But ethical informed consent is something new. If a food like veal or foie gras and now eggs is so cruel, many people reason, why does the government allow it? Why are consumers stuck making the choice whether or not to get blood on their hands? Why do they have to be the bad guys?
Don't-ask/don't-tell works just fine with fur from China marked Asian Wolf, Corsac fox and rabbit which people knows is dog and cat but buy anyway because it's priced right.
Egg producers notably defend grinding up of newly hatched male chicks--called maceration--and other "euthanasia" on business rather than humane grounds. Few producers say the chicks, which are sentient, don't know what's happening or feel pain--one researcher found evidence the chicks were alive 20 seconds after grinding began--but rather, that the "gender cleansing" is just the cost of cheap eggs.
"If a small producer adds a buck to a dozen eggs and tells the buyer it's to cover the cost of putting old hens or extra roosters out to pasture, the consumer will not care/pay," wrote one poster on the Web about the hatchery controversy. "Trust me, I know."
Another poster agreed that consumers don't care. "They are not experts who make generous incomes by offering their 'opinions' but rather working people too busy trying to afford food for their kids."
But what kind of "food"? Not only are eggs known as strokes-in-a-shell, elevating stroke and cardiovascular risks with the cholesterol punch they pack--medical journal articles say eggs contribute to the escalating incidences of diabetes and ovarian cancer. Oops.
Nor are they hygienic. In July, President Obama, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced new testing and refrigeration standards to combat the salmonella contamination which plagues so many egg operations.
And while mass egg farm deaths have been reported--160,000 laying hens burned to death at Green Valley Poultry Farm in Abingdon, VA in 2006 and 30,000 spent hens were fed into a wood chipper at Ward Egg Ranch in San Diego County, CA in 2003 in a case District Attorney Bonnie M. Dumanis would not prosecute--the daily grinding up of male chicks at hatcheries is standard operating procedure.
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