IMO, people that worry about the"potential for life" of a fertilized egg really don't have enough important things to think about! I mean, most hens would lay eggs every day or so, whether there is a rooster around or not. Some of those hens would kill themselves trying to hatch infertile eggs, others won't set no matter how many eggs are in the nest. Depending on breed, we could be talking in excess of 300 eggs in a year - or none, if the hen gets killed by a predator. If those eggs don't get incubated, they will never, ever become chicks, no matter how many roosters the farmer has. And if they did, who would feed and house all those birds?
Mother Nature doesn't give a hoot about "potential for life," it's all just protein. Those eggs, and their mother too, are just one easy meal for whatever comes along. We are the only animals that give any thought to "fairness," it means very little when you don't know where your next meal is coming from. I really don't understand how people can see anything unethical about eating an egg, just because some male bird managed to "do the deed" at some time before the egg was laid. If you want to talk ethics, isn't making sure that a hen will spend her entire life wasting her energy producing infertile eggs and thus no progeny biologically unethical?
Apologies to any vegetarians/vegans out there, but to me, life is life. Just because you can't hear the plant yell when you kill it doesn't make it not alive. Every seed is potential life, every piece of bread is that many wheat plants that never grew. Life comes from life, that's just the way the system works. If you choose not to eat animals, fine, that's your choice, but you are still eating embryos with every seed you swallow. I have yet to meet a human being that can survive on mineral water and sunlight, we all have to eat something, and that something has to come from living things. The hen is an engineered creature, designed by people to produce food for people. Fertile or not, any egg that I don't choose to hatch is surplus, at least it doesn't go to waste if I eat it (if I didn't eat it, the hen probably would, she doesn't have any hangups about potential for life!)
Mother Nature doesn't give a hoot about "potential for life," it's all just protein. Those eggs, and their mother too, are just one easy meal for whatever comes along. We are the only animals that give any thought to "fairness," it means very little when you don't know where your next meal is coming from. I really don't understand how people can see anything unethical about eating an egg, just because some male bird managed to "do the deed" at some time before the egg was laid. If you want to talk ethics, isn't making sure that a hen will spend her entire life wasting her energy producing infertile eggs and thus no progeny biologically unethical?
Apologies to any vegetarians/vegans out there, but to me, life is life. Just because you can't hear the plant yell when you kill it doesn't make it not alive. Every seed is potential life, every piece of bread is that many wheat plants that never grew. Life comes from life, that's just the way the system works. If you choose not to eat animals, fine, that's your choice, but you are still eating embryos with every seed you swallow. I have yet to meet a human being that can survive on mineral water and sunlight, we all have to eat something, and that something has to come from living things. The hen is an engineered creature, designed by people to produce food for people. Fertile or not, any egg that I don't choose to hatch is surplus, at least it doesn't go to waste if I eat it (if I didn't eat it, the hen probably would, she doesn't have any hangups about potential for life!)
