Free-roaming vs Free-running?

I was at a local grocery store yesterday, “Gracefully,” getting my normal dibs. The place is like an expensive Bodega. The prices are expensive, but the food alleyways are confusing enough to have fun getting lost in.

Eggs. I get confused every time. What’s up with the grade A, AA, B? And I don’t want any Omega-3s – it gives me the thought of fish eggs (which, directly from the fish, I do like).

I saw something though that was hilarious. Most of the boxes said all the normal crap, i.e. “No antibiotics. We pet our chickens. We give them haircuts and pedicures.” And almost all of them say “Free roaming chickens.” But there was one gray box that caught my eye: “Free running chickens.”

!!!

Now, I don’t know what they’re running from. Or whether they’re running in circles in a tiny space, but it seems healthy that my eggs come from chickens that are running, and not just roaming. Lazy, roaming chickens.

 

3 Responses to “Free-roaming vs Free-running?” (post new)

  1.  

    We were riding our bikes in east San Diego this weekend (east san diego = farm land), and rode by a chicken farm. Now, these chickens were definitely NOT free roaming, free running, or free anything. There were what seemed to be thousands of them on top of each other screaming at the top of their lungs. It was quite disturbing. If I were a chicken, this is what I would imagine to be chicken hell :) I think I may have to consider vegetarianism!

  2.  

    The problem is mass production (i.e. too many people). Mass producing vegetables will probably have similar effects. Interesting stats on world population:

    According to the 2006 Revision, the world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion
    over the next 43 years, passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is
    equivalent to the size that the world population had in 1950 and it will be absorbed mostly by the
    less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9
    billion in 2050. In contrast, the population of the more developed regions is expected to remain
    largely unchanged at 1.2 billion and would have declined were it not for the projected net
    migration from developing to developed countries, which is expected to average 2.3 million
    persons a year after 2010.

    United Nations: World Population Prospects The 2006 Revision

  3.  

    Counterargument is that population may start to taper off and actually decrease at some point: http://www.schizoidboy.com/population-projections.html.

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