That's a lot of eggs

I was reading about the salmonella egg contamination which projects that 76,000 Americans have been infected, and leading to 380 million eggs being recalled.

It is amazing to think about that amount of eggs within a limited expiration time frame, and coming only from 2 farms in Iowa which is less than 1% of the total eggs grown. Chickens in the USA grow 90 billion eggs per year which is only 11% of the nearly 800 billion in 2007 worldwide. The average chicken lays 275 eggs a year. More from that link that I always wondered about:

Table eggs vary in color and can be determined by the color of the chicken's earlobe--white earlobes lay white eggs, reddish-brown earlobes lay brown eggs, etc. In the U.S., egg size is determined by the weight of a dozen eggs, not individual eggs, and range from Peewee to Jumbo. Store-bought eggs in the shell stay fresh for 3 to 5 weeks in a home refrigerator, according to the USDA.

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The per capita egg consumption in the USA during 2007 is 270. Let's see...that would translate to making a 3 egg omelet every 4 days for every person. Someone is eating a lot more eggs than me. Iowa produces more eggs than the next highest two states (Ohio & Indiana) combined.

The most humane classification on how the hens are treated is "Certified Organic," which requires hens have outdoor access and are fed only organic, vegetarian feed, among other requirements.

Interesting thing about this link......

http://www.hsus.org/farm/resources/pubs/stats_dairy_egg.html

.......as milk/cream,butter and egg consumption has decreased over the last 50 years heart disease and obesity has gone up! :thinking:

It's a lot of eggs, and yet all you have to do is cook 'em and they'll be fine. There are a couple of reasons why I eat my eggs scrambled or...whatever you call it where you pop the yolk when you're making an egg sandwich...and one of them is because the yolk gets cooked all the way through.

fyrstormer said:

It's a lot of eggs, and yet all you have to do is cook 'em and they'll be fine.

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Yup, I can't figure out these recalls sometimes. :shakehead

Still shaking boss.

Barbarian said:

Still shaking boss.

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What we got here is... failure to communicate.

:wave: Barbarian! Does that mean that Ti 3-mode 1,000 lumen shake light I sold still works?

Ah, ...., chickens! A very fascinating topic.

I heard today the total number of bad eggs is bigger than 1/2 billion. That's real money folks, not chicken-feed! (sorry, couldn't resist).

A friend of mine actually spent a lot of time studying chickens. The amazing thing is the rise in "productivity" of the chicken producers. Kind of like the rise in lumen output of LEDs. It's that impressive.

But, it seems this rise in productivity has come at a large cost. I've seen TV shows on how it has been achieved, and it is through the rise of super-feeding practices; putting chickens in huge numbers inside of dark, crowded places. Some never see the light of day. They are force fed fattening foods to the point where their legs can no longer support their weight. The number of eggs hens get to produce is much larger than their natural tendency, and is achieved by scientific manipulation of all environmental and other related factors (such as light).

Chicken operators are not allowed to let people in to observe their chicken growing practices--this by contract from the big distributors (I won't name names, but chances are you can just read them off the chicken food labels at your local super market). If they don't sign the contract, they lose their access to national distribution chains.

And of course the large scale use of antibiotics, which over time contributes not only to animal-infesting super-bugs, but also human-sickening super bugs.

Open-air growers on the other hand are sometimes even handicapped by industry rules, which have been designed to be friendly to the practices of the big operators.

So, 1/2 billion eggs now show up with salmonella. And the eggs are not even that tasty any more. Nor are the chickens.

Finally, a great sci fi book, Oryx and Crake, by well known author Margaret Atwood has explored some of these issues, from a very off-beat angle to be sure. She takes the chicken growing practices to their logical (in a sci fi kind of way) conclusion. In the end they are grown more like plants than animals, their brains shriveled away totally. People hate the idea yet buy ever more, given low and falling prices and fast food like availability. Sounds about right.

Flashlight Aficionado said:

LuxLuthor - It appears that some posts were removed.

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:sigh:

No, but yours would be a good candidate.

ANDREAS FERRARI said:

Interesting thing about this link......

http://www.hsus.org/farm/resources/pubs/stats_dairy_egg.html

.......as milk/cream,butter and egg consumption has decreased over the last 50 years heart disease and obesity has gone up! :thinking:

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Did you check out the cheese number?

Whole thing can be summed up in 2 words: Corporate Greed.

I can sum it up with one word: Salmonella.

LuxLuthor said:

I can sum it up with one word: Salmonella.

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While common in poultry Salmonella is not endemic to the industry. When producers follow proper procedures the risk of Salmonella contamination is greatly diminished. This particular producer has a long history of placing safety second to profit.

We're seeing quite a spike in tainted food in this country and many of those cases can be traced to trying to cut costs by cutting corners when it comes to safe practices.

So my inference still stands. In epidemiology your looking not at the organism but the entire cycle of things to find the root cause of the disease.

bitslammer said:

While common in poultry Salmonella is not endemic to the industry. When producers follow proper procedures the risk of Salmonella contamination is greatly diminished. This particular producer has a long history of placing safety second to profit.

We're seeing quite a spike in tainted food in this country and many of those cases can be traced to trying to cut costs by cutting corners when it comes to safe practices.

So my inference still stands. In epidemiology your looking not at the organism but the entire cycle of things to find the root cause of the disease.

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Such issues can be a reflection of many things, but profit is frequently the knee-jerk scapegoat that may or may not be valid. I would put many causes on equal footing until proven otherwise, including regulatory/inspection incompetence or failures, inadequate regulatory restrictions, employee disastisfaction/sabotauge, accepted practices not addressing a new wild card event occurrence , concommittant diseases or inadequate prophylaxis leading to this outbreak, previously undetected environmental contamination, depletion of naturally occuring minerals and vitamins that have previously been in food sources, etc. etc.

LuxLuthor said:

Such issues can be a reflection of many things, but profit is frequently the knee-jerk scapegoat that may or may not be valid. I would put many causes on equal footing until proven otherwise, including regulatory/inspection incompetence or failures, inadequate regulatory restrictions, employee disastisfaction/sabotauge, accepted practices not addressing a new wild card event occurrence , concommittant diseases or inadequate prophylaxis leading to this outbreak, previously undetected environmental contamination, depletion of naturally occuring minerals and vitamins that have previously been in food sources, etc. etc.

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Some of your points have merit but I think this article says it all. DeCoster has a long history of shady practices.

A supplier in egg recall has history of violations.

I most agree with the fact that our food supply chain is a woefully under-regulated industry here in the US. We also need tougher fines/penalties because they didn't seem to phase this guy. Problem is that you then have people screaming bloody hell about too much gov't regulation.

I say instead of just fines it's time to kick in some serious jail time too.

It's clear in this case that we have someone who doesn't give a damn about putting millions of people at serious risk when it comes to their health. If it's not greed then what is it? The only other motivation I can think of would be willfully wanting to make people sick. That actually doesn't sound far fetched in this case.

bitslammer said:

Some of your points have merit but I think this article says it all. DeCoster has a long history of shady practices.

A supplier in egg recall has history of violations.

I most agree with the fact that our food supply chain is a woefully under-regulated industry here in the US. We also need tougher fines/penalties because they didn't seem to phase this guy. Problem is that you then have people screaming bloody hell about too much gov't regulation.

I say instead of just fines it's time to kick in some serious jail time too.

It's clear in this case that we have someone who doesn't give a damn about putting millions of people at serious risk when it comes to their health. If it's not greed then what is it? The only other motivation I can think of would be willfully wanting to make people sick. That actually doesn't sound far fetched in this case.

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I'm not defending anyone, but it is important to note this key paragraph in the post you linked, and again realize that people always look for a convenient scapegoat, rather than waiting for actual facts to come out. Don't forget the Richard Jewel story. Luckily, he just had enough time to regain his reputation before dying at age 44.

From Your Link said:

It is unclear what role DeCoster's company played in the current salmonella outbreak. The FDA investigation could take months, and sources of contamination are often difficult to find. The current recall goes back to April, and many of the eggs have already been consumed.

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bitslammer said:

Whole thing can be summed up in 2 words: Corporate Greed.

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Well, the consumers tend to buy eggs and other goods from whoever can sell them at the lowest cost without much thought to indirect consequences.

LuxLuthor said:

The per capita egg consumption in the USA during 2007 is 270. Let's see...that would translate to making a 3 egg omelet every 4 days for every person. Someone is eating a lot more eggs than me.

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That number may include eggs used in prepared food products, not just "shell eggs."

nbp said:

Originally Posted by fyrstormer
It's a lot of eggs, and yet all you have to do is cook 'em and they'll be fine.


Yup, I can't figure out these recalls sometimes. :shakehead

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Lots of people eat fried eggs where the yolk isn't thoroughly cooked, or runny eggs. There are also some recipes that use eggs and don't get cooked thoroughly enough. Plus, even if the end product is cooked enough, sometimes cooks don't use enough caution to keep contamination in the raw eggs to end up in the final meal.

I buy only cage-free organic eggs, which I believe are uninfected.

LuxLuthor said:

I was reading about the salmonella egg contamination which projects that 76,000 Americans have been infected, and leading to 380 million eggs being recalled.

It is amazing to think about that amount of eggs within a limited expiration time frame, and coming only from 2 farms in Iowa which is less than 1% of the total eggs grown. Chickens in the USA grow 90 billion eggs per year which is only 11% of the nearly 800 billion in 2007 worldwide. The average chicken lays 275 eggs a year. More from that link that I always wondered about:



The per capita egg consumption in the USA during 2007 is 270. Let's see...that would translate to making a 3 egg omelet every 4 days for every person. Someone is eating a lot more eggs than me. Iowa produces more eggs than the next highest two states (Ohio & Indiana) combined.

The most humane classification on how the hens are treated is "Certified Organic," which requires hens have outdoor access and are fed only organic, vegetarian feed, among other requirements.

Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing.

LuxLuthor said:

The most humane classification on how the hens are treated is "Certified Organic," which requires hens have outdoor access and are fed only organic, vegetarian feed, among other requirements.

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Consider hens aren't vegetarians to begin with, that's a pretty stupid requirement.