Gilroy 35 Miles Over the Hill From Santa Cruz | Below are my comments made to the web site. Perhaps these comments need
to be placed in the cafeterias.
Cage Free Shell Eggs. It always surprises me when people express they
use cage free eggs for the reasons you claim. The terms have almost
declared their state of ignorance in food safety and certainly ignore
the fact that over five thousand years of learning how to efficiently
produce safe eggs for human consumption. In the late 1950's farmers
were not interested in moving from floor production, but university
researchers found that fewer birds produced eggs with pathogens
(Salmonella, E. coli, Clostridia) when moved to a wired frame. The
wired frame was explained to be better for clean feet and mimicked
roosts with better stability. The opening allowed manure to fall away
from the act of laying an egg (cleaner eggs) and permitted the egg to
roll away from the bird to a cooling area which permits the outer
membrane to dry without contamination seen from eggs layed in a nest
full of pathogens. Fewer eggs were broken, lost in the nests, and
collected daily. Collecting eggs prior to the wired apartment meant not
knowing when the egg was laid and thus consumers were sold some rotting
eggs. Your message tells your customers you don't care about their
health or the health of the hens producing eggs. Birds in apartments
are provided meals, water, ventilation, protection from predators,
reduction in exposure to insects that carry diseases harmful to the hen.
Dust bathing is not a healthy exercise. It permits ectoparasites to
live on the hens and adds to contamination. That would be similar to
having your employees wash their hands in their own feces. When Notre
Dame University was approached and pressured to use cage free eggs by
the politically biased Humane Society of the United States, they went to
the farm to see for themselves. Notre Dame food procurement officers
decided to keep their current suppliers for all of the reasons above.
Your policy needs an equal review and not be sold a premise that is
misleading and a lie.
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By People at the USDA
