Eggs: The Continuing Saga

This evening I checked out the PBS 39 video Eggs: A Video Field Trip. This fascinating 15 minute video shows the egg's journey from hen to plate. It was filmed at an egg "factory" in North Manchester. If you would like to see where Kroger eggs come from, please watch this video. The video was underwritten by the egg company, so of course their intention was not to scare away customers, but it is hard to look at the mass-production and not be alarmed.

We thought that we had found a solution to the egg issue with Eggland's Best, but they aren't local, they are big business and we don't exactly trust them. So we wandered over to the Co-op, but their local farm hasn't been selling them eggs. So we bought the brand on the shelf, who wouldn't trust the Co-op, surely Phil's Fresh Eggs would be the answer! Well, not so much. They are shipped in from Illinois, not exactly local. The company has a seal on the carton & website: "Free Farmed" so we decided to find out what exactly "free farmed" means. That took us to the American Humane Association website where we discoverd that "free farmed" is an outdated term. It has been replaced by "American Humane Certified" which means "cage free" and a few other things, understand that doesn't necessary mean "free to roam in the sunshine", but outside of cages at least. Regardless, we checked the listing of "American Humane Certified" producers of which Phil's Fresh Eggs is not one. So where does that leave us? Eggless.

Seven Sons, the farm where we buy our meat, has eggs, but they are in Roanoke and that is too far to go for eggs.

All of that to ask: where do you get your eggs? We would love to have a local farm to go to.