Conscious, 2010.
1 egg, 1 condom
5cmx5cmx4cm
In the Netherlands the biological production (the moral conscious of the level of our comsuming) of food is a topic in political debates. In the government there is a Party for Animals, which shows with their presence that Dutch citizens think that the moral aspect of , for example egg production, is an important issue.
Over the years there appeared several ways of producing eggs chickenfriendly. In the supermarkets nowadays you can choose between a dozen of different eggs. One even more frienly then the other. They all have names that tell you that the mother of the eggs in the box was free to squirrel around (scharrel eieren), was allowed to walk outside whenever she wants (vrije uitloop eieren), had access to grassland (gras eieren) etc.
Beside the name and design of the box there is a list of signs and stams indicating that the farm got checked and approved by this or that bureau, which means (or should mean) checked by the government. The more ecological the egg, the more you pay.
Now are there some proofs every now and then that the egg with a stamp of ecological origin can still come from a chicken in a cage. Eggs get recategorised because there is not really a prosecution against it. I think the whole ecological standard on eggproduction is questionable as well. The European standard for 'free walking around' lies around 6 chickens per m2, meaning the only thing that actually disappeared is the cage. It is a fact that the chickens in a cage are more healthy (in the Netherlands). It might sound strange but the last decade there hasnt been any of the common diseases like parasites, due to the fact that since chickens came off the ground they dont walk around in their own shit all day. In the biological farms where they do, it is impossible to get it to dry, which leads to an increasing dioxide level which causes the quality of the egg to go backwards. Some other common happening in biological farms which stopped happening in the cages is cannibalism. As there are no ill or weaker chickens in the cages they dont get picked on, killed and eaten by the others.
With all that being said I'm not sure which way is better. Health or freedom. And why should we transfer our ethics to the foodproduction? Isn't massproduction of lifestock unethical in every way? A prison and abuse don't disappear when you make it prettier.
To get to the top of the foodchain we had to group together until the only natural enemy left was our own specie. And to protect ourselves against ourselves we started to crawl together in big cities and countries. In order to survive that way of living we have to produce loads of food as there isn't space for everybody to have chickens in the backyard, if you have one. That's the concequence of the way we live. To protect yourself from feeling bad about it, you either escape the city or buy yourself a better conscious.