The egg aisle of the grocery store is arguably one of the most stressful theaters of modern life. I can see it in the palpable anxiety in the eyes of other shoppers, in the way we look around to see if we’re blocking the crowd, in the way we open the refrigerator and let our hands hang in the cold as we make our calculated choices. I see it in myself, too, even as someone who has devoted their life to studying the food system.
Why?
In short, the egg aisle is so stressful because it highlights the convoluted architecture – and obligation – of choice between lesser evils (and lesser expenses) in an industrialized and commodified food system. It’s where we’re forced to face the injustice and complexity of modern agriculture. It’s where we answer awful questions like, “How much are you willing to pay to protest the heinous suffering of your poultry brethren?” “Do you even care that these hens never saw the sun?” “Where are your values?” “Do you hate your pets?” For as much as the twenty-first century battle cry of “We should know where our food comes from!” seems to galvanize us, in these moments, it seems like we might prefer, at least for now, not to know.
In theory, labels communicate clear standards and are a quick way to identify what you’re buying. So shouldn’t they make it easier? Mediate the space between the farmer and me? Help me know where my food comes from?
The eggxiety, if you will, strikes me as ironic, because eggs aren’t even one of the foods that have long lists of ingredients. The only ingredient is… eggs. You can open the package and look at them! You can feel them! Kiss their shells! (Don’t do that.) Hell, you could probably switch around the eggs and mix and match them across cartons and no one would know the difference! (Please don’t do that either.) You can’t do any of these things with raw beef, with hot dogs, with cereal, nuts, coffee. Tinned tomatoes, tuna, beans. Imagine if you started unpeeling bananas in the produce section? You wouldn’t!
Still, none of this seems to help; it only makes the process worse. I’m sorry to say that the labels on egg cartons exist not to make your life easier, but instead to support the very system that drives us mad. Consider the header on one of FoodPrint’s label guides. (The site is generally a good resource for matching the logos to their meanings and finding other food systems data.) They write:
“There is no one label that comprehensively addresses environmental issues, animal welfare issues, animal feed and worker welfare. But there are a couple that come close. Consumers can decide which factors are most important to them and then seek out the appropriate label.”
The assumption here is that producing food – specifically eggs – is bound to cause harm. These sorts of “negative externalities” are to be assumed. If a carton doesn’t specifically say anything about laying hens having free range, freedom from cages, humane living conditions, and so on, you are to assume the worst. You can also safely assume that these are the least expensive. You might also, then, watch others pluck one of these cartons from the fridge and assume that they are awful, sociopathic human beings, probably without much money, or at least too ignorant to care. Right? Because, you reason, that’s exactly what people would think of you.
A couple certifications, maybe a couple stamps that read “Cage-free,” or “Certified humane,” assuage some of your concerns, and cost you a couple extra dollars. You aren’t 100% sure what these proclamations mean for the chickens. And you have lingering anxieties, probably some about environmental impact and worker welfare, but you can live with those. You know that you are at least a decent person who tried their best, and that you are likely to stay within your grocery budget.
But then you see the top-shelf stuff, the happy-looking cartons so densely stamped that they look more like a college student’s laptop than a grocery item. USDA organic! Regenerative certified, by the Rodale institute, no less! Animal Welfare Approved! You think of the hens, the good, dignified lives they must lead, and the hefty wages they must incur given the price per egg. You aspire to be the sort of shopper who confidently places them in their basket, but know that that’s for another day, another paygrade. You feel slightly inferior, but for heaven’s sake, it’s already been seven minutes of deliberation.
The other assumption here is that all these conditions are acceptable, and it is your job to discern, to assign value, and to make tradeoffs. For a few moments, even a functional regulatory system seems to evaporate, and the only thing that stands between your eggs and basic human decency is you. And your wallet. If you have more money, you do not need to make as many tradeoffs, as is the case with so many other consumer goods. And so I wonder: does the morality associated with consumer purchases strike anyone else as odd? I think I can safely assume that most human beings would be quite deeply disturbed to witness the conditions endured to produce cheap eggs, and most human beings would be glad to see them improve. The variable here doesn’t seem to be morality, but rather the cost. We guilt and are guilted solely for the money we proffer up. Moreover, eggs are the entry point to a terrifyingly slick slope: if we acknowledge that we should buy better eggs, maybe splurging a little, shouldn’t we be doing it for everything else? Would we have to come to grips with the exploitation of the spice trade? The problematic water use required to grow nuts? The unbearable California heat which humans endure to harvest strawberries? The industrial food system at large? Where do we draw the line?
Like any form of communication, egg labels (and any other labels, for that matter) are a way to spread information across distance, capture and share knowledge about the world so that we can assess and make quick decisions about it. We wouldn’t need them if we produced the eggs in our own backyards and knew what we had done. If food weren’t so tightly and bizarrely wound with money. If we trusted the political process to produce and enforce laws that saved us the trouble. Perhaps if the food system were more relational and regional, organized around nourishment and thriving. (Am I asking for too much here?)
Egg labels are not just about eggs; they are about the commodification of the very stuff we need to survive, the insanity of market-based change, the metabolic rift that threatens to tear us in two. For now, I have little advice to give you besides…do your best. If you want to know what the labels mean, look at the guide from FoodPrint. Tell the morality police to take a break. Know that more anxiety on your part doesn’t really make a difference to the chickens. While I don’t yet know how to decommodify the whole of the food system (I’m working on it!), we don’t have to have all the answers to start changing it for the better. Figure it out with me by enrolling in the Food Systems Thinking online course. It’s about much more than just eggs, I promise.
Mackenzie Faber began her career in food systems education as the manager of a one-acre farm in a Brooklyn schoolyard. There, she guided crews of seasonal interns and witnessed their transformation as they practiced laying drip tape, starting brassica seeds, harvesting hot peppers, and running a weekly community market. A long time worker in restaurants and in sustainable agriculture, she remains committed to advocating for dignified conditions for all who labor across the food supply chain. She roots her work in the fervent belief that food is about more than hectares, calories, and yields; for her, food is complex, food is sacred, and food is joy. Originally from northern New Jersey, Mackenzie is a passionate believer in the restorative properties of a good bagel.
Mackenzie recently completed her graduate studies in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she met mentor, collaborator, and Sterling’s current VP for Strategic Initiatives Nicole Civita, JD, LL.M. Nicole’s introductory graduate-level food systems course, Nourishing Humanities Within Planetary Boundaries – the result of her decade of work as a food systems changemaker, educator, ethicist, and attorney – was eye-opening and paradigm shifting for Mackenzie, who soon realized that she wanted to work at the intersection of inclusive pedagogy and sustainable food systems. Recognizing the importance of collaboration and successive iteration, Nicole offered her former student the opportunity to reimagine the course in a way that would make it more widely accessible. Through thoughtful and creative reflection, Mackenzie wove together essential insights about agriculture and food systems sustainability and key principles of systems thinking, while also centering joy as a way to sustain active hope in face of the crises and inequities that plague the food system. As a result, the course that grew out of this collaboration reflects the varied perspectives and combined insights of food systems changemakers at different stages of their own careers, making it well-grounded, dynamic, and fresh. Today, Mackenzie continues to work with Nicole as a Learning Network Associate at Sterling College, where she fosters similar collaborative methods of reimagining.