Anything that gets us closer to a world in which chickens are not farmed for their meat or eggs is good. The incomprehensible violence of factory farming for mere taste is unforgivable, and stuff like this is a small step to its undoing.
I'm aware that the USA has shockingly, appallingly low animal welfare standards, especially for a developed country - but chickens don't have to be farmed like that.
I haven't bought a non-free range egg in at least a decade, and I make sure any poultry I buy has been reared with good welfare.
1 - They might not actually be free-range after all. I've seen multiple exposes where the chickens advertised as "free-range" actually weren't, or they were allowed out of their cages for an hour a day and they called that "free-range".
2 - Even if they're are free-range, their conditions could still be appalling. Overcrowding and debeaking are common.
I'm in the UK, and we have proper regulation that sets out what "free range" is - it is not whatever ludicrously tenuous definition the US has dreamt up.
I live in rural Scotland, and can see free range chickens for myself - they seem to be living a good life.
Say what you will about how they spend their best years, but they still come from hatcheries where 50% of the population upon hatching are gassed or dropped live off the end of a conveyor belt into a macerator. Equally, they end their life more often than not in a slaughterhouse where the conditions are abysmal to say the least.
The UK has some of the strictest animal welfare in the world, but they are still continuously broken by most farms across the country it seems. One example of many would be the private investigation into the suppliers for M&S's free range organic eggs in 2016. One of the most well reputed retailers in the country, yet they found barns full of ill chickens unable to walk, rotten corpses littering the place, and overcrowding throughout: https://investigations.peta.org/marks-spencer-cruelty-chicke...
All throughout my teens I worked on cattle and poultry farms across the South of England and to be frank, I saw disturbing scenes at every single one of them. Even though I've somewhat reconciled with eating animal products morally in recent years, I've lost any and all trust in the food production system to do it ethically, despite appearances on the surface.
If rigorous legislation doesn't stop farmers from abusing their livestock, then the only option left it seems is a return to self-reliant homesteading where you know exactly where the food comes from, or the production of synthetic alternatives as discussed in OP's article. Personally, as much as I enjoy the eggs from my rescue hens, I hope for the latter.
In my locality, free range means your friend has chickens, you pet them during barbecues and feed them boudain balls to encourage bigger eggs. Not often in life are the best things also free or cheaper than the store bought alternative
I think I pay $8 a dozen for Vital Farms eggs. My assumption is that a lot of that price is for whatever overhead is required to run things a bit more humanely than the average.
I also pay more for pasture raised chicken eggs as well, but the regular eggs by me are almost always on sale for $1.50 for dozen if you're willing to jump between a few brands. That's a pretty massive difference, especially for someone with a family who probably goes through a couple dozen eggs per week.
I'm aware that making a software-engineer salary I can easily afford more humanely raised eggs, but I'd never judge my friends who are, say, schoolteachers, for not being able to justify eggs that are 6x more expensive.
inb4 the inevitable comment of "pasture raised doesn't mean anything, the chickens can still...." Yes I researched the specific farm my eggs come from to make sure it's humane.
Unfortunately in the case of animal wellfare or Bio as the call it in Europe your extra money mostly goes to supermarkets as profit, to the low volume producers and less than 5% actually go towards a better product or animal wellfare. For things like eggs I would be very surprised if more than 1 cent extra per egg is actually spend towards improving the conditions of chickens.
This seems to undercut the "doing it ethically would significantly increase prices" argument for why it doesn't happen. Does this mean we could legislate the worst kinds of egg production out of existence and, once things settled down, only pay single-digit-percentages more for a dozen eggs, because most of the difference now is just middlemen gouging price-insensitive buyers? $5 more per dozen is a shock and would have people up in arms (probably literally), $0.20 more per dozen seems... not so bad.
The argument is that keeping the price low requires inhumane practices, but providing human practices doesn't command a price that would offset the overhead of being more human? That doesn't make sense.
Free range means nothing. This is humane washing, and is incredibly misleading. Here’s a good rule of thumb: any animal product you use, outside of veeery rare cases like backyard eggs, you _know_ it is the result of needless suffering. Even things like backyard eggs can easily be rife with issues, however.
Did you know how in free, natural nature animals eat? grass is literally eaten alive, animals are normally torn apart by other animal teeth. What you propose? Change nature to be a false/artificial paradise?
Humans are omnivores, we need to eat meat and animal proteins to live well, that's is, we can and we should treats animals we eat differently but that's not just a mere business issue, it's also a dimensional issue: we are many, too many. I doubt we can live without certain practice.
I do not say, of course, that TINA, we are in the sole possible world etc, just saying that going from an extreme to another is a good way to makes disasters.
Nature: living every day like you're in a slasher horror movie. Really, really bad. It only seems fun and wholesome to us because we're on top and almost none of us spend much time genuinely engaging with nature in even the way that an apex predator has to, let alone prey animals. And jeez, why would we? It's terrible.
Factory farm: living every day (and probably not very many of them) like you're in Saw or Cube or something. Far worse than even the pretty bad situation that is life in nature. Like, a lot worse. And that was already pretty bad.
Ethical farms, keeping backyard chickens, et c: Like living in a relatively good dystopia. Brave New World, maybe, in the best case. Logan's Run, in the worst.
Are we different then all other animals in natural terms? We need to eat like any other living being, we need to eat well, to reproduce to keep our species alive, we need to rest, ... whats the difference?
It's because living in an network of intensive farms, named cities, detached from our natural environment, seeing the foods popping up regularly in certain place, already prepared, no need to hunt/source it, we thing that food arrive here by nature, that our intensive farm is actually nature?
Is that really different? Oh, yes we are not slaughtered at a certain point of our life, except in case of wars etc, but we are equally "used" for doing various jobs by some of us who think they are puppet-masters and we are the puppets (cfr. famous JP Morgan leaked phrase, various neoliberal books etc). Oh, yes, in our case the shepherd is not from another species (witch made things even worse), but we equally born in such intensive farms not free in nature.
It's just a matter about how much bad farming is bad, how much ethical farming is ethical.
> Change nature to be a false/artificial paradise?
Who’s asking to change other animals? It’s about humans changing their behavior. In nature, forced sex is very common among many animals. But in human societies we have deemed it a criminal activity. That’s just one example to show that humans, especially in our times, have improved ethics and the agency to commit to better ethics compared to our ancestors in the distant past.
Oh we made criminal many things, just look around in the world how common they are... Just look how ethical are our most well known citizens from governments to big enterprises...
Every scientific associations in the recent past have said that sardines, blue fish are the proteins of the sea, we need to eat them, few years later the same say that are full of poisons. Few years earlier eggs are the best nutrient we have, few years after eggs are hard to digest, full of "cholesterol" [1]. Long story short "dietetics association" means mostly lobbyist associations on sale to the best offer.
Oh, BTW just a bit more time ago most MDs agreed that radioactivity is good for health and they try to determine the best dosage of radium to be put on skin and eat for various purposes like fight baldness or fortifying the fetus in pregnant women. Years later most MDs agree that smoking tobacco is very good for many things, especially useful to fight flu and cold. Few years later we discover that that's was an Eduard Bernays advertising campaign: he created a medical journal that start publishing real studies and he distribute it between medical offices and universities, then he start injecting few false but false but credible studies that praised tobacco smoke. In little time many real researchers have follow claiming other discovering.
I can't really know for sure why there is a push against meat, what I know for sure is that's not a matter of fighting climate change, nor adapting to it. Another thing I know for sure is that ultra-processed foods, like foods based on insects and grains, cost very little for their producers on scale, and can be sold with a very big margin and are complex enough to make them taste good that no small player can compete. Meanwhile I know how sales of statins climbs in the recent years and who profit for them.
[1] witch is a common world and a completely true and false statement since LDL is digested thanks to all animal proteins and pushed up by starchy foods.
If credible sources from experts don’t matter to you, then I don’t think there is any way you’ll be convicted of anything. Doesn’t sound like you’re actually open to discussion.
I simply call "credible sources from experts" other things. In the recent past we read that blue fish are "the protein of the sea, eat much" then "blue fish collect all sort of pollutants, avoid it". We see "eggs are a godsend for health, eat them at minimum one per day" and then again "eggs are 'cholesterol' avoid them, limiting them as possible" etc.
In an a bit far past (not that far) doctors recommend smoking as a cure-all for common winter disease, "it kills all the germs of the season", years after we discover that was just the result of an Eduard Bernays campaign for the American Tobacco Company: he create a new scientific journal, collecting real studies and sending it for free "to advertise the new journal", it became popular thanks to easy access and low entry barrier for publishing, then he inject some credible studies that prize smoking. MANY OTHERS researchers have followed them, taking them as true, and amplifying the echo.
Long story short, I have enough basic scientific knowledge to discern and to remember that Science is not based on blind trusting some "expert" but always demand why. Take meat for instance, common voices, dressed as scientific truth say that's bad for climate change because demand much water and produce much methane. Now try to see how much methane we estimate released into the atmosphere due to arctic heating and how much CO₂ is annually release by world fires. Clearly methane from cows does not change the climate. Now water: yes, livestock drink, clean water, and release urine, witch is not clean water. BUT it's still water. If treated to produce natural (ammonia-based) fertilizers we desperately need, the outcome is clean water, because we do not "consume" it, it's just a cycle. So again that statement is true if we just see a small part of the picture, false otherwise.
That's is, I have collect many examples of false beliefs considered established Science that aren't science at all. Of course I do know the ancient pro-smoking campaign was an advertisement campaign because that's history, we have documents, what's up today is "present" documents are not public, at least not much and not yet, but while we can't know "the real truth" we can still try to discern what's probably true from what's probably false, choosing not to trust any guru or formal association, privately founded just to note, but using actual Scientific method, demanding evidence, elaborating it.
I'm in the UK, and we have proper regulation that sets out what "free range" is - it is not whatever ludicrously tenuous definition the US has dreamt up.
I live in rural Scotland, and can see free range chickens for myself - they seem to be living a good life.
I mean that’s great. We have rural chickens too. It’s not that hard to find. The supermarkets here (Massachusetts) have pretty clear labels on what all the chicken raising options mean.
What do you mean by "mere taste"? Hominids didn't evolve for 22 million years to have taste buds that are completely useless.
More often than not, better tasting food means it has higher nutritional value. This has been slightly butchered by modern food science when they started mixing chemicals to help sell industry waste as food... but for vast majority of foods that humans culturally ate before the food industry took over, good taste does mean higher nutritional value.
"What do you mean by "mere taste"? Hominids didn't evolve for 22 million years to have taste buds that are completely useless."
Not for nothing. It can be useful and pleasurable, but taste has a dark side as well. Having a sweet-tooth has been a stab in the back for many modern humans, as it leads to over-consumption of sugar, which can be horrible for one's health. More on-topic, the craving for the taste of meat has led to the suffering and slaughter of countless animals.
>Having a sweet-tooth has been a stab in the back for many modern humans, as it leads to over-consumption of sugar, which can be horrible for one's health.
Sugar is overvalued by taste buds because of its low availability when our taste buds evolved. This argument does not extend to every other taste.
>More on-topic, the craving for the taste of meat
Meat is craved by the taste buds because it is the most nutrient dense natural food... with very few substitutes. All known surviving human cultures eat one of meat, fish or milk; no exceptions. Certain essential nutrients are not bioavailable to us without those.
>has led to the suffering and slaughter of countless animals.
Animal "suffering" is completely arbitrary view based on shallow view of the ecosystem. Cells die all day but do you mourn their deaths? Zebras die all the time in the savannahs but do you think it is a good idea to capture all lions and feed them fake meat to "reduce animal suffering"? From the ecosystem point of view, individual organisms "suffering" is a part of a much bigger thing where it doesn't matter as much as an individual organism would think.
"Animal "suffering" is completely arbitrary view based on shallow view of the ecosystem. Cells die all day but do you mourn their deaths? Zebras die all the time in the savannahs but do you think it is a good idea to capture all lions and feed them fake meat to "reduce animal suffering"? From the ecosystem point of view, individual organisms "suffering" is a part of a much bigger thing where it doesn't matter as much as one from a shallow view thinks it does."
This exact same argument could be used to dismiss human suffering as well.
> This exact same argument could be used to dismiss human suffering as well.
True. But we don't value human suffering above everything.
This is why all known human cultures have had some form of soldiers who are ready to die to protect the tribe, the religion, the culture, the nation or what not... otherwise they wouldn't exist.
Not just that, we allow for risky occupations like mining, fishing etc. i.e. things we need for sustenance. We even allow for risky hobbies or sports i.e. just for entertainment.
These are clearly more important than "human suffering".
You wouldn't choose to die to prolong the lives of the few cells in your infected tooth. You'd remove the tooth instead. Similarly, you'd sacrifice yourself to protect the tribe, family, country etc. And the ecosystem would try to sacrifice you to protect the ecosystem if it comes to that.
> Animal "suffering" is completely arbitrary view based on shallow view of the ecosystem
It’s not a function of having a certain view of ecosystems. It’s as a simple as accepting a few premises:
1. Needless suffering is generally bad
2. In almost all cases amongst those in the developed world, animal products aren’t generally necessary
3. farming animals causes their suffering.
This is why we love our dogs and don’t put them in dog fights. Or why we feel bad when we see someone putting kittens in a bag and throwing it in a river.
>2. In almost all cases amongst those in the developed world, animal products aren’t generally necessary
Animal fat in human food was mostly replaced by plant oils in the last 100 years by the food industry, causing increased deficiency in fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K in most of the world population. And that is just a few vitamins. There are other essential amino acids which are only available in animal products... and then there are others which nutrition science is still exploring... except nutrition science is ineffective and generally corrupted by the food industry so it takes a very long time to find out what is really true.
What can be believed though is by looking at the history. There are exactly ZERO tribes, cultures, ancient or modern which did not eat animal products.
>1. Needless suffering is generally bad
That has too many assumptions. What is "needless"? "Bad" for who/what purpose/goal?
For instance, one could argue that making humans suffer by depriving humans of essential nutrition for needless reasons like "animal suffering" is generally bad.
>3. farming animals causes their suffering.
Cooking bread causes suffering to the yeast colony. Yeast colonies are super-organisms (which are higher level organisms than individual yeast cells) and they definitely suffer (in their level of consciousness) when you put the dough in the oven... but if you were looking from a human perspective, you don't care about that. Similarly, from a potentially interplanetary species perspective, herbivores dying is not something we should relate to. You can choose to, but then you can also do that for yeast suffering.
> What can be believed though is by looking at the history. There are exactly ZERO tribes, cultures, ancient or modern which did not eat animal products.
First of all, this is wrong. Modern Jains avoid all animal products. Even if it weren't wrong, it isn't any sort of proof that it's required. So we ought not use that fact to justify our continued eating of animals.
> That has too many assumptions. What is "needless"? "Bad" for who/what purpose/goal?
Yeah, thats the tricky part, and you're right that there are situations where it can be difficult to determine if suffering is necessary or not, however those terms are defined. I think in general though people believe this. I reckon you do, too, which is why people tend to have averse reactions to hearing stories of folks imprisoned wrongfully, or people savagely beaten for nothing.
> Cooking bread causes suffering to the yeast colony. Yeast colonies are super-organisms (which are higher level organisms than individual yeast cells) and they definitely suffer (in their level of consciousness)
This is simply false. We have no reason to believe that yeast have any capacity to suffer, in the same way that people generally don't think broccoli can suffer. Sure, they die, but feel no pain and have no ability to understand anything, let alone their own experience.
No one in the developed world uses their taste to determine if they’re eating a balanced diet. We are so beyond that. So it’s kind of irrelevant what our tongues evolved for.
> No one in the developed world uses their taste to determine if they’re eating a balanced diet.
I know. The developed world relies on food industry disinformation sold as "science". I believe this is the reason why the developed world has the kind of deficiencies and diseases that the indigenous cultures didn't have.
> but for vast majority of foods that humans culturally ate before the food industry took over, good taste does mean higher nutritional value
Ah, yes, just ask the Romans, who liked to flavor their food with nutritious lead.
(The Romans' lead-based flavoring is an extreme example, but people have been eating pretty dubious things, particularly sugar, for a very long time because they taste good)
Sunk cost fallacy. 22 million years of evolution doesn’t make up for the millions of birds and other animals we murder everyday for their meat and eggs.
When disinformation generated by capitalist greed is the source of education, they can make otherwise smart people believe that mass-murdering human babies in the womb is for "health" and hunter-gatherers killing prey animals for food is "murder".
I would like very much to eat proteins of the same quality as animal proteins, but made by a fungus or yeast, instead of eating animal proteins.
I hope that one day this would be possible.
Nevertheless, I will never eat food having a secret chemical composition and/or food whose production is monopolized by the sole owner of some patents, as it appears to be the case with this product.
Any kind of food must have a chemical composition that is completely published, because there have been far too many examples in history, of stupidity in assessing what is good or not too eat.
I would not care if some non-essential food has a single-source, e.g. some fancy kind of chocolate.
On the other hand for a food whose purpose is to provide the nutrients that keep you alive, e.g. the necessary daily intake of proteins, it must be possible to be produced everywhere and by everyone, without restrictions.
It is acceptable for its production methods to be patented, but the patents must be licensed to anyone on FRAND terms.
Until such conditions will be met by an animal-substitute food, it cannot really substitute the animal food, except for niche uses, regardless of how well it reproduces the taste and any other qualities of the original food.
I don't think this is intended for people to put in their fridge and make breakfast with as much it's going to replace egg whites in a lot of factory processed foods and bakeries.
I can't wait to be able to buy stuff like this or "cow-free milk" in the supermarket, but it'll be a long long time due to the irrational European fear of GMOs which is a basic tool for most cases of bio-engineered yeasts.
"I can't wait to be able to buy stuff like this or "cow-free milk" in the supermarket..."
There's plenty of cow-free milks in the supermarket already: they're called nutmilks (ex: soy milk, almond milk, oat milk, etc). They've been around for decades.
The main thing I'm waiting for are good vegan versions of sharp cheeses like sharp cheddar and blue cheese. A good vegan smoked gouda would be nice too.
I've yet to taste creamy vegan ice cream that's on par with the best milk-based ice cream, but at least vegan ice creams can be pretty good and getting better.
Same for me! I already use a lot of plant-based substitutes and the fact that I'm lactose intolerant makes this even easier for me, but as you already outlined - there are a few remaining niches which can't be filled adequately by alternatives yet.
We in Europe have good reasons, in fact very good reasons to reject GMOs. Its a very powerful tool, very poorly tested, side effects on whole ecosystem not tested at all (aka if you don't brag about safety in ads, it means there is nothing to brag about).
They often come from most amoral companies in the world, ie Monsanto which clearly don't care about human health and life, only profits at all costs. They are often pushed by political means (ie US business folks coming ie to UK to lobby for lowering food safety standards compared to those from EU right after it was clear Brexit is happening).
You want to solve world hunger and feed those poorest and most unfortunate that would otherwise die? Sure go ahead, but at least attempt to be moral and show some serious research into collateral damage. You try to push that cheap untested crap on one of the world's most rich and free regions? Well clearly your chops are not good enough right now.
Chicken-free egg products have become remarkably good. I bought and enjoyed ready-made folded egg recently and didn’t realize until afterwards that it was plant-based.
The parent comment is probably talking about JUST brand eggs, which is made primarily from mung bean. I scrambled some up this past weekend with kimchi for a great breakfast!
This type of stuff will eventually lead us to a vegan world. It's hard to see it now but future generations will find it harder to slaughter millions of animals when perfect meat substitutes are available. It will be similar to the slow transition from fossil fuels.
On a more serious note, why do ethical vegan proponents feel it is better for an animal to never live at all? To be devoid of purpose due to lack of existence?
Billions of male chickls are ground up by the egg industry every year because they aren't productive at all. Also, egg laying chickens are only economically viable for a few years at most, even though they live for many more, so egg laying chickens are indeed killed because they become a liability.
> why do ethical vegan proponents feel it is better for an animal to never live at all?
The same reason that I feel it'd have been better for someone who abused and murdered their child to have never had any children.
Bringing something into this world does not permit us to treat it however we want. We all know that, some people just think it for some reasons doesn't apply to chickens, cows, pigs, etc.
I don’t eat meat myself but I would be ok if animals got treated well during their lifetime and just had one bad day when they get slaughtered. Wild animals also usually don’t have good endings. What I object to is the cruelty these animals are subjected to for their whole life. Their whole life is a sequence of very bad days without reprieve.
Ignoring the fact that the “one bad day” method is still messed up (would we be cool if i shot my dog in the head as soon as I was inconvenienced?), there is no way to ensure these animals treated well before their slaughter and maintain any level of scale. If you want to pay $60 for a dozen eggs, sure, maybe there is a way to ensure your “one bad day” eggs are in super markets. Otherwise the only way it works is if the welfare of animals is ignored.
To know that you aren’t supporting such violence, it’s easy: just don’t eat animal products.
Or, just raise your own animals. As far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly ethical to kill your own food or harvest eggs laid by your own chickens. No need to pay money for other naturally produced foodstuffs; fresh eggs and high-quality meat are excellent mediums of trade.
As you mention, the problem is scale, but then everyone doesn't have to live in a city. Different solutions for different situations and all that.
I think people would still take issue with me buying a puppy, raising it for a year, and then shooting it in the head to eat it. If that's true, then I think people are actually far less cool with the "one bad day" argument than they think.
Even if you treat an animal like royalty for years and decide one day to kill it for food or clothing or whatever, you are still doing something wrong. Our treatment of anything does not grant us the privilege to end its life.
We feel this way about dogs and cats, and other humans, but never pigs or cows or sheep or goats or fish, etc. And there is no reasonable explanation for why, other than speciesism.
Right. They literally just squeeze the baby chicks to see their gender, then just throw all the males into a "humane" meat grinder. Until we can persuade a cock to lay eggs we are going to have to kill 50% of the chicken population to get our eggs.
I'm not an ethical vegan or a vegan at all, but I'm aware of our mass agricultural system being terrible ethically for animals.
If just chickens and cows ceased to exist, I don't think the world would suffer too much. Goose and ducks would fill the role chickens have in aerating the soil.
> To be devoid of purpose due to lack of existence?
Plenty of people and creatures commit suicide when life is too much to bear. Sometimes depriving oneself of life can be a blessing. If I was hooked up to a machine that just drained me of blood, milk, or something else and I was force fed, I'd probably kill myself if able. Why do we not afford a creature the same pity?
I mean... if you want eggs on an industrial scale, yes, obviously you do. Chickens live 5-10 years; laying hens are typically killed at about a year in.
If you get all your eggs from your pet backyard chickens, that's one thing, but most people don't.
You're constructing a vegan strawman here. Ethical veganism is about reducing harm to animals. You can't harm a hypothetical chicken that was never born.
Are you seriously suggesting torturing and slaughtering animals is a better alternative to a world where that doesn't happen and that might have less chickens?
1. Let die naturally of old age
2. Slaughter after a productive life
3. Slaughter mid life because disease
4. Slaughter mid life because money (e.g., price of feed)
5. Slaughter/cull young for sexing
6. Use fertilized eggs
7. Prevent fertilization, use unfertilized
8. Eliminate laying of eggs
People make the same argument for why women can’t chose what happens to their own bodies (eg rape victims opting for abortion). And some people make the same arguments against contraception too.
In all cases, yours and the above, I find the argument less than compelling because life isn’t something that exists prior to birth; you’re not denying a soul from physical form because you happen to farm fewer chickens.
Arguing that the absence of life is the same as death is really just a clever way of justifying selfish ideals.
i’m not vegan, but the egg industry is probably one of the most atrocious concerning animal welfare iiuc. they do slaughter chicks in droves—just not for meat
Animal welfare should not focus on if an animal dies if the alternative is for it to never live at all. Any amount of time, even a day after hatching, is greater than zero.
Instead we should focus on quality of life and how humane the death is.
“They aren't chickens which wouldn't survive in a non domesticated environment.”
You would be very surprised how quickly animals can adapt to a new environment. There are plenty of examples of domesticated animals being released into the wild and doing just fine.
I'd think dogs are mostly able to because they're still around humans and can scavenge off our garbage. Any breed that's not damn close to a wolf, I'd expect not to be able to find/catch enough food to survive long if dropped in actual wilderness.
Chickens would become food for other animals in days, at most. It's hard enough to keep that from happening when they're kept, let alone in the wild.
Cows are like giant, extremely stupid deer, so I doubt we'd tolerate them in the wild anywhere even slightly near civilization, putting aside their ability to survive on their own (which I also doubt—first bad Winter would take care of them, I reckon).
Not that we we will be able to test it, but I would bet against your promise. I don’t see a reason why cows or chickens couldn’t survive in the wild. Not in all areas obviously but I am sure there are areas where climate, vegetation and predators allow them to thrive. We have wild turkeys, we have quail, so why not chickens? And if horses can survive, then cows can too. Horses are way more fragile than cows.
Have you dealt with chickens, turkeys, horses, or cows in real life? Because it doesn't seem like you have. Horses are in no way more fragile than cows, especially wild stallions.
I've raised turkeys, chickens, cows, and horses. The turkeys and chickens people eat are not the same as wild turkeys, they would not survive without humans.
Yes I have dealt plenty with horses, cows, goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits, ducks and others. My contention is that you would be surprised how quickly animals would adapt. The notion that we are doing them a favor by keeping them because otherwise they would not survive is nonsense in my opinion.
Life should have a shot at consciousness. It's your privilege to be able to decide that you would have preferred not to have been born. Other lifeforms may come to an opposing belief, and they deserve that chance.
Most likely a chicken doesn't have complex enough thought to reach that, but that means it also doesn't worry about the day of slaughter, it just enjoys life, assuming it has a good range.
This kind of research seems promising because it's not even a substitute, it claims to be the exact same product, only derived from a different source. A lot of people don't want weird plant based alternatives to animal products because of the taste or nutritional content.
Chickens lay eggs. It is a fact of their life, there is nothing exploitative or bad about it (in principle, I will say that a lot of farms are garbage). "solving" egg whites is the furthest from the ideal that you are espousing that you could possibly get. What needs to be solved properly is dairy, specifically cheese. It is a giant range of foods and none of the current vegan offerings come even close to covering it.
A big reason for many people still eating meat is that they don't know about what goes on in fatory farming and slaughterhouses... and they don't want to know.
Per the article, cow-free cow's milk is beginning to become a thing.
There are, incidentally, non-animal-welfare-related reasons that this stuff is interesting. In particular, there's the potential to considerably reduce the CO2 cost of producing egg whites this way, and the product could reasonably be expected to be safer.
> Chickens lay eggs. It is a fact of their life, there is nothing exploitative or bad about it
It seems like you don’t know much about the poultry industry in general. Your statement is like saying — to use an analogy — that human women give birth to human children as a fact of life, and that it’s ok to force them to give birth consecutively for decades without a break. Left to themselves, chickens would probably lay about 25 eggs in a whole year. In the industry, they’re forced to lay more than 300 eggs a year. There is simply no way that this is not constant physical abuse (even if you ignore battery cages, starvation, light exposure, etc.).
It would require much more
than "cheaply":
1.It has to provide same
nutrition.e.g. egg with
B12 removed would not be equivalent to chicken egg.
2.It could be privately
produced like eggs.
(As otherwise people depend
on megacorporations abusing
their mass production costs
to monopolize the market)
3.It would need to have
to compete with existing
culinary preferences:
i.e. recipes with eggs would
not 'adapt to artificial eggs', with people continuing to use chicken eggs.
