It's weird that we study science and attempt to prevent diseases.
It's weird that indoor plumbing and toilets are so commonplace.
It's weird that children waste so much time being brainwashed in public schools instead of working the fields and factories.
#sarcasm
I mean, yes, technically, considering the environmental cost and healthcare cost (with farms being breeding grounds for viruses) it is weird that eggs were ever cheap, and it is still weird that they’re as « cheap » as they are. They are artificially cheap compared to their cost to the earth.
I hate to be that guy but with egg prices increasing and bird flu on the rise, now’s a great time to find substitutes, lower your animal product intake, or outright go vegan.
Yes I am aware. But both words come from ovum, the Latin word for egg. Referring to an egg as either an oval or an ovoid is redundant, and essentially boils down to "egg-like egg".
1. it was a joke to begin with
2. the subtitle uses “ovals” as a substitute noun for “eggs”; mathematically, it’s far more precise to use “ovoids” as the substitute noun
3. see 1
Until such time as I shall find and make a match, with a gentleman whose income is at least five thousand a year, I shall eschew these fragile and remarkable ovals.
Other than like milk, eggs should be near the bottom of the animal product price chart. Chickens will lay them at least every 3 days for years, and it doesn't take a lot of resources to keep them alive. (Note I am not saying factory farming is good, just reflecting on its realities)
I have a carton of Canadian eggs in my fridge right now, and I'm unsure whether this means I'm rich or a thief who doesn't deserve such protein. Please advise.
so now we don't even deserve eggs, huh? ffs these soulless ghouls will normalize everything that makes our lives shittier and write condescending articles trying to manufacture our consent
just because so many people rely on them as a cheap source of food doesnt mean it isnt deeply fucked up what happens to chickens in industrial egg farms.
the entire system needs to be changed not only for our benefit, but for animals' too.
Ok, so it was about the cruelty of factory farming. I would be much more willing to pay more for ethical foods. I also understand that some people can barely afford to provide enough calories for their families.
It would also only cost a few pennies extra per serving for all livestock to be given decent lives with outdoor access and good food. The educational YT channel Kurzgesagt literally just made a video about this and linked all of their sources! Cruelty-free food does not at all need to be expensive
What's even weird about it? They're one of the easiest animal based proteins to produce and have a virtuous cycle in self-replenishing via new chickens
"Little Monetary Value" is also a weird take - like the excess chickens couldn't also have been used for stock chickens.
You don't even need to excessively feed them. The more tough meat makes for a better broth - this just raises the question of what the fuck chicken stock is actually made out of
It would only cost a few pennies extra per carton of eggs for them end all chick culling and just scan fertilised eggs! Like the prices Americans pay for eggs that aren't even cruelty free is ridiculous! Where I live every option for eggs is cruelty-free and free range!
I think it's useful information to have that otherwise people - including myself - wouldn't have been aware of or considered.
I'd only add that while we may subsidize eggs the subsidies only go toward mass produced eggs that arguably are lower quality. Anything pasture raised or organic still is $$
Straight out of Sykes & Matza’s techniques of neutralization:
1. It’s not my fault
2. Ok it’s my fault, but it wasn’t so bad.
3. Ok it was bad, but they had it coming.
4. Ok they didn’t have it coming, but you’ve done bad too!
5. And besides I had a good reason.
1. Expensive eggs aren’t Trump’s fault
2. Ok, they are, but they aren’t that expensive
3. Actually, we shouldn’t be eating eggs at all
4. It’s our own fault eggs are expensive
5. It’s good that eggs are expensive now!
Well it's not like she checked into why they trim beaks so badly, which has a lot more to do with the inhumane caging practices and resulting health problems than you think!
Thanks for taking the bait, I knew you were gobbling up this shart of an article without question 🫶🏻
It kind of doesnt ruin the dunk though. I did go through and read it, the article says basically nothing of import, but it doesnt need to. No one reads articles anymore, and they know that. If they want to spread an idea, stick in the title of an article and send it off, regardless of the contents
The fact that the article itself is meaningless is further proof of the article's intention, I feel. Can I prove it? No. But in the age of dogwhistles, you cant take anything for granted.
I do want to point out, for the crowd, that this article has a piss poor headline but largely is about just how miraculous it was that eggs ever got that cheap.
It's not a right wing hit piece. It's really more a dissertation on the fact that eggs became cheap through tech.
Most of this article is industry-driven misinformation that is either outdated, incomplete, or is only in place BECAUSE factory farms are so heinously run. It's class warfare on the poor.
Once again, the problem is not eating food, the problem is capitalism.
Just SOME of the problems in this ongoing gish-gallop:
Trimming beaks is only necessary for birds who eat eggs or cannibals. Birds will pick open ANY scab, even from needles. Beaks are like dog claws and you can trim before the quick without injury... Unless it's done too quick, often the case.
Further, euthanasia is 99.8% more humane and often the end result of any attempts to anaesthetize birds, especially livestock.
Are you going to feed MILLIONS of roosters, bulls, rams? They regularly fight and kill each other on accident. We trim hens' beaks to keep them from eating THEMSELVES.
Notice I am not arguing against the inhumanity of the battery cages. They are built explicitly for the convenience of the humans raising egg-laying chickens. They are worse than you can imagine.
"Free-range" often means the exact same barn without cages. Workers need TYVEK + N100 to enter either.
Letting birds be REALLY free-range exposes them to risk, namely wildlife. Hiring workers to protect them costs money.
Chicken and eggs have historically been cheap BECAUSE they can be barn-raised. This is not discussed, nor compared to other proteins like beef which can be raised on feedlots.
Yes, the article mentions that multiple times that male chickens are basically indiscriminately killed and that the females basically live on printer paper sized spaces.
I once saw this *HORRIBLE* short film where a worker looks to see if a chick is male, and then if it is, it's put on a conveyor belt. At the end of the belt is a big plastic bag. In drops the chicks and down comes this giant press and squishes the chicks. 🙀🙀🙀
Holly shit!!! So now we need to bear a history lesson (dinosaurs, seriously) from the wife if fucking ezra klein to whitewash why egg prices won’t come down? But she never care to explain this shit last year? His husband surely reminded us that Biden was bringing us closer to economic collapse.
The reality is Americans pay much less for food than most nations because of our shoddy & cruel industrial farming practices that harm animals & farm workers, and USDA subsidies that reward shoddy practices.
The first 3 years, without artificial light, about an egg per day, then it slowly declines. Chicken egg farms keep them under artificial light and make them continue to produce an egg per day. They use breeds like Golden Comet, etc. which are prolific layers.
Chickens emphatically do not lay that much. A leghorn or a golden comet, under IDEAL circumstances, will lay about 325 eggs in its first 16 or so months of life, and then production drops off by about 20% per year after that, until around year 3 when they mostly die young of reproductive issues.
Also golden comets/red stars & leghorns are modern industrial production hens specifically bred to be uber-layers. Your standard heritage bird will lay closer to 200 eggs in the first cycle & 20% less than that each year after, but may lay for 6 or 8 years.
often several times a day, depending on the time if year and breed of chicken, and you don't have to raise them in hell conditions to make that happen either!
It’s wild because humans have had domesticated chickens for…a very long time. They’re small, don’t need much food and produce food for humans. This really should be a no-brained lol
I'm a small farmer who humanely raises layer hens, surrounded by many colleagues who do the same, and I have NEVER heard of a hen laying more than one egg in a day. I don't doubt it's happened, but certainly not routinely, and CERTAINLY not "several" eggs in a day.
A leghorn or red star MIGHT lay two on opposite ends of a 24 hour period, but again, I've never seen or heard of this happening in my 8 years doing this in a community of small farmers. More likely I expect them to lay about 6 eggs a week their 1st yr, 4 in their 2nd, less in the wintertime.
LOL I have not, clearly I have failed them. (I know this is meant as a joke but there's actually been careful scientific research done that shows that hens actually can lay more eggs when they're exposed to certain kinds of music. I guess maybe it calms them?)
Oh my Goodness I was just *joking* to my fiance the other day about singing to our chickens every day, do you remember who did that research you mentioned?
Eventually... "It Has Always Been Weird That We Were Able to Make a Living And I'm Tired of Pretending It Is Not. Aren't our bodies made in the perfect shape of a serf, meant to live and die in service and at the pleasure of the Masters?"
It’s bizarre because the Atlantic had always criticized Trump even before he became president.
Also, it’s not like there is an switch at the white house called “Resolve (insert random Economic) Issue”. Even if Kamala had become president she would had faced this exact same problem.
1. It didn't happen
2. Even if it did happen it's not a big deal
3. Okay it did happen but you don't understand <-- we're here
4. It did happen and it was awesome
5. It did happen, but it’s not the reason the results you predicted occurred
6. Okay, it caused the results you predicted but those are good results
7. Okay the results are bad, but the alternative was worse
8. I always knew the thing would happen and I was trying to stop it
i didn’t read the article but the cost of animal proteins like eggs is only typically low because the animals are treated horrendously. sorry for veganposting but it’s true!
Fwiw Mass. buyers have been restricted to buying "cage-free" eggs for nearly a decade since Question 3 passed in 2016 and haven't felt nearly the same impact they're feeling now from the mass cullings to prevent/slow spread of H5N1, as Q3's opponents (big ag companies) warned we would.
Even if true (sadly it is), they're running this line of argument now out of convenience, Atlantic op ed people are not interested in ecological sustainability or animal liberation, they're in it to browbeat/shame the poor.
Classic case of Bad Faith Arguers being both correct and full of shit.
that eventually becomes the point of the argument to some degree, but it's buried so deep into the article as to feel like an excuse of "no you didn't read it all, so you don't know what i really meant"
The article is about that, you got the idea. I didn't and thought this editor was putting out "we should actually celebrate high prices!!!" propaganda, but it wasn't.
"It appeared that there had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week. And only yesterday it had been announced that the ration was to be reduced to twenty grams a week."
Comments
"cope"
*ducks*
It's weird that indoor plumbing and toilets are so commonplace.
It's weird that children waste so much time being brainwashed in public schools instead of working the fields and factories.
#sarcasm
(I’m trying to be rational and not explode in rage)
I’d like to remind everyone that for some reason, the right wing has made partisan vaccines, clean air, and now nutrition.
https://bsky.app/profile/thev.bsky.social/post/3lht2pc7nyc2c
What if I fart in a jar?
That's an idea too
Matty Y’s head is an oval.
An Egg is not an oval.
Come, sit by me!
before @theatlantic.com they were Lumon Techologies
2. the subtitle uses “ovals” as a substitute noun for “eggs”; mathematically, it’s far more precise to use “ovoids” as the substitute noun
3. see 1
2. In fact, perhaps the topic should be ovoided altogether.
"Ideas" lol
All we have to do is keep the chickens from needlessly dying. That's it.
And cooking is messy, in general. What a weird thing to say.
The breeding of hens & conditions to produce the eggs in sufficient #s to get you to those cheap prices is deadly
And it's factory farms that are spreading H5N1
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/food-x/food-x-issue-36.html
Can I eat them??
how much more will we tolerate I wonder
just because so many people rely on them as a cheap source of food doesnt mean it isnt deeply fucked up what happens to chickens in industrial egg farms.
the entire system needs to be changed not only for our benefit, but for animals' too.
Good to know 👍
I’ve been doing a lot of growing and learning.
Leave me this one joy of foraging like my ancestors and eating every bit because goddamn.
When you get them by the dozens, it really makes you appreciate them less, individualy."
https://apnews.com/article/eggs-chicks-hens-iowa-e9ffd6ed93582a76adf3a4a16aadbf12
You don't even need to excessively feed them. The more tough meat makes for a better broth - this just raises the question of what the fuck chicken stock is actually made out of
https://inovo.nl/the-evolution-of-chick-culling-legislation-in-europe/
US has the ovo-sexing technology now, but still TBD on whether we have the political will to require it
(apologies on the total derail ... US also subsidizes eggs, which keeps them cheaper)
I'd only add that while we may subsidize eggs the subsidies only go toward mass produced eggs that arguably are lower quality. Anything pasture raised or organic still is $$
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/egg-prices-rising/681844/
Both criticising the animal holocaust and sexism are very valid.
Doing it with that title in the current cultural context though cant not feel a bit manipulative
1. It’s not my fault
2. Ok it’s my fault, but it wasn’t so bad.
3. Ok it was bad, but they had it coming.
4. Ok they didn’t have it coming, but you’ve done bad too!
5. And besides I had a good reason.
Each one its own think piece.
2. Ok, they are, but they aren’t that expensive
3. Actually, we shouldn’t be eating eggs at all
4. It’s our own fault eggs are expensive
5. It’s good that eggs are expensive now!
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/egg-prices-rising/681844/
https://removepaywall.com
Who the fuck wants to read the Atlantic?
"There's always beans?" We should all be so lucky! I'm heinously allergic! Not even her platitudes lift a finger on the subject!
Swish, and dunk
Thanks for taking the bait, I knew you were gobbling up this shart of an article without question 🫶🏻
It's not a right wing hit piece. It's really more a dissertation on the fact that eggs became cheap through tech.
https://archive.ph/6Tynx
Once again, the problem is not eating food, the problem is capitalism.
Trimming beaks is only necessary for birds who eat eggs or cannibals. Birds will pick open ANY scab, even from needles. Beaks are like dog claws and you can trim before the quick without injury... Unless it's done too quick, often the case.
Are you going to feed MILLIONS of roosters, bulls, rams? They regularly fight and kill each other on accident. We trim hens' beaks to keep them from eating THEMSELVES.
"Free-range" often means the exact same barn without cages. Workers need TYVEK + N100 to enter either.
Chicken and eggs have historically been cheap BECAUSE they can be barn-raised. This is not discussed, nor compared to other proteins like beef which can be raised on feedlots.
It may have been a USSR era film.
https://old.reddit.com/r/EhBuddyHoser/comments/1izkt4v/what_is_you_guys_favorite_food_when_strapped_for/
Pound cake and pavlova anyone?
- “ mobs were never this rowdy”
And
“ oh gosh isn’t my neck fragile”
please
https://youtu.be/sEwX6pFFAtU?si=D608ibE8kxql1642
Get ready to eat cockroach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_flour
Also, it’s not like there is an switch at the white house called “Resolve (insert random Economic) Issue”. Even if Kamala had become president she would had faced this exact same problem.
Sometimes, Kennedy.
Sometimes I think about the fragility of the human body.
I can barely even articulate why, other than that it's like full throttle doomerism.
1. It didn't happen
2. Even if it did happen it's not a big deal
3. Okay it did happen but you don't understand <-- we're here
4. It did happen and it was awesome
6. Okay, it caused the results you predicted but those are good results
7. Okay the results are bad, but the alternative was worse
8. I always knew the thing would happen and I was trying to stop it
X. It did happen and they deserved it
Classic case of Bad Faith Arguers being both correct and full of shit.
[slides into 318 egg bath]
Next thing you know, the peasants will be demanding water and air and light. Lousy freeloaders.