Company backed by Bill Gates trying to replace eggs with plant-based protein products

[WYNot]

Laws must be changed from time to time. If not, we would still have slavery in the United States, for example.

No market is ever totally free.

I do not think allowing inhumane treatment of animals is a good idea. Those commercial hens spend their lives locked in a tiny cage.

True, but in your example there is a victim and an aggressor. That is a case of valid legislation. However there is a HUGE difference between the enslavement of other humans and the treatment of chickens/property. I'm simply saying the only laws we need are "mala en se" laws. Everything else can and should be handled between individuals. I don't think treating animals inhumanely is a good idea either but I think allowing government to stick its nose in other people's business is an even worse idea.

In all honestly, I have half a dozen chickens in a large coop. They free range most of the day nearly every day. I do that because that is what works for me and for my birds. I don't try to impose those conditions on others and simply require others to not try to impose their preferences on me. I'm not in any way, shape, or form saying that I agree with the way commercial chicken operations operate. Simply arguing the point about more laws being needed. If enough people actually gave a **** about how those chickens are treated you wouldn't need new laws, people would simply demand their eggs/chicken come from more humane operations. These demands spur and provide incentive for new operations to take hold or for existing operations to change their ways. All without putting a gun to someone's head and demanding they do things the way that someone else wants them done.

In the case of how we or anyone raises their chickens, they are property. I love and value my chickens and agree that conditions in some commercial chicken operations are deplorable but I also love and value my freedoms and my own property. If I don't like the way someone is raising their chickens the most I can do is refuse to buy their product or associate with them. If enough people agree with me and refuse to economically support them then they will change their ways or they will go out of business. I do not have the right to trespass upon their property and tell them how to raise their property. If they are not doing harm to me directly, I simply have no right to dictate terms of how they handle their property. And I can't give the government the right to do something that I don't have the right to do. The moment we do, we open ourselves up to allowing others to dictate how we use and enjoy our own property. You raise your flock the way you want to raise them and I'll raise my flock the way I want to raise them.

Another example are the stupid laws that try to dictate what color your house can be or what style it can be. If you don't like the color/style I chose, to bad. You aren't making the house payment.

Or Bloomburg trying to dictate what size soda can be sold. That is between me and the vendor.

Or the so-called "Affordable Care Act". If it is such a wonderful idea, why must it be implemented and enforced under threat of violence and incarceration?

 

[Bullitt]

True, but in your example there is a victim and an aggressor. That is a case of valid legislation. However there is a HUGE difference between the enslavement of other humans and the treatment of chickens/property. I'm simply saying the only laws we need are "mala en se" laws. Everything else can and should be handled between individuals. I don't think treating animals inhumanely is a good idea either but I think allowing government to stick its nose in other people's business is an even worse idea.

In all honestly, I have half a dozen chickens in a large coop. They free range most of the day nearly every day. I do that because that is what works for me and for my birds. I don't try to impose those conditions on others and simply require others to not try to impose their preferences on me. I'm not in any way, shape, or form saying that I agree with the way commercial chicken operations operate. Simply arguing the point about more laws being needed. If enough people actually gave a **** about how those chickens are treated you wouldn't need new laws, people would simply demand their eggs/chicken come from more humane operations. These demands spur and provide incentive for new operations to take hold or for existing operations to change their ways. All without putting a gun to someone's head and demanding they do things the way that someone else wants them done.

In the case of how we or anyone raises their chickens, they are property. I love and value my chickens and agree that conditions in some commercial chicken operations are deplorable but I also love and value my freedoms and my own property. If I don't like the way someone is raising their chickens the most I can do is refuse to buy their product or associate with them. If enough people agree with me and refuse to economically support them then they will change their ways or they will go out of business. I do not have the right to trespass upon their property and tell them how to raise their property. If they are not doing harm to me directly, I simply have no right to dictate terms of how they handle their property. And I can't give the government the right to do something that I don't have the right to do. The moment we do, we open ourselves up to allowing others to dictate how we use and enjoy our own property. You raise your flock the way you want to raise them and I'll raise my flock the way I want to raise them.

Another example are the stupid laws that try to dictate what color your house can be or what style it can be. If you don't like the color/style I chose, to bad. You aren't making the house payment.

Or Bloomburg trying to dictate what size soda can be sold. That is between me and the vendor.

Or the so-called "Affordable Care Act". If it is such a wonderful idea, why must it be implemented and enforced under threat of violence and incarceration?

I am not a libertarian. The government is necessary for a wide variety of things. Do you like Ayn Rand's philosophy?

"I don't think treating animals inhumanely is a good idea either but I think allowing government to stick its nose in other people's business is an even worse idea."

Corporations will often mistreat animals unless the government (our elected leaders) prevent it. I agree that mistreating chickens is not as serious as slavery, but I was not trying to say that it was as serious as slavery. But battery chickens will still be used unless laws are changed.

"Or the so-called "Affordable Care Act". If it is such a wonderful idea, why must it be implemented and enforced under threat of violence and incarceration?"

Violence or incarceration? I have not heard that. I have read that people can be penalized on their federal taxes if they do not have health insurance. That is because the system works when everyone participates.

Every person who has a job and makes $117,000 a year or less pays into Social Security. That is the government forcing people to participate in a program, much like the Affordable Care Act.

"In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was branded a "Communist" when he urged Congress to pass Social Security. Newspapers, radio commentators and some members of Congress denounced FDR as a dictator and Social Security as a Communist plot to destroy the Constitution."

"Medicare was denounced as a sinister government takeover of the nation's health care system. It was attacked as "brazen socialism" on the Senate floor. Ronald Reagan, in a 1961 political ad, and George H. W. Bush in his 1964 campaign for the U.S. Senate, also condemned Medicare as socialism, though they both later defended the program."

The Affordable Care Act is now being attacked in the same way. After it is fully implemented it will be a very popular program, like Social Security and Medicare.

If the Affordable Care Act was going to be such an unpopular program, why wouldn't the Republicans just allow the program to be implemented and then say, see, we told you it was a bad idea? They know if will become popular after it is implemented and are trying to stop it before it is fully implemented.

By the way, the Affordable Care Act was developed by Republicans. And it was implemented by Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts. Republicans only turned against the program when Barack Obama started supporting it.

If we were a civilized country we would have universal healthcare like other industrialized countries, such as Canada and Great Britain, where the programs are very popular. No one goes bankrupt because of medical bills there. Medical cost is the number one reason for bankruptcy in the United States.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Oh no, then people would have to pay real prices for eggs instead of the $1/dozen like they were going for in the 1920s!

$1 was more than the typical family earned per day in 1920. So you are saying that the average worker in 1920 worked all week for about 6 dozens or less of eggs?

Aldis grocery sold or is still selling eggs for 49 to 99 cents a dozen as of 2013 and as an old egg grader and egg farmer I have to say that Aldi's eggs are some of the freshest eggs I have ever seen in a grocery. Most Aldi eggs would grade AA.

People here are always worried about their hens health, comfort, and diet and are quick to blame their lack of egg production on hen discontent, even though most of their hens live in a semi free range environment. But if hens on a cage layer farm were not even happier, healthier, and better fed than your hens or mind, don't you think that the egg farms would go broke because of discontented hens?

 

[WaterfowlWierdo]

$1 was more than the typical family earned per day in 1920. So you are saying that the average worker in 1920 worked all week for about 6 dozens or less of eggs?

Aldis grocery sold or is still selling eggs for 49 to 99 a dozen as of 2013 and as an old egg grader and egg farmer I have to say that Aldi's eggs are some of the freshest eggs I have ever seen in a grocery. Most Aldi eggs would grade AA.

People here are always worried about their hens health, comfort, and diet and are quick to blame their lack of egg production on hen discontent, even though most of their hens live in a semi free range environment. But if hens on a cage layer farm were not even happier, healthier, and better fed than your hens or mind, don't you think that the egg farms would go broke because of discontented hens?

I see exactly what your saying and the 1920's thing is true. I am not trying to go against you what so ever, but those hens have never known any better therefore they are as happy as a hen that has lived royally her whole life, they don't know how good or bad they have it, they have never known anything else, battery hens probably aren't stressed at all because everything they need physically is provided for them. If they were as social as the human race, they might worry about their own situation but since they are incapable of that they just as well stay happy where they are, and not worry about anything else. Therefore since they don't know how bad they have it the egg quality is never effected by it. I am not in favor of battery style egg operations, but if it is as so bad as people view it, it wouldn't be here today, There are a lot of myths in the market industry, and unless we visit the farm ourselves we cant know, you may see pictures or videos of terrible acts committed on these farms, but this could just be an incident of being caught with an accident or a really bad day. Normal/sane people own and operate these facilities, and if they aren't completely scarred and horrified by death rates and cramped conditions, they wouldn't do it.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

It seems to me that the law could be changed to outlaw caged hens. Wouldn't that be the simple solution?

Look up the term "Rent Seeker" "Rent Seeking Behavior" or "Captured Agency"

This is what all the violins are about when the subject of "Small Family Farms" is mentioned.

The tears about family farms is a way to force everyone to engage in useless economic activity (Buying cage free eggs) so that some favored group can feather their hen nests with your dollars. This is no problem for someone like Warren Buffet, he can buy organic free range eggs from Tibet and fly two them in on his private jet every day for breakfast. The ones who are injured are the retirees, the poor, the single mothers, the disabled, those who had good jobs but lost them (Like those still farming or working like they did in the 19th Century)

This is not about abolishing the cruel treatment of hens, this is about forging chains of slavery for the poorest of Americans like they have become the animals in need of caging.

 

[gander007]

A company named Hampton Creek is making plant-based protein products that replace eggs that almost always come from caged hens. The idea is to be more humane and less expensive.

http://www.businessinsider.com/plant-based-eggs-from-hampton-creek-2013-12

The article states the company is working on a scrambled egg substitute.

What do you think?

In my 23 years in the Army Infantry it was rare to get feed real egg's in the field but powdered egg's like the one's my Father was feed
when he was in WWll , So my only question would be is who is going to test this slap now I only say this because I was on the Big
Island of Hawaii in 1984 with the C1/27th Inf and we were the first to receive the famed MRE'S in the black bag (NASTY CRAP) it was
so bad a magazine call Soldier of Fortune was on sight to report on the situation and it was the worst article I ever seen them write
on the military's food ..... Now this statement I only make because I am wondering who is going to receive this stuff those in Uniform
now I know the MRE'S have changed a lot in 29 years many improvement's but is this the next stage in demoralizing the TROOPS ..
For the people who can not eat real eggs maybe this is good ............
About chickens in cages only thing here is there not some inspectors who check out the chicken every year ?????
Now how is complaining about the conditions the chickens are living in ........ I hope it is not the chickens .......

gander007

 

[Cindy in PA]

$1 was more than the typical family earned per day in 1920. So you are saying that the average worker in 1920 worked all week for about 6 dozens or less of eggs?

Aldis grocery sold or is still selling eggs for 49 to 99 cents a dozen as of 2013 and as an old egg grader and egg farmer I have to say that Aldi's eggs are some of the freshest eggs I have ever seen in a grocery. Most Aldi eggs would grade AA.

People here are always worried about their hens health, comfort, and diet and are quick to blame their lack of egg production on hen discontent, even though most of their hens live in a semi free range environment. But if hens on a cage layer farm were not even happier, healthier, and better fed than your hens or mind, don't you think that the egg farms would go broke because of discontented hens?

Families worked a lot longer to feed themselves than we do now. I have a copy of a 1918 chicken magazine that stated ladies of the home went into chicken raising to make money, as they could get $1/doz. Looking today at some US data from those years it stated that eggs were .78/dozen in 1920. The average pay for all industries was $1407/year or $27/week. The lowest earnings listed were $750/year or $14 per week. Now if you take the .78 and raise it by inflation since 1920, it comes to $9.11 per dozen in 2013! People would croak if they had to pay $9.11 for eggs. So no, people did not work all week for 6 dozen eggs, but they sure paid more of their income for necessities. Our food has become cheap and still people complain. It certainly has not become "better" in my mind. We would rather pay $800 for an IPhone and "save" on cheap manufactured food. We can see where that is taking us. JMHO

 

[3chickchicks]

We would rather pay $800 for an IPhone and "save" on cheap manufactured food.

Good point.
Think about the raised eyebrows from others if someone mentions making a loaf of bread. It's almost magic these days. Getting just the ingredients and putting a meal together is becoming an anomaly. Think about all of the people who are grossed out by backyard eggs. It's the same thing they get at the grocery store only it's not packaged and they didn't go to the store. Conditions our birds are in are usually much cleaner than conditions at a commercial farm. People who process their own chickens at home usually have more sanitary conditions than what you get from the store.

I'll bring a treat to work from home and people ask where I got it from. If I made it, I'm treated as a magician and a lot of people say "Oh, I don't cook."
What was a basic skill is now magic to people. Most are totally out of touch on how to live. Right now, people on wallstreet, CEO's, presidents are all celebrated and paid well. If the lights go out, those positions will be worthless. It's all a big bubble just waiting to burst.

(sorry if I side tracked the thread. I'll get off my soapbox now)

 

[WYNot]

I am not a libertarian. The government is necessary for a wide variety of things. Do you like Ayn Rand's philosophy?

In the small L sense yes. I prefer messy freedom to ordered tyranny. Government is only necessary for government's sake and those who consciously or unconsciously wish to enslave their fellow man and think they know better than someone else how to run someone else's life.

"I don't think treating animals inhumanely is a good idea either but I think allowing government to stick its nose in other people's business is an even worse idea."

Corporations will often mistreat animals unless the government (our elected leaders) prevent it. I agree that mistreating chickens is not as serious as slavery, but I was not trying to say that it was as serious as slavery. But battery chickens will still be used unless laws are changed.

No, if people actually wanted it changed they would stop supporting it. However, the bulk of the people don't care how the chickens are treated. They just want their cheap food. They made/make their choice with their wallets. You and others who clamber for yet another new law simply think you know better than other people how their lives should be run and don't care about the costs or consequences.

As I said before, the treatment of animals in some commercial operations is simply one of many reasons I have my own chickens, that my parents raise beef cattle, that I grow a garden and can/dehydrate/preserve my own food. Because it is right for me. But, I don't try to impose it on others.

"Or the so-called "Affordable Care Act". If it is such a wonderful idea, why must it be implemented and enforced under threat of violence and incarceration?"

Violence or incarceration? I have not heard that. I have read that people can be penalized on their federal taxes if they do not have health insurance. That is because the system works when everyone participates.

Yes. If you do not wish to participate in that monstrous invasion of rights, privacy, and personal responsibility, then yes violence and incarceration are exactly what will happen. Government goons will come to your house, they will probably shoot your dog, and if you survive the home invasion they will throw you in a cage.

As I said, if it is such a wonderful idea why implement it at gunpoint? If it is such a wonderful idea why did the legislatures exempt themselves, the President, and lots and lots of their cronies?

I have healthcare at the moment, an HSA. I am covered for major medical issues and basic stuff I pay for myself. I will be losing it soon because of this so-called ACA. I don't want or need all the bells and whistles. But evidently some fool up on capitol hill thinks they know better how to run my life than I do. When my HSA is cancelled, I will NOT be replacing it. I will not participate in ACA. I will not pay the fines/taxes imposed by ACA. And I will not be caged over it. So, your only options are to leave me the hell alone or kill me. Do you support this nonsense sooo much that you are willing to kill someone over it? Or will you remain on the sidelines and cheer on those who have no compunctions against harming their fellows to get their way?

Every person who has a job and makes $117,000 a year or less pays into Social Security. That is the government forcing people to participate in a program, much like the Affordable Care Act.

And SS is just as horrible as the ACA.

"In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was branded a "Communist" when he urged Congress to pass Social Security. Newspapers, radio commentators and some members of Congress denounced FDR as a dictator and Social Security as a Communist plot to destroy the Constitution."

He was both and it was/is.

"Medicare was denounced as a sinister government takeover of the nation's health care system. It was attacked as "brazen socialism" on the Senate floor. Ronald Reagan, in a 1961 political ad, and George H. W. Bush in his 1964 campaign for the U.S. Senate, also condemned Medicare as socialism, though they both later defended the program."

It was/is. Both are politicians. They will say whatever they need to say to get elected.

The Affordable Care Act is now being attacked in the same way. After it is fully implemented it will be a very popular program, like Social Security and Medicare.

They are only popular with those who wish to live off of the labors of their fellow man. Again, if it is such a wonderful program then why force people to participate under threat of violence? Why are the legislators and their cronies not participating?

If the Affordable Care Act was going to be such an unpopular program, why wouldn't the Republicans just allow the program to be implemented and then say, see, we told you it was a bad idea? They know if will become popular after it is implemented and are trying to stop it before it is fully implemented.

Because like Social Security and Medicare, once such monstrosities are implemented they are impossible to get rid of. Again, if it is such a wonderful program then why force people to participate under threat of violence? Why are the legislators and their cronies not participating?

By the way, the Affordable Care Act was developed by Republicans. And it was implemented by Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts. Republicans only turned against the program when Barack Obama started supporting it.

And that is one of the main/many reasons I didn't vote for Romney. At a state level it is a horrible idea but at least you can pick up and move to another state to escape the stupidity. At the federal level there is nowhere to escape to.

If we were a civilized country we would have universal healthcare like other industrialized countries, such as Canada and Great Britain, where the programs are very popular. No one goes bankrupt because of medical bills there. Medical cost is the number one reason for bankruptcy in the United States.

Yes, those examples are working oooh so well. So, instead of going bankrupt because of medical bills, they die from waiting on rationed services. Or you die from lack of innovation. Medical care is not a right. It is a goods/service provided by another human. They are under no obligation to provide those goods/services to you, they are not your slave.

That still doesn't make it right. It is theft, plain and simple. You are stealing from one person to give to another and calling it a good deed. When charity is forced it is no longer charity. I will gladly help those in need. But, as soon as you tell me I must, I will tell you go to hell.

 

[Fred's Hens]

OK folks. We're done. When a thread turns from an egg substitute to a political debate? It's finished.

From the Terms of Service #13 We strongly discourage religious and political topics and reserve the right to delete them at our discretion. These topics of religion and politics should be confined to the “Random Ramblings” section of the forum.

If you care to review the TOS, here's a link. https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/terms-of-service