Are we saying that farmers have to charge $7.50 per dozen eggs in order to make a livable wage?

These eggs are worth it. For the two of us, they are a luxury, but they also make each morning feel healthy and connected to the farmers we know. There was a piece in the Sunday NYT magazine about a $35 chicken, and the effects of the economy on people who would like to support local, more worker-intense results rather than whatever is (fakely) competitively priced. Justice means that someday we'll all be able to eat well.

i agree with you--it is absolutely worth the higher price. i read about Joel Salatin in Omnivore's Dilemma, and was so impressed just reading about it that i'm really looking forward to Food, Inc, and a closer look at Polyface.

and what's troubling to me, which you point out too, is the lack of assuredness with labeling; i think the best bet is to buy them fresh at farmer's markets.

those are some beautiful eggs! i'd pay a high price for 'em too!

If I had the option up here, I'd stick to buying them for $2 a dozen from a friend of the family. As it is, I get some eggs from a friend's mom, whose chickens produce more eggs than they can eat.

But pay $7.50 for a dozen eggs? That sounds like extortion. If I want fresh eggs that badly I'll raise a few chickens myself.

$4/dozen here. You do use less of them with a higher price.

Yes! Totally agree. I pay between 5.50-6.50 a dozen at the farmer's market, but have no problem with it because I am supporting local farmers and getting fresher eggs.

I live in a city and our eggs are about $5 tops, and that's at the fancy pants grocery store. You can get a dozen cheap, low quality eggs at the 7-11 for 99cents! At the farmer's market they're about $4 and then you SEE the money going DIRECTLY into the hands of the chicken owner, which feels good - the actual farmer actually getting the money.

The government sure doesn't make it easy on small farmers, who have to take on regulation and nature to get a product. I'm all for paying a higher price for the quality of the product, the chicken's life, and the farmer's livliehood. I admit, I'd probably pay the $7 too if I had to.

i think you're still paying way too much. i'm in the sf bay area also and can get them for $4.50/dozen at my farmer's market

Are we saying that farmers have to charge $7.50 per dozen eggs in order to make a livable wage?

>> No, but there is a cost to providing the chickens with a healthier diet and environment. Right now that only happens in small-scale farming, which is higher cost because of the lack of scale.

If we as consumers value a humane environment for the animals we eat (or gather eggs from), not to mention the higher-quality food it produces, we need to show it with our purchasing power. If more peoplel are willing to pay for it, more people will get into the business of pasture-based farming, someone(s) will make it work on a larger scale, and the prices will come down.

We guard our pasture-raised eggs jealously! YUM!

I pay 7$/dozen at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market. In fact, the whole reason I got up early on Saturdays to go to the market was to make sure I can them before they sell out. The vendor I like to buy them from (don't ask me, I'm not telling!) sells out by 10, sometimes 9:30 am. I get really anxious when I see people wheel their carts up to his stall. No! Not the eggs!

"Why are these eggs only $1.19?"

"Why is this chicken just $2.99/lb?"

"Why is this butter only $3?"

I ask myself these questions to remind myself of what I have learned from Pollan's books. This makes it MUCH easier to spend $6 on eggs. I want an actual egg for breakfast. I want local farmers to earn more than the fry guy at Bob's Burger Hut.

Read Pollan's books, see "Food, Inc.", spend more on your groceries and eat less faux-food. It's not too expensive in the long run.

Skip a couple pizzas every month, Cancel your cell data plan, or cut back your cable channels. There is room in most budgets to eat actual food.

I willingly pay $5-6 a dozen at the market and enjoy every last eggy bite.

Pastured eggs run $3.50 - $5/dz here in the NH seacoast.

And yes, they are absolutely, 100% worth it.

See those deep orangey yolks? That's a result of what the chicken eats -- lots of greens (grass, kale, chard, broccoli rabe, etc), LITTLE GRAIN/SOY. Chickens are supposed to eat dirt and bugs and vegetation; they aren't supposed to be vegetarian, yet corporate egg farms boast the vegetarian feed on the cartons. While it's better than God knows what the $1.19/dz chickens are fed, it's still not great.

Leafy greens contain high amounts of lutein and zeaxanthin, two orange colored carotenoids. When chicken eat vegetation, they ingest these carotenoids and deposit them in the yolks -- that's why the yolks are that rich colors rather than the anemic looking yellow of "vegetarian" fed chickens. These carotenoids are deposited in the macula (the back of the eye) and prevent damage from sun exposure, lowering the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration. While we can eat leafy greens and get these same carotenoids, they aren't as bioavailable as in eggs: the chickens convert them to a more bioavailble form, increasing absorption many times.

Helping local farmers, raising chickens in a humane way with their natural diet, AND preventing me from loosing my eye sight later in life? Yeah, that's totally worth an extra $2-3 each week.

Thats so much money! Is that photo of the egg on a plate cooked? It kind of grosses me out.

RE: Are we saying that farmers have to charge $7.50 per dozen eggs in order to make a livable wage?

Cheap food is killing us, and killing this planet.

This is the real cost for real food -- as ilovebutter writes about -- the stuff that is healthier for us, for the environment, more humane for the animal, and paying a farmer for their labour.

$7.50 is the cost for supermarket eggs (not organic, but uncaged) here in Switzerland.

$4 per flat of 20 at a couple of places here. No kidding, cheaper than conventional eggs at the grocery.

It would still be worth it at $7.50, even if I had to cut something else to afford them. There is no substitute for fresh, local, pasture eggs....so firm, so tasty. Fell in love with them in Ireland and am thrilled to finally have a local source.

While it is noble to seek to "live lightly," do you have any idea how much land would be required to provide need to be dedicated to chickens in order to provide "pasture-raised" eggs to 304 million people?

True sustainability can only be built on an extreme shift the amount of animal-based products we consume. It sounds like you would buy more eggs if "pasture-raised" were more affordable. That is not a sustainable approach.

We've gotten into the habit of going to a local market that sells local eggs that come from a farm located a mile or two from the market itself. We pay around $5-$6 for a dozen, and once we got over the initial shock, we realized that we're happy to do it. First of all: we eat fewer eggs, and savor them when we do. Second: eating this way represents the way our eating has changed overall. We buy local meat whenever we can, we spend more on it, and we eat it less often. Ditto poultry. Ultimately, I wind up spending the same or less on my weekly grocery bills, because I'm buying less of the more expensive items, and buying them less frequently.

If I buy a roaster that costs me $17, you can bet that I'm going to use absolutely every single drop of it, and then make stock from the bones. At the end of the day, even my garbage bags are emptier.

Call me crazy: I want to eat frugally....but I won't ever buy cheap food.

Thanks for writing this, Dana (and your eggs are beautiful!). As someone who raises animals on a natural (organic as much as we can) farm, it's been really interesting reading the comments.

$7.50 a dozen does seem pretty high to me - but then I'm in rural Missouri where $8 an hour is considered a good wage (if you can even find a job). I gasped in shock when a friend in the SF Bay Area (where I grew up) told me several years ago that she routinely paid $20 just to PARK when going out for drinks in the City. That seems insane - but makes the eggs sound positively cheap!

And I can bet that your egg supplier isn't getting rich, even at those prices. There are so many costs that people often don't take into consideration when deciding whether food is priced fairly or not. A few years ago, I used to sell my extra eggs to a locally owned (and always struggling) natural foods store for 95 cents a dozen (where they sold them for $1.20). No way was I making a profit. The store was 32 miles away - so even when gas was cheaper that's still a chunk of money (of course I'd never drive down there just to deliver eggs).

Then there's the chicken feed (though I try to feed mine as much 'free' food as I can from the farm - which we just happen to be discussing this week here), chicken housing, buying your chicks/chickens in the first place if you don't hatch them yourself, the time it takes to individually wash 120 eggs, breakage during washing (I think my record was 14, LOL, but that's because I left them sitting on a tea towel on the washing machine - where the dishes dry - and something fell on them) etc. etc. . .

A lot of people seem to think that raising 'grass fed' sheep and cattle means that you simply let the animals loose on your land to eat and take care of themselves. I wish. First of all, you need to buy that land. : )

Last year, after losing over a dozen sheep to coyotes, we invested in two 100 pound livestock guardian dogs (who eat about $700 a year in dog food alone - which is roughly our gross profit from selling four butcher weight lambs) and nearly $15,000 in fencing. That fencing will never pay for itself, but (hooves crossed), we haven't had any losses this year.

I'm not saying all this to complain, merely to add to the 'yes, it's worth it' side of the 'real' food argument. I, too, think $20 or $30 for a chicken seems crazy, but that's often the true cost of producing good food. No farmer does all this work (and whether you're raising chickens for eggs or beef for steaks or lettuce and tomatoes and corn, it is a ton of work) to get rich.

And before I head back out into the 90 degree day (with 100% humidity) to tend to my animals and work in the garden, I'll toss out the rationalization I often use when convincing myself to spend a little extra money on sustainably raised food:

It's always a much better deal than eating out! : )

ilovebutter,
Fascinating info - thanks!

My family is starting a small chicken operation. Our chickens won't be pasture-raised, only because it's not viable, too many other animal predators. They have to have a roof over their heads and chicken fencing buried deep in the ground. But they will be in a HUGE chicken house with lots of room to move around, be feed greens, yogurt, etc along with chicken feed. The eggs taste so much better, and are better for you, but people in my area (rural georgia) just aren't going to pay 7.50 a dozen. 3 dollars TOPS. Even then it's pushing it a bit.

People still just don't understand the mechanics of the food industry. They want things cheap and fast. We aren't going to make a ton of money selling like this, but we feel better about eating them and having other people eat them. Plus, we love the chickens.

Thanks for this great post.

Sorry if this posts twice. It showed up right after ilovebutter's comment and then disappeared.

Thanks for writing this, Dana (and your eggs are beautiful!). As someone who raises animals on a natural (organic as much as we can) farm, it's been really interesting reading the comments.

$7.50 a dozen does seem pretty high to me - but then I'm in rural Missouri where $8 an hour is considered a good wage (if you can even find a job). I gasped in shock when a friend in the SF Bay Area (where I grew up) told me several years ago that she routinely paid $20 just to PARK when going out for drinks in the City. That seems insane - but makes the eggs sound positively cheap!

And I can bet that your egg supplier isn't getting rich, even at those prices. There are so many costs that people often don't take into consideration when deciding whether food is priced fairly or not. A few years ago, I used to sell my extra eggs to a locally owned (and always struggling) natural foods store for 95 cents a dozen (where they sold them for $1.20). No way was I making a profit. The store was 32 miles away - so even when gas was cheaper that's still a chunk of money (of course I'd never drive down there just to deliver eggs).

Then there's the chicken feed (though I try to feed mine as much 'free' food as I can from the farm - which we just happen to be discussing this week here), chicken housing, buying your chicks/chickens in the first place if you don't hatch them yourself, the time it takes to individually wash 120 eggs, breakage during washing (I think my record was 14, LOL, but that's because I left them sitting on a tea towel on the washing machine - where the dishes dry - and something fell on them) etc. etc. . .

A lot of people seem to think that raising 'grass fed' sheep and cattle means that you simply let the animals loose on your land to eat and take care of themselves. I wish. First of all, you need to buy that land. : )

Last year, after losing over a dozen sheep to coyotes, we invested in two 100 pound livestock guardian dogs (who eat about $700 a year in dog food alone - which is roughly our gross profit from selling four butcher weight lambs) and nearly $15,000 in fencing. That fencing will never pay for itself, but (hooves crossed), we haven't had any losses this year.

I'm not saying all this to complain, merely to add to the 'yes, it's worth it' side of the 'real' food argument. I, too, think $20 or $30 for a chicken seems crazy (though I do pay about $12 for pastured poultry raised by friends - and use every last bit of each one), but that's often the true cost of producing good food. No farmer does all this work (and whether you're raising chickens for eggs or beef for steaks or lettuce and tomatoes and corn, it is a ton of work) to get rich.

And before I head back out into the 90 degree day (with 100% humidity) to tend to my animals and work in the garden, I'll toss out the rationalization I often use when convincing myself to spend a little extra money on sustainably raised food:

It's always a much better deal than eating out! : )

ilovebutter,
Fascinating info - thanks!

Holy cow! Okay, those are some beautiful eggs; and I wholly agree with the idea of supporting small, good-minded farmers. But wow, I cannot afford eggs at that price, especially for how quickly I go through them. I get nervous when they start approaching $2-$3 per dozen. More incentive to earn extra money, right?

http://www.abreadaday.com

I agree with the post in that I want to support sustainable, local farming. I want to support organic agriculture. I believe that big agri-business is creating a whole host of disasters for our environment.

But...

It's awfully hard to think in the big picture when you're worried about being able to pay the rent. $7.50 for a dozen eggs seems like an unaffordable luxury when I'm trying to stretch a very small budget to feed a family. I wish there was a way to make sustainable, organic food more affordable for the average consumer.

$5 for pasture raised eggs in Chicago. you must be in CA or NY, but even then, how can they justify the price if I can pay $5 here? (my farm's info is here, btw: http://www.tempelfarms.com/organicfarm.html)

That's what I initially thought, too, that I can't afford to spend 7$ on eggs, and 12$ on two pints of raw cream, or 6$ on raw milk, or 7$lb/on pastured chicken, steak, etc. But you know what, I have, and I'm actually spending less on groceries than I did before.

I use everything now. I eat less meat and more veggies. The food just tastes better, and satisfies quicker. I no longer stop at the Whole Foods across the street to pick up a few items I was craving for dinner, but rather, use only what I have on hand. I've stopped buying lunches and bring them from home.

All in all, what it costs me to shop at my farmer's market is about the same, if not less, than at Whole Foods, and my food tastes better, I know where they come from, and I can ask the farmers for the varietal names, and they'll know it.

And if I am willing to spend 60-75$ for a haircut, why am I not willing to spend more to the people who grow my food? I can live without haircuts, but I cannot live without food.

I can tell you that $7.50 is totally worth it. First it does mean you eat fewer eggs, which is good in a lot of ways.. and second it supports agriculture that is important.

Being completely veg isn't going to happen for me, but being responsible in the choices I make is totally possible.

That means I have added a lot less meat or eggs, and a lot more veggies, but the stuff I get to consume is amazing and tastey, and all told it does make me be a bit more frugal, and a lot less wasteful.

So it's totally worth it, totally responsible, and totally sustainable.

Cost of living and space is SF is high. I don't have a car. I don't drive. Going to other Farmer's Markets is out of the questions really. Then when you factor in gas, time, looking for parking once coming, back, that all adds up. Makes saving $2 on a carton of eggs not worth it. Things here are more expensive. Renting a stall at the Ferry Building isn't cheap. So while someone living in Mountain View or Palo Alto can get away with paying 5$ for a dozen eggs, I can't. But I don't have to spend money on insurance, gas, a space for the vehicle.

So tell me, how expensive is it for me to be able to catch a 20 minute bus ride to the market, pick up farm fresh eggs, and be back home before I know it?

Everything costs something, sometimes, you just have to look closer for the hidden costs.

My friends back in Atlanta made so much fun of me when I bought a dozen eggs for $7 at a Green Market in New York City. There were Aracuna eggs -- some blue, some brown -- which I had never heard of, but thought I would try them. I thought I was probably being ripped off, but I was wrong.

I never knew what a real egg tasted like until I had these. Wow! They are delicious, firm, bright orange yolks, and they just taste more "eggy" if that makes any sense. Those things in the mega-supermarkets are just not eggs!

Now, I gladly pay the price!

This just makes me feel even more hopeless in terms of ever mastering "healthy" eating. First organic wasn't enough, then free range wasn't enough, now grass fed isn't enough, on and on and on. I have a family and we spend $100 to feed a family of 3 each week and you can bet I don't spend $7.50 on eggs. I bargain hunt just like most people while still trying to buy organic and pesticide/hormone/antibiotic free when I can afford it and when it is available. I'm all for farmers making a decent living and I certainly don't really care about what others spend their food money on but I feel like we need to be more focused on increasing the amount of healthy and ethically raised food available to the masses. I don't know anyone around me (and we're all working), who can afford to spend $7.50 on eggs. What makes this different from someone who spends $3000 on a pair of shoes? This smacks of conspicuous consumption, foodie style.

wow-$7.50 dozen is expensive.
Here (Vancouver), organics are regulated (same stipulations as pastured as far as I can tell from your description) and I can usually get a dozen for $5 CDN. I just buy 2 cartons when they're on sale.

Reading these comments from all of you who are willing to pay for 'high dollar' real eggs (and how much you appreciate and enjoy them) is literally bringing tears to my eyes. THANK YOU!

"I don't know anyone around me (and we're all working), who can afford to spend $7.50 on eggs. What makes this different from someone who spends $3000 on a pair of shoes? This smacks of conspicuous consumption, foodie style."

I completely disagree with this. That is unfair assumption and assessment to make. I don't spend money on television (in fact, I don't even own one), no expenses on cars, I walk to work, I don't go out and consume, consume, consume. The only thing I really spend money on is food. In our household of 2, we spend about 80$ per week on groceries at the farmer's market, including all the eggs and meat. We don't buy for the sake of buying.

Matilda,

You said:
What makes this different from someone who spends $3000 on a pair of shoes? This smacks of conspicuous consumption, foodie style.

While I totally understand trying to eat healthy and sustainably on a tight budget - and applaud you for making the effort - I do think there is a difference. I personally feel that it's absurd to spend $3,000 on a pair of shoes (unless, perhaps, you had tons of extra money to spend and were buying something that had been lovingly hand crafted by an artisan over a period of several months).

But considering my last pair of work boots (which I wore nearly every day for a year) cost me $30, in order to make your comparison work, people would have to be paying about $200 a dozen for these eggs - and that would be ridiculous! : )

I think that's too much.
$4 for us at the Morningside Heights farmer's market in New York City. They are cage free,.hormone free tc. and raised in Clinton, New York -- I've seen the farm myself.

That is a nice-looking box of eggs! And I agree with what so many others have said: you really don't know what an egg tastes like until you've had a pastured one. My grandma used to have a yard full of chickens, and the pastured eggs I can get from time to time remind me of what we had when I was growing up.

Living well and ethically (is there a difference?) so often comes down to asking What is enough? How much do I need?

I'll paraphrase Pollan here and say I'd try to eat less but better food, mostly plants. Not too much.

<<While it is noble to seek to "live lightly," do you have any idea how much land would be required to provide need to be dedicated to chickens in order to provide "pasture-raised" eggs to 304 million people?

True sustainability can only be built on an extreme shift the amount of animal-based products we consume. It sounds like you would buy more eggs if "pasture-raised" were more affordable. That is not a sustainable approach.
posted by Houstonian on June 17th 2009 at 12:19pm
view Houstonian's profile >>

The chickens which now lay our "regular" eggs are fed corn that's grown on land. They're also fed "bovine meal" from cows that are fed the corn that we see growing in those fields. The cows are also fed chickens and CANDY made from that corn.

There is plenty of land to pasture raise our food if we quit feeding the animals and ourselves tons and acres of corn corn corn.

Just eating fewer animal products alone will not bring us to sustainability. It still takes tons and tons of grain, fuel, pesticides, fertilizer, and water to grow, process, and transport those animals and products.

Pastured animals are grown with sunshine, rainwater, grass, bugs, etc. Processing and transportation is minimal if they are consumed locally.

We can do more for our food supply and the planet by eating less animal products, and consuming only local pastured products than we can possibly do by going totally vegetarian on the food system we have in place now.

I hear you all, but it is totally unrealistic for most of us to eat this way. And, it is also discouraging to those who try to eat healthy and ethical foods on a budget.

<< I wish there was a way to make sustainable, organic food more affordable for the average consumer.
posted by HandyC on June 17th 2009 at 1:13pm>>

They will become more affordable as the supply increases due to the increase in demand. They'll still cost more than industrialized food, though.

If you feel that you do want to make a change in the foods you eat, and further help increase the demand for pastured local products, you really can help and not break the bank.

Just buy one or two items per month, or per week if you can, that are pastured, local, etc. Money really is tight for a lot of people, including myself, and I can't afford to buy everything 100% pastured.

But I do always buy butter and eggs that are. I'm eating a lot less meat so I don't have to buy industrial meat so often. I eat less cheese. My food budget has adjusted to this, and I buy pastured meat or cheese when I can.

Eventually my budget will adjust itself again, and I'll have more room for more pastured foods.

Can you imagine the impact if every household bought just one pound of pastured butter this month?? It would be enormous.

@ Houstonian -- ohjodi is absolutely correct -- if we quit the ridiculous practice of feeding grain/soy to our animals, we'd have plenty of space for pasteuring and the price would also come down.

Furthermore, pasturing chickens doesn't mean the land has to be dedicated to chickens. They can share the land with other animals and crops. For example, a local dairy farm near me pastured their cows. Every few days, the cows are moved from pasture to pasture, and the chickens follow behind them. As the chickens scratch and peck at the ground, they also work the manure into the soil (as well as their own), enriching the soil helping the grass to grow. Now that, to me, is truely sustainable.

Likewise, at the CSA farm where I worked had the chickens in mobile pens (with a mobile coop) that were moved around the farm. The chickens would be stationed in fields that weren't in use and helped fertilize and till the soil, or in the grassy rows between beds where they "mowed" the grass and kept insects down.

Indeed, if we got rid of all these ridiculous acres of corn, wheat, canola and soy we grow in this country we would have zero problem raising organic, pastured, sustainable food products. (I don't consider grains food; they are edible calories, but not food.)

Matilda --

I don't think anyone is trying to discourage anyone else from eating organic, sustainably, and ethically in whatever ways and by however means they can. I was mostly trying to defend why I spend 7$ on a dozen eggs.

It does seem expensive, but the more people who can fork up the money to eat good food, the more farmers will change over to organic with the logical consequence that the prices will fall. It's already happening here in Europe.

You get what you pay for and a 10 cents egg is not going to have the same background as a 62.5 cent egg. If you can somehow stretch to organic it's definitely worth it.

those eggs are gorgeous!!!

I pay $3.50 at the farmers market here in upstate NY. Def. worth it, although i probably wouldn't use $7 eggs for things like baking.

This just highlights the scam that sustainable farming and organics are. There's no way that any substantial fraction of the country can afford $7.50/dozen eggs. NO WAY.

As a commenter noted, in many areas that's a decent hour's wage. Pollan et al. are promoting an ideology that would starve to death most of the population and force the rest onto a vegan diet. All of the "horrible industrial" farming practices are what is needed to feed the world - they are what the Green Revolution was made of.

Free range avians are also a huge danger for the incubation of disease, especially when those said avians are in close contact with people. There are structural reasons why bird and swine flus tend to be incubated in China, and why Mexico was the apparent source of the most recent outbreak of swine flu.

There are ethical reasons to advocate for this type of farming, but those ethics place the lives of food animals in far higher esteem than the majority of the world's population. Genocide thanks to aesthetic preferences. But then Mao, Stalin, and Pot conducted their genocides according to their ethics as well.

Either admit that organics and free range are positional luxuries unavailable to 99.999% of the world (and always will be) or be upfront with your genocidal intent.

I am a little surprised people are so upset about $7 for a dozen eggs. I admittedly try not to pay more than ~.50c a egg, but $6 a dozen is at the upper limit of egg prices here is Seattle anyways.

I don't really see an issue with paying so much for eggs, milk, butter, cheese, etc. but then again I am of the mind that I should not be eating tons of them anyways and when I do eat them I want them to be really good.

Like many people here, I compromise. I buy relatively local flour but not the most local, a fair number of local fruits and veggies but not all since I get tired of apples every day. Local bread when I don't make it but pasta in bulk. "junk" and fast foods I try and get from local bakeries/supplies. and so on.

@preppycuisine --

As has already been established, most pastured eggs in this country are far less than $7.50/dz; that's an anomaly of living in the Bay area. It seems most places it's $3-5. And yeah, not everyone can afford it but that doesn't make it stupid to buy, or stupid to believe it's a better system of agriculture. No body is saying it's that or starve to death. For you to extrapolate that point is cow manure.

"Genocide thanks to aesthetic preferences...Either admit that organics and free range are positional luxuries unavailable to 99.999% of the world (and always will be) or be upfront with your genocidal intent."

It's not high quality food that's causing half the world to starve. Enough food is produced globally to feed every person on earth 3500 kcal/day -- about TWICE what is needed. Indeed, we have a surplus of food yet half the population is underfed. There are political reasons for this, but socio-economic as well. In the US, little of the food at the local megamart is actually GROWN in the US: in the US we grow primarily grains [wheat, corn], soy, canola and factory-farmed animal products, but most of our vegetables are imported from 3rd world countries (Central and South America, China). The farmers in these countries dedicate their land to grow export crops but have no land to grow their own food. So as you enjoy your strawberries in December, realize that it is at the expense of a poor family in Peru who gave up their ability to feed themselves so you could have out of cheap, out of season produce.

"Free range avians are also a huge danger for the incubation of disease, especially when those said avians are in close contact with people. There are structural reasons why bird and swine flus tend to be incubated in China, and why Mexico was the apparent source of the most recent outbreak of swine flu."

With regards to avian and swine flu, the risks/consequences of both of those were far overstated and sensationalized by the mass media. Neither were anywhere near as bad as "regular" flu. Furthermore, the reason why they originated in animal feedlots is because of the conditions they were raised in. In this model, animals are crammed in to maximize efficiency. These close quarters allow for disease to spread rapidly. Disease occurs because the conditions are disgusting -- animals are often standing or laying in feces and urine -- and the environment is stressful. Stressing an organism weakens the immune system so they are less able to fight disease. These animals are fed a diet of corn, soy, and other unnatural things. Feeding any animal a diet they are not genetically adapted for -- and I don't care if you're talking cows, chickens, cats, or people -- will cause disease because their bodies can't digest and metabolize the food optimally. Furthermore, the practice of adding antibiotics to food as a growth stimulant is widespread. Doing so increases yield by 10-15%, which maximizes profit but also gives rise to antibiotics resistant bacteria. Do a google search on MRSA and feedlot. MRSA is very serious business; it used to be primarily confined to hospitals where they could act on it quickly and keep it from spreading. But, now thanks to factory farming, MRSA is popping up on feedlots infecting livestock and passing it to the farm workers who then go into the community and spread it around. This is a public health threat waiting to happen. Drugs companies aren't funding research for new antibiotics, there's no money in it. When things like MRSA can be passed around from casual contact, we're done for.

So while you may think that choosing to eat humane, sustainably raised foods is "genocide", personally, I think it's just the opposite. By choosing to financially support a method of food production that doesn't use oil, pollute the ground water and air, promote the spread of disease and antibiotics resistant superbugs, inflict suffering to animals and farm workers, or remove an indigenous people's ability to feed them selves, I feel I am helping to make the world a better place.

So you can go ahead and call organics a scam, but it's people like you that I see in the grocery store buying their cheap eggs and imported produce and factory farmed beef that I blame for making the future a little less bright.

Hey Dana, How wonderful that your post has brought such lively discussion. Connections that help us relate to each other...to the earth...to the other animals. And it appears to me that we're in a paradigm shift. One that's been long coming, that is if we're too continue to be an animal species that's remains part of earth's system. Those of us who pay $7 for eggs aren't all just paying this price cause we MUST have eggs that are delicious. We pay this because we want ALL life to be respected, ours and the animals we eat. And we have a ways to go, as we help our organic, humane farmers stay in business and thrive, so that eventually it may be that the price will be able to go down. This is another part of the conversation that some have brought into their comments. Please do a posting sometime about the efforts being made for everyone to have access to healthy, life affirming food. You are one of my Earth Heroines. Thank you.

@preppycuisine:

"All of the "horrible industrial" farming practices are what is needed to feed the world - they are what the Green Revolution was made of........be upfront with your genocidal intent."

Well, we've been doing this industrial farming thing for sixty years, and we're still not feeding the world. So who, then, has "genocidal intent"? Who is shipping GMO grains to third world countries? Who is PATENTING grain seed, so third world people must pay for the honor of using SEEDS?

etc, etc.

I just want to say that I really don't care about the emotional well-being of chickens.....I don't think it's necessary that they get spa massages and listen to NPR while playing croquet all day.......

....HOWEVER, I have learned recently that JUST LIKE WITH HUMANS....if an animal is confined, living in squalor, getting no exercise, eating unhealthy foods, shot up with drugs, and terrorized you end up with a very unhealthy animal.

You end up with NOT what that animal is "supposed to be", but something "other". And I think eating that "other" kind of animal is part of what is turning we humans into "others", ourselves.

i'm with midnightskyfibers, seattle's groceries are all around pricey. i buy low end cage free eggs (which i know doesnt mean too much) and they run $4/dozen on a good day

$7 is way more than i would like to spend but not too far off from what i spend every week.

I was told by a NY farmer that 'cage-free' means each chicken must have one square foot of space.

4.99 here. And I simply hate industrial eggs now. They taste like...nothing.

Matilda:

Take heart--the $7.50 price tag has just as much to do with the cost of living/production for the area they were purchased in as the item itself. I procure the same standard of eggs for $3.75/dozen (or is it $3.50?) in a north Texas college town.

If you want eggs like this/produce like this, I'm sure we can put our heads together and figure out a viable solution. Didn't I read something recently about a chicken-share program? Or even a chicken CSA?

the good eggs are cheaper at my farmers market (west philadelphia) than in the grocery store, $2.50/dozen for great eggs from happy chickens. its a bummer to know that isn't the norm

overwhelmingly, the glasses here seem to be half empty rather than half full.

the arguments made here for the price of the eggs are very valid, as are the reasons for eating this way. because i have a family to feed and a budget, i came up with a way to have fresh eggs raised the same way by someone i trust.

we barter.

i bake delicious breads and garden extensively. a loaf of bread (or a bunch of veggies) for a dozen eggs works well for us.

Yum! Fresh eggs, direct from the farm are *so* good. We only pay about $5/doz for ours (still twice as much as from the grocery store, I think), but they are well worth it.

I have to admit, though, that they are substantially better in the summer and fall than at other times of the year (likely because their diets need to be supplemented in the winter in colder climates than yours, Dana).

I had to do a double-take on that egg picture!

Looks just like the eggs my wife and I brought back from Kansas.

These are from aracana chickens, known for their pastel hued eggs.

Chelsea's family has them on their homestead. The roosters are particularly vicious as evidenced by a puncture wound in Grandpa's shin. This should make the price of those eggs worth every penny.

Not to delve into the politics too much--I'll just say that Chelsea's uncle won't touch a commodity egg with a ten foot pole but he'll eat these. I don't know, all of sudden $7.50 doesn't seem like much since I learned that.

Photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/art_chel/sets/72157620222529736/

Living in an area where the real best guess about unemployment is really around 20%. People are losing their homes etc... It is hard to tell someone that they should pay $7.50 for a dozen eggs, when that dozen eggs will only last half a week, because how many mouths it needs to feed. I grew up in the central valley surrounded by agriculture. I personally believe in "voting" with my dollar. I can afford $7.50 for a dozen eggs, but that is not to say that I look down my nose at someone who can not. I think it comes off as elitist, to say the least. I think we need to look at the human connection of not only the farmer but the consumer. People need to eat, and not everyone has the budget to eat sustainably. It is unfortunate but until a solution is met this is what we have to deal with. Now having said that my only philosophy in life is that I do not believe that an animal should suffer in order for me to eat. I have that luxury, but some people do not.

"People were animals, too, once, and when we turned into human beings we gave something up. Being close to animals brings some of it back."---Temple Grandin

Years ago, on the way home from work, my husband would pay one dollar for a dozen eggs and see the chickens grazing in the pasture next to the house. There was a hen house, to provide protection at night. I drove about 20 miles to pick up goat's milk for my child who had horrid reactions to cow's milk. Both, alas no longer available.

Fresh free range lamb and chicken, eggs, and cheese are available at the farmer's market here in Louisiana at reasonable prices. Store eggs run under two dollars, farmer's market run about four dollars. We value the produce and the effort the vendors/farmers and the social interaction with them and others at the market.

Even at $7 a dozen, farm eggs are still a relatively inexpensive (as well as truly versatile) protein compared to pastured meats.

To those of you who are amazed at the cost, do a side by side comparison. Find some fresh, actual free-range eggs from a local farmer (you can often find these at your local butcher or local produce stands), and then get some of those horrid bleach-white "eggs" from the supermarket. Cook them side by side and then taste them both. The difference is staggering. Once you get fresh eggs you'll never go back.

This is an interesting debate - I had just a few comments to add.

Oneisco: I don't think that there is really any question as to relative quality. I think we can all agree that the more expensive eggs are genuinely better. We can agree on this and still be amazed at the cost. Do a side-by-side comparison of flying first class and flying economy and the difference is also "staggering", but that's hardly an argument for either affordability or sustainability.

I agree that supporting this kind of production and enjoying this kind of quality is a better way to live. But people, please remember that this kind of consumption is beyond the ability of so much of the world and signifies a unique level of material well-being and the prioritizing of certain values that has never before existed before in this world (and remains a luxury for a distinct minority even today).

Another commenter referred to this as "conspicuous consumption", which I think might be a little harsh, but really is not so off the mark. The argument that this isn't conspicuous consumption because none of us would ever buy expensive cars, televisions or clothes isn't a rebuttal so much as just letting the world know that we have different tastes in what we choose to conspiculously consume. We differ from the clothes shopper in that we feel more of a need than they might to justify our consumption decisions - usually by describing our purchase as the product of a series of moral decisions. We're more obnoxious in the way that we broadcast our decisions, but are driven by the same basic impulses that drive the socialite with $3000 jeans.

Here is an exercise everyone can and should do on their own. (1) Get an envelope. (2) Calculate how many calories can be produced per acre of arable land using the most advanced technology that can be applied to pasture-raised food. (3) Multiply this number by the total number of arable acres on the planet. (4) Divide this number by today's population (or the projected population in fifty years). (5) Decide whether you think it's alright to encourage starvation on so epic a scale.

Until we can change one of the variables in the exercise above, let's try to remember that buying pasture raised food is a fun and rewarding hobby for those wealthy, informed and motivated enough to do it. I think the author of the post has done a better job at recognizing this than most of those commenting.

very interesting reads here!

i work and study hard for the day when i can afford to buy all the best organic and local produce/dairy/etc. but living in a pretty poor city, i can tell you no matter how committed people are to eating sustainably, $7.50 or even $5 seems overwhelmingly expensive. i'm a student and i do my absolute best to think globally/shop local and be environmentally considerate. but truly until there is a large commitment by the people WITH the money in society, there will be no way for the rest of us to afford it.

that being said, when i have a little extra grocery money at the end of the month i do splurge on organic eggs or produce.

@micbrew7

I don't think you understand the argument of why most people should buy these eggs - because they are much better for you. Many people have talked about how great they taste, but since these are produced in a natural way, from chickens eating natural feed (bugs, grasses etc), they contain far more nutritional value than regular eggs (as well as being free of hormones and antibiotics).

So would I rather pay a few extra dollars on nutrition packed eggs, or would I rather pay those to the health care system? $3 extra on a dozen eggs a week doesn't add up to much in a year compared to the value to your health.

Regarding use of the world's land. First of all, we have too many people on this planet already, and that is readily apparent from the massive environmental destruction happening due to an overstressed ecological system. I in no way advocate starvation of anybody, but the simple fact is if humanity wants to survive and thrive, we need to cut back our numbers. It's as simple as many countries adopting a 1 child policy like China. No one likes to talk about this, but if you look at the pollution and degradation of the planet, it's the direct result of overpopulation and overconsumption.

Secondly, used properly and carefully, an integrated permaculture system can produce the same caloric output per acre as a grain farm, I recently saw a british documentary on this (I'll try to find the url for it - I believe it's this: http://www.viddler.com/explore/PermaScience/videos/4/). In fact, it works better than current grain farms, because it is a closed environment. Unlike the popular system of using oil based fertilizers on grain crops, a permaculture system integrates animals and plants - animals eat plants, produce fertilizer, renew more plants (basic description). This is in every way much better than the current system that is reliant on massive input of fossil fuels to till and fertilize the crops. As oil prices continue to rise, this is really the only system that is sustainable.

There is such heated debate about sustainable vs. industrial farming (which can be seen in this post's comments), but neither side is going to admit faults in their operations and personally I think both sides have issues they need to address. Yes, Industrial farming practices can produce more product with less input cost, but is that necessarily a good thing? Organic and sustainable have become trendy and that's dangerous in it's own way because those words will start being abused and not meaning what they should.

I have a small farm and raise my own garden, chickens, and meat. I get a little annoyed when people start saying that eating less meat is better for the environment. Livestock that is raised in small scale on mostly pasture isn't BAD. I enjoy raising livestock. They are given a good life, and at the same time I know exactly what went into my food and where it came from.

A lot of the talk from either side of the agriculture fence is propaganda which does more harm than good. I wish there was a way for all of us to be economically able to have fresh, healthy food options available to us, but for some it's not possible. I think a lot of what has been achieved with the local food movement is great--getting to know area farmers, having a resource to help find local food, etc. I'm biased but small-scale farming seems ideal to me--so does each person being as self-sufficient as possible as far as food is concerned--whether it be a small window garden or a pasture of hogs.

Thanks for the post--I enjoyed reading it--I love having fresh eggs outside my back door (although mine only sell for a dollar or two a dozen--and most often are given away to friends)--and I think lots of people in the future will start raising as much of their own food as possible (or buy it from someone they know personally) because it has come to light how much junk we are feeding ourselves unknowingly.

$7/dozen is high just because you are used to paying $2.50/dozen at the grocery store. Think of it this way: six servings of high quality animal protein for $7. It's actually not a lot of money. We are just used to paying less. Not many people would blink at a $1 cup of coffee (not to mention $3-$5) coffee, when coffee costs about 4 cents to make. If you really don't have a lot of money and you are doing good to buy yourself ground beef once a week, then sure, $7/dozen eggs is not going to be a good buy for you. But if you are someone who has a "tight" budget, yet still finds room in the budget for a movie, a latte, a bottle of wine, then it's not that you "can't afford" $7/dozen eggs, it's that you choose not to.

I'm not by any means against paying farmers what they deserve for a product they labor over. What I do find strange is, it just doesn't cost that much to raise "pastured" chickens. Chickens are probably the least inexpensive livestock to raise and a single chicken lays about an egg a day and costs about 10 cents a day to feed (and I'm talking high quality grain and vegetable scraps (I have chickens)). Maybe they're charging you for the drive into the city but I still think they may be making 50% on their eggs. But if you don't mind paying that price and you're enjoying the quality of the product - then by all means, keep doing what you're doing.