Happiness is knowing where your eggs come from

Photo credit: Wombatunderground1 on FlickrA store-bought egg recall? Again? Well, thank goodness for our own backyard egg producers!

It's staggering to think that Wright County Egg is recalling 380 million eggs since improper handling at several of its facilities has been suspected of sickening hundreds of people with salmonella. For now, I'll leave the "how did this happen?" story to be told over on the news web sites.

I imagine we'll be reading a lot about federal regulations and industrial processing plant working conditions and distribution chains in the coming days before this story dies out.

What I hope people think about is the plight of the millions of hens who actually laid those 380 million eggs now recalled (for destruction if they haven't been eaten already). Thanks to human negligence and mishandling, all the energy expended to create and deliver those eggs into the industrial system has been wasted. And this coming from a creature that spends its life laying eggs in a space only as big as a standard letter-sized piece of paper. It hurts to think about it.

If you've had to buy eggs at the store since May, please check to see if you need to return your eggs.

And the next time you step out to the coop to pick an egg from the nesting box, please give your hen a hug.

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