New Vegetarian FAQs

[Jamie in Chile]

I have a newbie question!!! I have given up meat and am slowly trying to give up dairy because of how the dairy cows are treated. I have also cut way back on eggs, but I just read the post that it was ok to eat eggs as long as the hen was not harmed in the process? Like I said I'm a NEWBIE, so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but I thought that chickens are treated awful being crammed into tiny cages just so we can have their eggs, and that eggs really shouldn't be eaten? Or is it basically just my own personal preference? Some days I gag at the thought of eating them and once in a while I will have eggs if I'm out.

In my opinion no-one should eat eggs, since they are just a cruel product. In practice, most hens are harmed, even if they are free range, organic, or whatever, there is strong evidence that they will still suffer and have a poor life.

Is it OK to eat eggs as long as hens are not harmed? I think it's still not OK, because hens are still killed at the end of their egg laying life so you are supporting that, they still don't have freedoms and are in captivity and being treated as a product. Anyway, most hens are harmed in some way, so the "OK, as long as they are treated right" is largely a myth since they rarely are.

Credit to you for at least cutting back on them. If there is a chance that occasionally eggs might stop you giving up on vegetarianism entirely, and cause you to regress to meat eating, then I suppose that's the lesser of two evils. Ideally, however, I would cut out eggs and minimize consumption of other products that contain eggs.

 

[FortyTwo]

I have a newbie question!!! I have given up meat and am slowly trying to give up dairy because of how the dairy cows are treated. I have also cut way back on eggs, but I just read the post that it was ok to eat eggs as long as the hen was not harmed in the process? Like I said I'm a NEWBIE, so I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but I thought that chickens are treated awful being crammed into tiny cages just so we can have their eggs, and that eggs really shouldn't be eaten? Or is it basically just my own personal preference? Some days I gag at the thought of eating them and once in a while I will have eggs if I'm out.

Hi there!

While an argument could be made that eggs from some sort of utopian chicken pen where everyone is well taken care of would be perfectly moral to eat, it's important to consider a few things. For one, that utopian chicken pen doesn't exist, and achieving something like that would be beyond the skill of most farmers - most human beings, in fact. Some people would argue that the mere idea of farming chickens for their eggs is an ideological cruelty in and of itself. I definitely think that humans exploiting animals, however comfortable said animals might be, should be avoided as much as physically possible. Whether you agree or not is your choice to make - it's a fairly complicated issue, at its core connected to the debate of welfare versus rights, which itself goes back a really long way.

On top of that, the source for most eggs isn't going to resemble the utopian chicken pen even slightly. As I'm sure you've read about by now if you're here - congrats on making that decision, by the way! - factory egg farms are brutal and cruel to the extreme, arguably even worse than a lot of meat farms.

If you ask me, giving up eggs is a very good choice. Eggs are unnecessary and regardless of how you feel about the idea of taking them from (happy) chickens, most of them you encounter are going to be obtained from a very cruel and horrifying source. Remember that this is your life, though, and your choice to make. You're already doing great by going vegetarian! I would encourage you to take that extra step to veganism - it eliminates even more sources of animal cruelty in your day to day activities - but at the end of the day it's up to you how far you go and how fast.