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Selects: The Truth Behind Cage-Free and Free-Range · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's me Josh, and for this week's select,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I've chosen our episode on free range and cage free.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: What do they mean? Do they mean anything? Turns out
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: they do mean something, but not what you'd think. This
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: is starting to get kind of tough to follow, so
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I say, just listen to the episode. But this one
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: changed my mind about a lot of stuff, and I
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: hope it opens your eyes too.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Chuck in it. Just something is going on with Chuck.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I'm okay so far, but Jerry's not here because she
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: turned into the Chicken Lady and his in treatment.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: For that.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Doing the chicken dance.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Do you remember the Chicken Lady from Kids in the Hall?
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Oh? Sure, I was referencing the rest of the development. Yeah,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: but you're taking it back even further to the great,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: great Kids in the Hall.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I can just sit here and quote Kids in the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Hall one liners all day.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I love those guys.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: So that's not what we're here to do, though, Chuck,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Settle down, settle down. We're going away from the Kids
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: in the Hall.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, And since you mentioned that, what we're also not
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: here to do is shame anybody or make anyone feel bad,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: or to tell anyone how to live their life and
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: eat their breakfast. But we're here to arm you with
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: information on this one about And I'm not surprised you
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: picked this one, but I just thought since I had
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: a somewhat scarring experience any commercial chicken farming industry. Yeah,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: for those of you listening that don't know, this, one
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of my last real person jobs before this job many
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: years ago, as I worked for a software company that
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: designed software for commercial chicken operations to better track how
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: they lay eggs and how they gain weight, and how
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: you're feeding them and kind of everything how they're killed.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: And I hated that job. It was sole killing and
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I never understood it. I never invested in it, and
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: as far as understanding the software, and I was in
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: tech support, and so I was terrible at it. But
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: my friends ran the company and eventually they fired me
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: because I was so bad at it. Wow, And that's
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: the best thing that ever happened to me, because that
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: led directly to getting this job.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: It's like Garth Brooks said, some of God's greatest gifts
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: are unanswered prayers. All right, sure, you know made your
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: prayer to be good at your chicken killing software job
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: was unanswered, and instead an even better prayer that you
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: didn't even know you had was answered.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: I didn't have that prayer. I didn't want to be
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: good at that job.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so this is like all this is probably
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: pretty well known to you because this is we've been
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: doing this kind of stuff to chickens for a good
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: seventy years by now.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you know the you know, we're gonna talk
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: some about factory farming. Finally we've I don't think we've
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: dodged it, but people have, you know, long said hey, guys,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: can you get into this? And you know, we're not
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: touching cattle or swine. We're just starting dipping our toe
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: into it with poultry. Dipping our beaks, dipping our beaks
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: are untrimmed beaks.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can peck you till the cows come home,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: which is something that happens on the farm.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: So let's enough dancing around, Chuck. We're talking about today,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: not necessarily factory farming, although like you said, we have
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: to talk about it. We're gonna talk about those labels
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: that you see on your eggs or on your chicken,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: usually cage free or free range or something along those
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: lines and other it means anything. But one of the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: great successes of the last probably five six, maybe even
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: ten years or longer, came very quietly out of the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: effective altruism community.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Chuck, oh, really yeah.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: A group of effective altruists said, you know, we're always
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: looking to maximize our charitable contributions. There's a lot of
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: chickens out there that are not being treated very well. Supposedly,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: there's seven point six billion egg laying hens alone worldwide
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: at any given time, almost eight billion, So if you
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: could improve the lives of them even by a little bit,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: you would really be reducing a massive amount of suffering.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: So they got three million dollars together and like Laser,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: focused it on advocacy, lobbying, getting legislation put through, and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: then most of all, pressuring really really big companies. They
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: went after some whales to commit to going one hundred
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: percent cage free eggs within a very short period of time,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: sometimes twenty twenty four, sometimes twenty thirty. But all of
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: these huge companies, everybody from dan Own to Burger King,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to McDonald's, to Whole Foods, not surprisingly but also like
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Dollar General, all of them have signed a pledge that says,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: all of the eggs that our customers buy, whether it's
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: in prepared food or eggs you buy in the store,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: are going to be one hundred percent cage free eggs
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: within the next few years. And they did it with
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: like three million dollars and a lot of elbow grease.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I love it. I think all those companies probably said,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: all right, all right, if they're cheese, if they're KG
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: free eggs out there, will use them, stop hassling me.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what the Burger King said.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the guy that big uh Yeah, but he said
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: it with his mind, right, yeah, because his mouth doesn't move.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: But it was a big deal.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that they got that, that that's happening.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: It's a big deal. And it's one of those things.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Where if you scratch beneath the surface, it's not an
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: intended pun, but if you scratch beneath the surface, and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of these terms and phrases that the USDA
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: likes to bandy about, things like cage free and things
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: like free range and stuff like that, it's often really disappointing.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: But that's one of the things about cage free is
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that it is an actual substantial increase in the welfare
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and quality of life for egg laying chickens in the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: in the United States.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: It's a big, big deal.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: And it's not that they're in these amazing conditions all
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: of a sudden with cage free, it's that they're in
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: such poor conditions otherwise that this is a huge improvement
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: for them.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you know, a lot of people
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: will agree even k free isn't all it's cracked up
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of like chicken based idioms that we use.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: There's suddenly coming to the I hadn't noticed.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: When I worked with that company. They made everybody at
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: one point, even if you didn't do like project management
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: where you had to go to the farms, they made
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: us all go to the farms and tech support at
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: one point. And I know I've told the story before,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: but it was a pretty awful experience, and it smells
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: really really bad. It smells so bad that me and
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: my one friend that I worked with, Barry, were like,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: did sort of the silence of the Lamb's trick with
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: dabbing some like menthol on our upper lip, under our nostrils,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: just so we could walk through these things. And you know,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: I think they thought it would benefit us just sort
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: of just see boots on the ground. What happened. I
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: was like, I appreciate the feel trip, but it did
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: not benefit me in any way except hearing things like
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: oh myn cage or pre range just means there's a
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: door open. They don't even use it. And I heard
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: this back then, I was like, oh my gosh, is
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: that true. And as it turns out, as we'll see,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: that's kind of true.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we shouldn't confused free range with cage free.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: They're two different things. We'll describe them both. But yeah, yeah,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: so cage free is a huge improvement. Free range is
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: as bad as you'd expect it to be because it's
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: coming from the USDA.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess let's talk about let's briefly, and
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: big thanks to Dave Ruse for helping us out with
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: this one. But Dave starts out with a little bit
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: of history, and I think that's a good place to
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: start because you don't have to look very far back
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: in this country. It seems like a long time ago,
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: But the nineteen forties isn't that long ago in the
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: lifespan of America. And back then they were still like
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: feeding America their eggs or its eggs. I don't even
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: know what America is with backyard chickens. Basically, they were
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: big farms, of course, but they weren't like these big,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: massive battery cages that we see today. They were hens
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: living outdoors, generally on farms, laid about one hundred eggs
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: a year, and then after a few years, when they
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: quit laying eggs, then they would be used for meat.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: They'd turn into Sunday dinner they would.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: And these days, starting in like the fifties, things became
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: a little more industrialized and mechanized, and that's when battery
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: cages came into play, which is the wire cage that
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: you might like. If you have friends that have backyard chickens,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: you probably built them a large coupe and within that
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: coup some battery cages. But if you're a backyard chicken person,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: you probably have battery cages that are very large for
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: two or three four chickens.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, these are not the battery cages that they're raised in.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: After farming became industrialized in the fifties, like these things
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: are usually have. I've seen anywhere between three and seven
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: chickens in there, and usually each one has about the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: amount of space about a little lower or a little
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: smaller than the size of a standard piece of paper.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: And for the teenage listeners out there, it's smaller than
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the size are about the size of an iPad.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's a chick.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: A chicken.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: They can't move around, they can't flap their wings, they
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: can't do a lot of stuff that we'll find out
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: is a big problem in a minute. They're meant to
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: be kept basically in one place, and because this stuff
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: has all been industrialized, their whole job, in everything about
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: their life is to just sit there and lay egg
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: after egg after egg. So they're kept in these battery cages.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: The battery cages are kept off the ground, which is
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: good because it means that they're away from parasites and
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: poop born diseases.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: And the eggs are yeah.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: They when they poop, they they it falls onto a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: conveyor belt that carries the poop away, so it's a
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: little more sanitary. When they lay an egg the bottom
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: of the cage is slanted downward, so it rolls downward
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: onto a different conveyor belt. Thankfully that whisks the egg away.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So the whole thing is really automated. And because these
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: cages are so they can be stacked. It's modular, so
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: you can go upward with chickens as well as outward too.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: You can really raise a lot of chickens in these
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: battery cages. Just good if you're a farmer, not really
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: good if you're a chicken though.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, and these chickens, you know, I said that the
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: backyard chickens of your laid about one hundred eggs a year.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Today's chickens lay closer to three hundred eggs a year
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: because they are bread as specifically to do so, and
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: just the way that beyond being bred to do so,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: like you said, they're set up as such that it's
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: just you know, they have made it a very efficient
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: operation as far as how much they can extract from
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: each hen.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a real quick chuck.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: That was a big part of the industrialization of farming too,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: is breeding practices, to where we started selectively breeding types
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: of chickens that either laid a perfectly nice brown egg
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: or ones that gained weight in certain places that we
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: wanted them to.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Like.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: Genetics has been a huge part of that as well.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're really lucky because our really really good friends,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Justin and Melissa. I've known Justin since college, you know,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Justin Sure they have chickens. They have these four beautiful
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: ladies in their backyard. Awesome, and they have a big,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: wonderful coup. But anytime they're outside and can safeguard them
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: from hawks by keeping an eye on them. Those ladies
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: are running around the yard with their dogs. They somehow
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: managed to train these dogs to kind of give them
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: their space. And it's great. And you know, they give
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: us eggs and we spend money in their wine shop
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: and it's a great symbiotic relationship that is really great.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Good We save our cartons and stuff when we do
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: have to buy eggs, so they have cartons to give
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: out to their friends because these ladies are laying a
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: lot of eggs.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Lightly So Justin has chickens in a wine shop. Now
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: he's living the life.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: O man, it's the American dream realized by my British
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: import friend.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Look good. So he's doing it. What you could call
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: the right way, I.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Think, which is to say, very not necessarily the profit
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: maximizing way. But the chickens are, you would guess, much
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: happier than the ones that are in these battery cages.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why we would say the
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: chickens are not so happy in the battery cage is because,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: like again, they can't move. If you put a chicken
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: on a piece of paper, it's going to take up
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: most of that piece of paper or iPad, right, So
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: when you visualize that, you suddenly get like, this is
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: this is for the whole for its whole life, usually
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: somewhere around seventy weeks. This is how it spends almost
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: all of that time in this little cage, just laying eggs,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: laying eggs to at at an unnatural pace. And because
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: it's kind of stuck in this one small place, there's
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that it can't do that people
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: who have studied chickens say, chickens to do this or
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: else they're going to go insane and have a really
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: horrific life. And that is kind of what the basis
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: of creating like cage free setups or like genuine free
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: range setups is it comes from giving chickens a better
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: life while during those seventy or so weeks that they're alive.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's easy for somebody, maybe
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: who doesn't think about it much, to think of a
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: laying him as just this sort of organic egg machine,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: like a living egg machine. Not organic in the sense
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: that it's you know, sort of hard organic, but a
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: living machine that just pumps out these eggs that we
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: love to eat for breakfast or out on top of
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: a hamburger or you know, rice crispies a could meal. Ooh,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know about that, but that's not the case. Like,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: these birds have personalities and they have behaviors that they
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: want to do and that they normally do. Like it's
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: just a handful of them they love. And you know,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: you can see this when I go over to Justin
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: and Melissa's house when they're out doing their thing. They're
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: preening and they're cleaning their feathers and they're flapping, ruffling
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: their feathers around and flapping around, and they take little
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: dust bass, which means they roll around on the ground
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: and they're absorbing oil for their feathers and they're getting
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: rid of their dead skin, and they're shedding feathers that
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: they don't need and little feather mites, and they love
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: to nest. And then here's the big one is And
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: I've seen it happen and I've tried to guard my
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: eyes because i know what's going on. They don't like
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: a lot of attention when they're laying these eggs. They're
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: giving birth. It's a private matter to them, you know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: giving birth in the figurative sense, but it's like they're
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: doing their business. They don't want a lot of attention.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: They like to do this instinctively in private, and they're
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: not able to do that. It's called the laying act
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: and it's on full display. And they can get so
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: upset about having to do this without any privacy in
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: battery cages, not can they do. They get so upset
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: they pecket other hens and they fight each other, and
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that's why they end up clipping their beaks because the
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: other hens are getting injured from being hen pecked because
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: they're stressed out from living on an iPad.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, doctor Conrad Lorenz or Lorenz who starred in our
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Animal Imprinting episode, I think he's popped up elsewhere. He
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: had a quote he said, the worst torture to which
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: a battery hen is exposed is the inability to retire
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: somewhere for the laying act. Yeah, the person who knows
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: something about animals, it is truly heartrending to watch how
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a chicken tries again and again to crawl beneath her
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: fellow cage mates to search there in vain for cover.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because they don't get what's going on too. It
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: is it's heartbreaking.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, like that is an enormous thing. Like, not
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: only are we forcing them to have two hundred percent
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: more eggs every year, forcing them to do it against
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: their instinct basically every day, and they really suffer a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of distress for that. And then one of
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the other ones, one of the other behaviors that's really
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: really big, is roaming their freedom to rome. Chickens are
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: very social animals. They like to hang out, they like
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: to mess with each other. They like to prene one another,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: not just pre themselves, but they also need space to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: get away from one another. And when they can't do that,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: that's when things like henpecking to an injurious degree or
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: cannibalism where all sorts of terrible zoochosis can happen when
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: chickens are stuck together in a very small area for
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: their entire lives. And that is the basis of battery cages.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And you said, it's like it makes sense from a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: mechanized industrial standpoint. But back in the day when they
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: figure this out, these are the same people who resisted
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: putting seatbelts in cars and got us into Vietnam, you
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, these aren't exactly the most
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: moralistic generation that we've ever produced. They were very sensible
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and like rational minded and didn't take a great deal
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: of humanity into consideration when it came to profit maximization.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, this is a segment we like to call Gen
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: X speaks to millennials and Gen Z about boomers.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: That's right, you got that straight.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: But it's true. They also, you know, alter their diet
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: and lighting to maximize their output. They don't move around,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: so they're obviously, you know what's going to happen when
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: an animal is just sort of stuck in the small,
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: tiny thing. They're going to have no muscle. They have
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: muscle loss because they can't move around and do their thing,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: and they basically become what I described, which is these
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: living egg laying machines, which is exactly how the industrial
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: egg complex, if that's a term, wants it. But things
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: are changing a little bit, and we're going to walk
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: you through so of You know, a lot of these
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: are marketing terms, but some of them are legitimate terms
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: that the USDA allows them to use. In addition to
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: these great pictures that you see on your egg cartons
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: of chickens, like, you know, smiling under the sunshine on
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: a rolling pastoral scene. They're allowed to do stuff like that,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: but the words that they use are regulated to an extent.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And if you really, really really want to do your
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: due diligence, though, you got to know what all this
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: stuff means and then even do a little more investigation.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, typical USDA type stuff. But let's take a break
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: and then we'll get into cage free.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: How about that, Let's get out of the cage.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: If you want to know, and you're in luck, just listen.
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: Up to Suffu stuff you.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: No, Okay, so we're talking cage free, and I think
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I already let the cat out of the bag, although
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: hopefully not in the chicken coop. Yeah, that cage free
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: actually does have some meaning like it Actually if you
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: look at it compared to the battery cage operations of
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: your or actually I shouldn't say of yours, there's still
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: most chickens in the United States at least are still
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: in battery cages. I think something like seventy percent, which
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: amounts to two hundred and thirty million hens are currently
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in battery cages.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: So it's still going on, still happening.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: But if you if you compare the battery cage to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the cage free operation, it is a substantial difference, for sure.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the more we describe this stuff, there are
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: levels of getting better, for sure, and k tree is better.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: It is greater than it means. And this is a
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: direct quote from the US. It means the eggs must
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: be produced by hens housed in a way that allows
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: for not only unlimited access to food and water. And
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: you might think, well, duh, but they used to like
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: keep food from hens, so different things would happen with
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: their production, and they're like, you can't do that at
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: all anymore, and then the rest of it goes. But
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: unlike eggs from cage tins also provides them freedom to
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: roam during the laying cycle.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: That's huge.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: But here's the deal is, there aren't any guidelines about
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: what that access to outdoors means. It doesn't say how
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: much space there needs to be, and so basically what
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: you're still seeing is a big, long barn with a
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: bunch of laying hens packed inside there. They're just not
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: in those wire cages.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: No, they have now instead of about an eight by
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: eight square of space available to them like they do
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: in the battery cages, typically a hen in a or
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: a cage free situation has about a ten and a
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: half inch by eleven inch space available to them per bird.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: And it's not like it's designated. That's what they can
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: move around. At least they can move around these giant,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: giant barns. The problem is is there's tens of thousands
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: of hens also in these barns and they just don't
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: have that much room to move. If they had a
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: ton of willpower and they decided they were going to
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: go to point B, they could conceivably make their way there,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: but it's not going to be easy, and it's not
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: like they're just roaming around and they have a bunch
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: of free space to move around in or do much in. Again,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: compared to the battery cages where they had no chance
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: of moving away from their little cage, it is a
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: huge improvement. But then when you see a picture of
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: what a cage free barn looks like, it's it gets
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: a little depressing again.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know some of these egg producers are
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: not the hens, but the operations, so there's only one
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: egg producer in the scenario. They do have some perches
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: that are built up, and they do have some nesting
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: areas so they can hop up there. They can stretch
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: their wings, but they're not required to. That's not part
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: of the USDA requirement. If you want to look for
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: requirements that you could look for a label from the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: United Egg Producers. They have a different certification guideline for
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: k tree that's a little more I guess open than
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the usdas are restrictive, I guess if you're a farmer.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: They must allow hens to exhibit natural behaviors that we
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: talked about and include enrichments such as scratch areas, purchase,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: and nests, so they have to have those, and then
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: they must have access to litter, and litter is just
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: like the stuff on the ground that they like to
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: roll around in. It's not like beer cans and old
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: batteries and stuff.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Not the crying, ironized cody kind.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: They must have protection from predators and be able to
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: move through a barn in a manner that promotes bird welfare.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: So that's a little hazy, but that generally means not
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: as crowded. But I don't think that that even specifies
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: what that means.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: No, and that is much better than the USDA standards.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And the United Egg Producers are an industry industry group
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of like egg operators. Like I think there's maybe one
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty in the in the United States, which
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: is way less than there used to be.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: So to produce like almost all the eggs, right.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, and we export a lot of them too. Surprisingly.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Uh So it's a it's a car, it's a cartel,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: like a lobbying group basically for the egg producers.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And you know, at the risk of sounding like suspicious
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of them, like I would guess that they created these
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: standards to get ahead of this problem that was growing
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden and costing them money. So by
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: doing better than the USCA, you know, that's great. Like
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: their hens are are genuinely like, what's the word, what's
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the opposite of suffering? Benefiting from that? But I think
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: it makes me suspect, and actually I know from research
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: it can be much better than that, right, And a
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: big one is density. It's a it's a huge part
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of it. It's density, how like there should be much
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: greater limits on how many hens you can have per barn.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: And then also another one is even under these these better,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: more stricter standards for hen welfare, their their lives are
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: very much artificially controlled still because they're kept in this barn.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: They're still in a barn. They don't go outside to
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: be cage free. You still don't go outside if your hen,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: you spend your entire life in one single barn until
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: you stop producing enough eggs fast enough, and then they
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: turn you into pet food.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: That's right, sometimes feeding yourself back to your felt chickens.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I looked a little bit into what chicken feed is
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: mainly made of. And because I remember at the time
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: when I took this tour, someone said something about, you know,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: there's chicken parts in the chicken feed. This was someone
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: telling me this. I didn't find that in my research.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: But there has been a movement away from things like
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: fish meal because fish meal is obviously the oceans are
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: being depleted too, to using fishes to feed chickens isn't
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: a great idea, and I think just a few years
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: ago there was final approval to use and it sounds gross,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: but like fly larvae, and you might think, like that's good.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: That is good because that's what chickens would eat if
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: they were just roaming the countryside, they would eat things
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're starting to be fed things they normally would.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Eat otherwise, which is good.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Their food is still very much controlled and portioned in everything,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: but they're starting to be fed things that more resemble
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: their diet wars before or it was just whatever was
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: cheapest and most abundant that you could feed a chicken,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: like soy and fish. That's yeah, that's not natural. And you,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: as the person eating the egg, should be like, I
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: don't want an egg from a chicken that's been eating fish.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: It's whole life.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Chickens don't eat fish. This egg probably tastes way different
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: than it should, right, And that's another thing too. There's
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of health benefits that have been documented in
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: eggs that come from well treated chickens. It seems to
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: be that the better you treat a chicken, the healthier
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: the egg it produces.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Is you can just get a and you know, if
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: you don't have a friend that has a back ear chicken,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: there's probably some local farmer's market where some fish fan
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: will sell you their eggs and you need only look
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: at them from the outside at first, to what they
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: look like in the pan, to what they taste like.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: It is a stark difference.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: It just is yeah, totally, you eat one and you
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: can take on like five cops.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's that nutrient. These cage free chickens, whether they're
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: United Egg Producer Standard or just USDA standard, they still
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: have their beaks trimmed. When they're ten days old. They're
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: still force molted. Molting is a natural process, but they
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: do something called force molting when and this is where
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: they used to take away their feed entirely to force molting.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Now they just withhold some feed to force the molting.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: It's when they shed those feathers and molt and that
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: extends their layer life by you know, it's pretty substantial.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: It can be like twenty five to forty weeks. So
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: again they're they're ringing every last egg out of those chickens,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: k tree or not.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I saw that the forced molting is not actually in
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and of itself harmful, and that it might actually be
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: beneficial for the chickens because they live their life indoors,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and one of the ways that they do that is
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: through adjusting the length of the light, the artificial light.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: But the problem is they're withholding no, it's not naturally happening,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: but it's not going to naturally happen during their lifetime anyway,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And it actually is good for them to go through
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: a molt, But they wouldn't without this induced or forced
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: molting because they aren't. They aren't subjected to natural light.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: They don't get natural light. It's all artificial. They spend
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: their entire lives basically indoors, almost entirely cut off from
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: natural light, if not entirely cut off from it.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: See, I thought hens molt by being a hen.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: No.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: No, I think they take their cues from a shorter
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: duration of days, and then they stop eating quite as much.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Then they go through the molting process, stop laying eggs
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: as frequently, and.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Then that is what I'm saying.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, it does, but it's queued by changes in natural light.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: And if they're not exposed to natural light, they're not
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: going to undergo.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: The mold.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Rights. Yeah, but like justin Melissa's eggs, malt because they
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: like it can be the shorter day of the natural
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: light cycle of a year.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Right right, yeah, yeah, And that's a natural thing.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like they can induce it through artificial
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: light changes an artificial light, and it's not necessarily bad
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: that they induce it artificially. It's probably better than just
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: not doing.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: It at all.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Right, Okay, I gotcha. Okay, I thought you were saying
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: they don't molt normally.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, I would never say something like that.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Now we can move on. Those are hens that lay eggs.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Now we can move on to hens that are raised
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: for meat. They are called broilers in the industry, and
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: it's kind of the same deal. Ninety nine percent of
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: American broiler chickens never see light in this country. They
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: are in those from the moment they're born as little
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: chicki chicks. They are in a barn, and they live
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: about six weeks and they are they are pumped up
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: as fast as they can be pumped up to get
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: the biggest breast meat possible. I think there was, Dave.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: This is pretty startling. They found a calculation that if
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: you sort of transferred their growth rate to what a
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: human baby would look like, it would be a three
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: hundred and forty nine pound baby by their second birthday.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Like baby, hueie, yeah, that's baby, we are, right.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: So the way that they did this is through basically
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: selective breeding, selecting chickens that grow in their breast area.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But they've basically surpassed any any point where you would
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: normally stop because it's now very harmful for the chicken.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: These chickens that we eat, the broiler chickens not necessarily
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: a whole chicken. It can also be like you know,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: like drumsticks or breasts or thighs or whatever, all that
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: comes from a broiler chicken. Any chicken you eat is
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: a broiler chicken. These broiler chickens are usually selected for
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: their breasts, and their breasts are so heavy that they
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: can't really walk because their legs aren't developing the way
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: that they should. But then in addition to that, their
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: legs can't develop the way they should because the breast
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: is so heavy, so they end up with metabolic diseases,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: they end up with muscle atrophy, and they don't do
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: much of anything except eat and rest because that's basically
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: all they have the energy to do.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Yees, six weeks is their lifespan. Yeah, I'll just want
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: to reiterate that.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: So over the six weeks, Yeah, they go from like
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: chicks to slaughtered adults in six weeks, So they're growing
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: that fast. But they're also growing way bigger than any
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: normal chicken wood, right, any normal breed. So during that
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: six weeks, they're stuck in this litter. If they're in
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: a situation where they have litter available to them, and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: they're just pooping and peeing in this litter, and they're
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: not getting up enough to not get like blisters from
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the ammonia in the litter, it's a problem in and
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: of itself. Like that's how basically obese these these chickens are.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: That they cannot move much at all, and they end
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: up getting sores from exposure to all the year in
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: there they're sitting in.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this was the hardest part of that tour for me,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: and the one where my buddy Barry and I actually
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: left the building after And I'll go ahead, and we
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: probably should have issued a trigger warning period, but hopefully
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: the titled episode would scare off any like vegans who
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: really don't even want to hear about this. But trigger
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: warning right here. One of the you know, and this
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: is what they do when one of the broilers or
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: any of the chickens are are injured or you know,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: winged in some way that isn't I don't know. I'm
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: not gonna put I'm not gonna label what exactly is
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: wrong with the chicken when they pick it up by
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: the neck and sling it in a little circle real
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: quick to snap their neck and then throw it back
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: on the ground. But that's exactly what happened in front
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: of us when we saw a chicken that apparently wasn't
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: doing well. And the guy's literally in mid conversation, and
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: I know this is the job that they do, and
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I don't expect him to hold a funeral. But that's
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: when Barry and I stepped out and we're like, we're
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: going to be out here for the rest of the tour,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: I can imagine, and I was about to start, Yeah,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I had five cigarettes at the same time, so there's
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: this writer from the New Yorker named Michael Spencer who
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: went to a poultry farm and he wrote that there
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: must have been thirty thousand chickens sitting silently on the
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: floor in front of me.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: They didn't move, they didn't cluck. They were almost like
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: statues of chickens living in nearly total darkness. And they
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: would spend every minute of their six week lives that way.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty sobering.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: And those are the brothers, those are the ones we eat, right,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: So again, they're bread to grow this way, and it's
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: totally unnatural. Chickens don't normally get like that. And when
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: they do interact with people, which is not obviously a
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: requirement for a chicken to have good life, but it's
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: for what you just said. It's to harvest or kill
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: a sicker or just a sick chicken, or get the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: carcass of a dead chicken out of there. And if
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you want to see just how little humans, how little
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: of a role humans have in chicken farming today, there's
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a video that they found. It's actually like a trade
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: video that I think is kind of like to sell
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: all of these different machines. It's called inside the million
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: dollar chicken farm, Amazing modern chicks, poultry farming technology. It's
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: on YouTube and it's like sixteen minutes long. I didn't
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: watch it with the volume, so I don't know if
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: there's narration, but if you watch it on mute, it's
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: just it's mesmerizing. And it's also like, I really hope
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: humans don't end up like this in the next like
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: two hundred years, you know, like it's really really weird
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: and unsettling, but then also at the same time deeply fascinating.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the answer then would be free range is
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: seemingly the solution. So what does that mean. We talked
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: about cage free and what that means for the USDA.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Any egg or poultry product that can be classified as
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: free range means the housing for the birds must provide
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: continuous free access to the outside through their normal growing cycle.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: And again, this is sort of like that story when
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: the guy said it just means there's a door. They
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: don't go out there because their food and water is
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: in ear DA doesn't say how big this door has
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: to be, where it has to be placed. They don't
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: say they don't require them to go outside, like they
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: don't shuttle them outside every day for some sunlight, like
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: you would like in a prison yard or something like that.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: All that matters is that they have continuous access. That
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: door stays accessible and open. And so you've got your
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: big barn again, you've got your small door, and if
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: they want to go outside, they can. But then even
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: if they do go outside, it doesn't say like and
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: you got to have this much area for this many
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: chickens to roam around if they want to. It can
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: be anything. It can be a pretty small little area
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: and it still qualifies as outside.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: So those huge dark barns with artificial light filled with
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: tens of thousands of chickens, if you popped a hole
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: the size of a breadplate into the wall of that barn,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: you could call your operation a free range chicken operation.
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: Now that's it.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: I didn't need to be fair, But technically you're right.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And like, yes, it is technical that I'm right.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: But from the research into just how how much of
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: a finger the USDA has on what constitutes free range
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: and who meets those requirements, it's entirely possible that somebody's
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: just cut a little hole side of the barn and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: now is saying free range and could argue that if
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: an inspector did come out and argued it with them,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: they would probably the egg producer would probably win that
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: argument in court, right.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, the doors I saw were bigger, and chickens
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: could easily fit like more than one chicken, like they
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: were sizable. But again, the whole point is their food
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: and water is inside, and so chickens are, generally, and
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: especially when they're still pretty crowded in there, they're still
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: gonna stay where their food and water is. Generally, it's
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: not like they're saying, hey, we're gonna put the water out,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: We're gonna have outdoor class today. Guys, we're gonna put
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: the water in the food outside. That'll really encourage you
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: to go outside. They don't care if they go outside
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: or not.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: So we should say the EU has much better standards
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: for what constitutes free range. They've been working at free
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: range and cage free stuff since like ninety nine and
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: have really made some big gain since then. But then
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: even in the United States, Chuck, there's plenty of people
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: like Justin who are saying, like, no, I actually want
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: my chickens to be free range, like you would think
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: free range actually is, and so there's there's there's another
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: kind of designation called pasture raised, which people tend to
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: use when they're to kind of separate themselves from free range,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: because I think enough people have picked up on the
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: fact that free range is kind of meaningless, so pasture
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: rage seems to be more more legitimate or most people
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: who do legitimately raise chickens outdoors would call them pasture raised.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: So they're like wheeling them around from place to place.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: They have an enclosure that they can go to and
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: inclement weather, but for the most most of their lives,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: they're spending their time outdoors doing what chickens do, given
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: plenty of space for being chickens, and that's typically pasture raised. Unfortunately,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: as far as the usd IS can, the USDA is
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: considered sure raised is the same thing as free range.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: So again, if you have a shed that has all
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: these chickens and you cut a hole on the side,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: you can now call that pasture raise too if you want.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't. And if you're saying, well, if you're
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: saying that some places use pasture rage raised or raged, uh,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: that'd be quite a party.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: It's like loosing your pasture if.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: You're saying that some farmers are doing it right, smaller
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: operations and when they say pasture raise, they mean it.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: But technically the U State DA doesn't make a distinction.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: What am I to do. That's where you have to
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: like do your homework. You can't just make if you
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: want to, you if you if it matters to you,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: you got to look up this farm and see what
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: they're doing. And a lot of times these smaller farms
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: will say, hey, come on out if you care, and
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: we'll show you our operation because we're proud of it,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: like you can. They generally have websites where you can
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: and it's all there, you know. I think the USDA,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: even tom not demands but requires a I demand a
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: u URL.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: They take their shoe off and bang it on the desk.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: They require a URL where you can look this stuff
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: up if you want to.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the USA is all over that, which is good
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: because I mean, we've got third party certification who you know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: who could be illegitimate. But I think that like the
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: industry would police third party certifiers because they don't want
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: to like give away their money unnecessarily because getting getting
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: things like pasture raised or free range like these are
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: these are like it's not required, you can opt to
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: have it done, to be certified like that, but you're
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: gonna pay for it. So if we had like phony
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: you know, certifiers running around, I guess yeah, the big
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: producers will probably co opt it and use it to
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: their gain. But luckily there are some really legitimate third
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: party certifiers. And the one that seems to have bubbled
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: at the top as far as I can tell, is
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: called Humane Farm Animal Care. A fact I think is
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the way that you say the abbreviation.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's a good cliffhanger. Okay, yeah, and
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: let's take our final break and we'll talk about them
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: and generally how the USDA determines if it qualifies as
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: K three or free range. To begin with, if.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: You want to know, then you're in luck. Just listen
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: up to Jucher Suffus stuffution No.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: All right, So you mentioned a couple of important things
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: before the break. One is that if you want these certifications,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: it is an like egg grating stuff like that you see,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: like Grade A eggs. It is a voluntary thing you
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: have to pay for you can you know you do
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: it so you can put it on your label so
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: you can charge more obviously mm hm. And you know,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: maybe you care about delivering a higher quality egg. Who knows,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: but the DA doesn't like if it's certified organic. They're
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: not out there doing that certification. That is completely done
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: by USDA approved certification bodies, and those seem to be
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: a little more feed on the ground. As far as
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: actually going to farms and looking at them, the USDA
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: does not require and they can't there are too many,
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: you know that. I don't think they even had the
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: staffing to do that if they wanted to go out
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: and actually photograph arms and check it out. If you
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: want that descriptor and label, you have to send in
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: a detailed written description explaining how it meets to standards,
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: along with an affidavit that's signed that it's not false
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: or misleading. But that's kind of it, Like that's all
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: the proof they need.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: That's so that's for free range, Yes, cage free they
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: take way more seriously. That's where they do have inspectors
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: go out and check so like if it says cage
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: free has been verified that this meets those cage free standards,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: so that's a good thing. That's another reason why KG
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: free is a big step up. But yeah, free ranges.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: You say, yes, my operation is free range under USDA standards.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: No, I'm not lying, And the.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Usa DA says, good enough, you can put free range
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: on your labels.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Now, yeah they did. I think they found a study
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: from that Animal Welfare Institute that examined records from the
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: FSIS and they found that only one producer out of
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: one hundred actually submitted photos of the barn showing the
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: access like I think eighty three out of thee hundred
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: provided evidence I guess not photographic evidence, but affidavits and
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: third party kind of certifications, and then seventeen of them
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: just had zero substantiation at all, and that they dug
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: in a little bit and found in forty four cases
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: they had no detailed written description at all, which is
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: supposedly what's required.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: But they still got approval from the USDA to label
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: their stuff as free range.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say the words rubber stamp, but
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: it seems like it might be that way for sure.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: And again, just buyer beware. Free range is synonymous as
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: far as the USDA is concerned with free roaming pasture
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: fed pasture, grown pasture raised and meadow raised, and again,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: just want to drive this home. It means that there's
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: a hole in the side of this giant barn filled
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: with tens of thousands of chickens who may or may
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: not be going in or out of that hole on
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: any day or if ever, during their entire lives. And
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: on the other side of that it might just be
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: a concrete pad, is what they could be free ranging on. Like,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: that's it as far as the USDA is concerned. So
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: we have a long way to go with free range,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: in particular because Chuck, like you, me and basically anyone
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: listening to this podcast has a totally different conception of
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: what free range means, right. And there was a survey
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: that was done again by the Animal Welfare Institute. They
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: did it in twenty fifteen, and they went out to people,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: just every day people and said, hey, what do you
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: think free range should should entail? And they came back
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: with some pretty interesting stuff.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they you know, as you would expect, sixty five
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: percent of people thought that free range should mean that
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: there's enough space outside for every bird to be out
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: during the day, during daylight hours if they want to be,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: and sixty two percent of consumers said they thought the
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: outdoor area should be at least partially covered by grass.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Like the expectation from consumers is, well, you put a
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: picture on your cart and of a hen rolling around
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: this beautiful pastoral scene. So that's kind of what I expect.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Or am I just being hoodwinked? And the answer is
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: you're being hoodwinked.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Well, to be fair, these are the same people that
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: believe that those barbecue signs where a pig is actually
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: cooking the barbecue, they think that's going on as well.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: So we've got to really kind of keep this.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: I never understood that one those are so disturbing, it
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: really is. This is my brother Lou. We were eating him.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Later we had a falling out.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Uh So, like I said, if you're if this all
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: of this is just frustrating and confusing, all you have
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: to do is do a little leg work or you know,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: obviously go to those local farmers' markets because that's where
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: that's where you're really gett into good stuff and talk
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: to them. I guarantee you that fish fan is going
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: to invite you out to their farm to check out
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: what's going on. Yeah, but you might walk away with
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: more than eggs. You know what I'm saying, that's right,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: that'd be a nice trip. So it literally amia. So
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: if you do want to figure.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Out like where to get good eggs or what eggs
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: you can trust, and because it's because you don't trust
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: a fish fan, there are organizations that say like, let's
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: not get fish fans involved in this at all, let's
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: keep them at bay, and everyone says, yes, agreed, agreed,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: How can we move forward without the fishes?
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: To keep them on the couch they belong.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: So again, the humane farm animal care fact, they they
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: from what I can tell, at least in the United States,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: they definitely are legit. And they've come up with some
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: definitions for their certified humane labels, so that's certified humane
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: on a like a poultry or some sort of food product.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: It actually has met some really good standards. And they
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: were basically like the USDA's definition of free range and
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: pasture raised are so terrible. We're just going to create
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: our own definitions. And they did so, they created their
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: own standards and to be certified humane free range or
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: certified humane pasture raised that they the producers have to
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: meet them standards and they're good ones.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're really good, or you know, comparatively speaking. At
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: least for free range, the hens must be outside for
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: at least six hours a day, weather permitting, obviously, and
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: that that outdoor space must have a minimum of two
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: square feet for every bird. And again that doesn't sound
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: like much and it's not, but the difference between being
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: able to move around freely when you have two square
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: feet per bird and when you have an iPad per
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: bird is pretty huge, Like you can actually move around
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: and it's not just like being at the worst party
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: you've ever been to. Pasture Rays Certified humane is even
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: better than that. The hens must be outdoors year round
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: with mobile or fixed housing where the hens can nest
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: or rest for the night, get out about weather, and
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: they are. They get about one hundred and eight square
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: feet per bird, one thousand birds for two point five acres.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: A bird doesn't even know what to do with that
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: much space.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: No, they're like, hey, can I build a a wing
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: onto my little in house?
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: That's right, and Chuck.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: One of the big things that they're doing at HAFAC
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: is they employ veterinarians, people with advanced degrees and animal studies.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Those are the people that go out and visit these
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: farms to certify them, people who know what they're talking about,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: people who are not going to be bought off, people
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: with the animal's welfare in mind, to verify that everybody's
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: meeting these standards before they get that certification.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: So that's a good one.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: There are plenty of other ones out there too, but
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: that's just based on our research and from what Dave
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: came up with too. It's like, that's that's a good
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: one to start with. But it's like you said, do
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: your homework.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: You know, it doesn't take long either. It's not like
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: you've got to invest hours and hours into this chicken research. Like, right,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I guarantee you, wherever you live, you can find some
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: pretty good options with you know, fifteen minutes of research
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: online that's right near you.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so there you have it. We just need to
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: get on the.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Increase to basically say no, they have to spend a
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: certain amount of time outdoors to be free range, and
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: then we'll go from there, because the USA will probably
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: say fifteen minutes to start. Yeah, if you want to
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: know more about free range chickens and cage free eggs,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff out there that.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: You can read, and we hope that you will.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: And since I said we hope that you will, it's
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: time for a listener.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: Maiw.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: That's right. This one is called egg on Chuck's face
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: because I've misspoken a big way on our National Parks episode.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: When I touted disperse camping wherever you want national parks,
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: I meant I was thinking of national forests. Oh, that's
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: where you can do disperse camping wherever you want. And
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: a boy, I said it a bunch, So you can't
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: camp anywhere you want national parks, okay, And I feel
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: terrible for that being out there so much that we
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: may even have to edit that. But greetings from your
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: friend a national park ranger. Your episode of National Parks
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: is excellent, and we heard from quite a few park rangers.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: By the way, I like to address a statement made
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: by Chuck. Some national parks may still allow to purse camping.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: It's commonly allowed in national forests. Though parks and national
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: forests are similar but have different missions and are therefore
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: managed differently, National parks tend to regulate recreation a little
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: more strictly. In fact, many national parks now permit systems
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: in place for backpackers. Yeah, that's very, very true, and
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: those who successfully acquire permits even then are often restricted
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: to camping and designated backcountry camp sites. This prevents overcrowding
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: and popular destinations, which lessens the amount of abandoned gear,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: garbage and food scraps and heavily left behind by certain visitors.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Certain visitors wanted to address this because though regulating where
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: people camp and how many people can camp in a
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: certain area may seem extreme to some, helps preserve the
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: wilderness character and solitude so many visitors are seeking when
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: they visit a national park. Only visitors who disperse camp
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: in a park that requires a designated campsite and or
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: permit may be subject to fines. That's very important for
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: all visitors to research regulations for any park for US
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: or wilderness that they're visiting. Happy hiking and that is
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: from our no named park ranger. Park ranger wish to
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: remain anonymous, which is we're always happy to do.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you, anonymous park ranger. Happy hiking to you as well.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: That's right, And I even had one park ranger say,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: don't make fun of our green shorts, And to be clear,
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: I don't think those shorts are the same color as
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: those trucks, A really color I was really making fun of. Okay,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: maybe they are, but I don't know if there's a
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: if you could even make a fabric that.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Color, right, they just kind of appear.
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: It doesn't adhere to textiles.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much again, anonymous park Ranger, into
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: all the park rangers and everybody who rode into correct Chuck, who,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: by the way, took it with so wait to go, Chuck.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this via email,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: like your friendly anonymous park ranger did, you can send
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: it to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.