy dairy cows, humane slaughter, dancing pigs on labels, cartoon chickens on advertising, free range labels.....all designed to fool the consumer into thinking those products are harmless and yes, good for you. But they are all myths and the reality is that there is only an ocean of suffering behind those images. Not just my opinion, but the reality as evidenced in thousands of images and testimonials, including from farmers who finally gave it all up and went vegan.

[Debrah]

Originally Posted by Altair

There is no such thing as 'design', Sapphirez. We've been over this in another thread. And yes, some people have allergies, others don't. I don't think you have a good grasp of how evolution works. You seem to have a very fixed idea about diet, yet humans are opportunists that can thrive on different diets. Whether veganism is among them, in the long run, remains to be seen..

However, what this thread is about is ethics, not what fixed state you think nature ought to be. Chickens and cows are specifically bred over generations to produce eggs and milk. In the case of cows we're actually doing them a benefit by taking the milk. A cow produces more milk than a calf can take. We can either take care of these animals and look for ways to prevent slaughter, or we can all become vegans. I am clearly the former and you are the latter. Buying eggs or milk means just that, supporting egg taking and milking cows. The fact that technology has improved to make bulls redundant is irrelevant to that discussion. Throughout most of history they were used as beasts of burden. Modern farming tech replaced them and this isn't my invention..

You may want to look into organic farming and how beneficial grazing cows can be in some landscapes. If all farmers here did that, and didn't spray the fields, we'd be really helping the insects and the endangered grassland birds. As for chickens, there are solutions there too. To vegans though it's an all-or-nothing game, with no in-betweens..

'Moral principle that governs a person's behaviour or the conducting of an activity'. That's the definition of 'ethics'. So what kind of ethics is involved in being a participant in something that is harmful and causes great pain and suffering to a sentient being? As the consumer, the activity you're conducting is, choosing a product that comes at a cost of great suffering.

I live in a valley that happens to provide maybe the majority of dairy products for the province. There are dairy farms everywhere. And what you don't see anywhere, is cows. Not a single cow' grazing on the landscape'. Those cows are locked in barns, standing in their own waste and they never, ever go outside for their entire short five or six years of life. And their babies are locked in tiny pens no larger than their body and away from their mothers who grieve for them for days, calling and bellowing to the babies that were stolen.

There's a 'free range' chicken farm that I pass four times a week on my way to the gym, and you never see chickens outside. So really, is it free range? Well as long as there's a fence and a possible door, you can fool the consumers and call the eggs, free range.

The one thing you and I will agree on is that it is 'all or nothing'. Because it isn't a game, it's innocent animals suffering the worst kinds of torment. I think part of the problem is that people really don't understand just how bad the torture gets, how constant or frequent it is, the kinds of terrible things that are done to animals, the unremitting pain and misery....... When you begin to understand and when you look at them and see 'someone' instead of a thing, it gets harder to ignore all of that for the sake of 'moments in the mouth'. For vegans, it's very much, 'Do unto others, as you would have done unto you' .

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Debrah

I'm sorry, but there are no arguments that support the consumption of eggs.

Debrah, hello and happy new year!

There are many arguments to favour egg consumption, if done small scale. Eggs are nutritious and contain nutrients that you for instance lack on your vegan diet. Humans need some animal food in their diets and without it you are gambling with your health. I won't stop you in your ethics but you seem to think veganism is the answer to both health and environment but it isn't that simple.

Originally Posted by Debrah

Just because we have a 'use' for animals doesn't change the fact that they didn't come here for us. They may be born because of us, but they are individuals who have the same needs and feelings that you do.

They feel happy, they love their babies and friends, they become afraid and feel pain and hunger and heat and cold......just like you and I. Their experience of life may be from a different perspective than yours or mine, but they are as aware as any of us. Us having a use for them, ignores their 'beingness' deliberately. And when we ignore that, it becomes easier to ignore their fear and suffering.

Chickens can be taken care of, given plenty of food, a roof over their heads, protection from predators can be done very well. All humans ask in return is eggs, and taking eggs does not reduce age span of hens or give them horrible lives, that's vegan propaganda.

Chickens do not have the same ''feelings'' as I do and only a few same basic needs. All animals (that includes us) are different and have different needs and degrees of feelings and empathy. A human is not the same as a chicken, and a chicken is not the same as a dog. I grew up with chickens and dogs and while I like chickens they're not comparable to the degree a dog bonds with a human or how a dog feels.

People have domesticated animals in the Holocene and have co-evolved with them. Keeping chickens small scale is one of the most environmentally friendly ways to get protein.

Originally Posted by Debrah

But they are all myths and the reality is that there is only an ocean of suffering behind those images. Not just my opinion, but the reality as evidenced in thousands of images and testimonials, including from farmers who finally gave it all up and went vegan.

The way we treat animals and use them to our benefit is a case by case matter and not black and white. We all have to settle with a greyish world where we improve animal welfare and don't abandon keeping animals around. Not just for ourselves, but also for our cats and dogs, mind you. Or should we only have rabbit pets and feed them with constant fresh lettuce? (which also has an environmental cost..).

In veganism every animal becomes the same, there is only equality. Why then do you eat food at all may I ask? Buying or eating any type of food will contribute to animals being killed. If it's ''all or nothing'' than you can't eat anything by your own standards I'm afraid.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Debrah

I live in a valley that happens to provide maybe the majority of dairy products for the province. There are dairy farms everywhere. And what you don't see anywhere, is cows. Not a single cow' grazing on the landscape'.

Yeah, that ain't great. Cows outside however are a different game. If a pasture is organic there are no pesticides and herbicides used and the cows have an important function. Cow poo + wildflowers << insects << birds. You'll find more birds and insects in a field of cows that isn't sprayed than in an organic field of one crop, usually. In my country nature organizations recognize this and use cows in semi-natural landscapes and wet grasslands. This https://harmonyorganic.ca/images/con...ny-organic.jpg is usually better than this https://pixfeeds.com/images/gardenin...bean-field.jpg. Considering my background I'm far more concerned with ecology and the big picture than with ''individual rights'' of every single farm animal.

Originally Posted by Debrah

There's a 'free range' chicken farm that I pass four times a week on my way to the gym, and you never see chickens outside. So really, is it free range? Well as long as there's a fence and a possible door, you can fool the consumers and call the eggs, free range.

Not the free range chicken I have in mind anyway.

Originally Posted by Debrah

The one thing you and I will agree on is that it is 'all or nothing'.

No I don't agree on that at all. I said so back then in the part you quoted. In veganism it is all or nothing, no in-betweens. That's not how I view the world.