Have you heard about the massive egg recall going on now? The government has recalled about 228 million eggs and the number will likely go higher. This is a national number because these egg producers are not local farms. They are the modern day industrial chicken farms (aka factories). The problem with the eggs is a bacteria called salmonella that can be found on the shells of the eggs. This bacteria runs rampant in cramped chicken houses with unsanitary conditions. Chickens are not clean animals to begin with and then you put 500 of them into a 200 sqft coop and you get a royal mess. These factories are not doing the proper job of screening for this bacteria and thus it gets on to the eggs and shipped to your local food store.
The fact that 228 million eggs are a part of this recall goes to show how widespread the problem is. This is not just one single factory's problem. This is a problem with the entire system. Salmonella is a serious bacteria that can cause severe sickness and even death if not treated properly. Why isn't the government cracking down on the way chickens are bred, housed and maintained? I am not really sure. But I do know that the government is cracking down on the wrong people. The small farmers who let their chickens run free and actually care about their sanitary conditions. Does this sound counter intuitive? Well it is, check out my older post about the new House Bill that has been passed, http://caraendriss.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-food-bill-threatens-to-destroy.html
Well fortunately for my family, I held out for farmers market day and bought my eggs from www.Carltonfarm.com, a local farm in Rockmart, GA where the milk has a 6 inch layer of cream on top and the egg yolks are orange. Yes, orange! That is the color they should be in case you weren't aware. The orange color indicates that the chickens have been fed a diet rich in beta carotene. When chickens are fed nothing but grains (aka corn), their yolks tend to be the pale yellow color that we see in big chain grocery stores. They are not really adding any nutritional value to our diets at all.
Here is a little tid bit about Salmonella and food borne illnesses in this country, just so you are aware:
"Salmonella poisoning symptoms
Within 6-to-72 hours of eating an egg, you may experience lower abdominal cramps, diarrhea (sometimes bloody), vomiting, fever, chills, malaise, nausea or headache. Symptoms may persist for as long as a week.
While most people recover without treatment, some patients require hospitalization. Among the 21,244 cases of foodborne illness reported from tainted food-related outbreaks in the United States in 2007 (the last year for which data is available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), salmonella was the No. 2 cause of illness, causing 27% of foodborne illness outbreaks, including 55% of multi-state outbreaks, and 81 illnesses attributed to salmonella in eggs; five deaths resulted from salmonella-contaminated food. The two biggest foodborne illness outbreaks that year were caused by salmonella, in hummus and frozen pot pies." -Dan Shapley, Daily Green
These are the egg brands affected by the recall so check your fridge for them:
Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph’s, Boomsma’s, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms, and Kemps. If you have them, throw them away.
If you are interested in finding a local farm to purchase eggs and other provisions, please feel free to contact me, I can help point you in the right direction, no matter what state you live in. We need to support our local farmers because it seems like they are the only ones practicing food safety these days.
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