Egg industry is no closer to answering the question, what is organic?
What makes cage-free different from organic? What makes organic different from grass-fed? Free range different from pasture-raised? No one really knows
New York — Most Americans these days want their eggs to come from happy chickens — documentaries revealing horrific conditions inside the machinery of industrial farming long ago penetrated the public consciousness. But figuring out which chickens are treated most humanely has always been a challenge, especially since Big Agriculture realised how using a few magic words could mean piles of money. What makes cage-free different from organic? What makes organic different from grass-fed? Free range different from pasture-raised? No one really knows for sure, and that’s the problem. It’s a question the organic industry has been trying to answer for more than a decade, ever since it realised major egg suppliers with huge, crowded barns were interpreting existing rules loosely, selling eggs with the organic seal when the chickens who laid them, even if freed from their cages, had likely never seen the sky. Regulations require that organic eggs come from hens raised with outdoor access — s...
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