Organic eggs... or are they?

I ran across the following news story with fascinating information. It seems that within the "organic farming" marketplace, many of the biggest suppliers are ... cheating. They are either flagrantly violating the regulations of the organic labeling, or have abided by the minimal standards as little as possible. This is the sort of thing that gets me really angry, and motivates us to make this family friendly and animal friendly healthy farm successful. There is such an extreme need to provide truly healthy food, which is not being done by the majority of food producers in America.

Here is the full story:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/happy-homesteader/cage-free-eggs-zb0z10zgri.aspx

Here is the link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbqyAemRlno&feature=player_embedded

Here is the link to the "scorecard" mentioned in the video.  Take a look and see if the egg brands you normally buy are on here:

http://www.cornucopia.org/organic-egg-scorecard/

Two of the brands we used to buy (before we had our own chickens) because we thought they were better are on the list with a ZERO score! That really is upsetting. We paid top dollar for those eggs because they were "organic" and had good things printed on the label, and it turns out to be truly a lie. Not only did this cheat us out of money, but it also misleads the health content of the eggs. For instance... when we were buying those "organic" eggs, my cholesterol was very high. now that we only eat truly organic free range pastured eggs, my cholesterol is down to the level of a 20 something person. Now, I certainly don't mean to imply that the eggs are the only factor here, but I moved from eating bad "organic" eggs no more than once a week to eating truly good eggs virtually everyday, and my blood numbers are better than ever. At least it is true that the good eggs do not negatively affect cholesterol as claimed. Eggs do affect cholesterol negatively, but only factory eggs, not true farm raised eggs.

And that brings me to two points that I will research and blog about.

1. What do all these labels really mean? what is the legal definition of "organic" "antibiotic free"  "pasture raised" "free range" etc. These terms appear on packages, but what do they tell us about the quality of the food?

2. The "battle" is not truly about all those labels. The battle is really between factory production of food vs farm production of food. It is simply impossible to produce quality healthy food in a factory setting that comes anywhere near the quality of farm raised food. The critical point to explore is this... factories are NOT farms, they are factories. Farm animals do not live inside factories, and factory animals are not used on a true farm.

In the coming days we will explore these concepts and dig deep into the underlying principles. Our mission is to produce good farm raised food products, but also to educate the public on how to tell what good food is, where to get it, and why we need it.  I don't pretend to be able to conquer the entire factory food system, but with the Good Lord's help we will do our part to combat this evil lurking right under our noses. People like you deserve to know how their food is produced and how good the quality and purity is, and whether it will make you healthier or not, and whether the animals involved were treated humanely or not.

Stay tuned....