Sunny side up: why eggs are safer in Europe
The following is a guest post by Bonnie Azab Powell, co-founder of the food-politics blog The Ethicurean who started the Bay Area’s first Community-Supported Agriculture program for meat, BAMCSA, in 2006. She now manages the CSA programs for Clark Summit and Soul Food farms. She eats two runny eggs nearly every day. The opinions expressed are her own.
Reading about the recall of 550 million possibly salmonella-tainted U.S. eggs, laid and packed in just a handful of massive Iowa factories made me think about the egg aisle of a Sainsbury’s supermarket I visited in England, near Brighton, two years ago.
I was so struck by the store signage, which read not only “Organic” and “Free Range” — familiar terms — but also “Barn” and “Caged,” that I took several pictures with my iPhone. My English host practically had to drag me away from reading all the explanatory text included on the cartons: barn eggs are “laid by hens free to nest, perch, and roam in spacious barns,” while “Woodland organic free-range” eggs are “from hens free to roam in a natural environment with trees.”
Not only are the cartons informatively labeled, each egg is stamped with a simple code that tells what kind of system produced it.
It sounded so … pleasant. I didn’t see how anyone with a heart could pass over these visions of happy nesting, perching, tree-scratching chickens – despite being more expensive — for the grim “from caged hens.” And yet as I watched, plenty of shoppers opted to save the pound or more per dozen.
In Europe, the philosophy is “Buyer Be Aware.” But in the U.S., it’s “Buyer Beware.” American food labels have loads of nutritional information, but little that you can trust to tell you how it was produced.
Looking out for the little chicks
Using ionizing radiation to preserve certain food stuffs are permitted in both EU and the US. In both EU and US radiated food has to be labeled.
Radiation of food in the EU may only be authorized if:
there is a reasonable technological need;
it presents no health hazard;
it is of benefit to the consumers;
it is not used as a substitute for hygiene and health practices or for good manufacturing or agricultural practice;
Any food irradiated as such or containing irradiated food ingredients has to be labelled
A favourable opinion of the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) is needed to place a specific food item on the EU-wide list of products authorised for irradiation.
To claim that EU rely on radiation for preservation of food is exaggerated.