In our continuing quest to encourage UO to follow the national animal welfare trend in socially responsible consumption, Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (SETA) and leaders of the new Student Animal Legal Defense Fund were happy to have a productive meeting about cage-free eggs last week with Tom Driscoll, the Food Services Director for UO’s housing cafeterias and catering services. He has been responsive in moving forward with testing cage-free egg products, and since he found their taste and quality to be good he is now in the process of trying to find certified humane egg suppliers who can provide the right type and quantities (shelled and not frozen). Then the next step would be price negotiations and a decision from there. But there is good news for any faculty or staff who order meals from UO catering because you can currently get cage-free eggs, but only if you request them. Please do! It is just the dorm cafeterias (where the most eggs on campus are used) that don’t have cage-free egg products yet. Please keep requesting them if you eat in the dorms.
In the meantime, you can get cage-free eggs in almost every other campus-operated food location, as the EMU Food Services, run by John Costello, switched to a cage-free egg supplier a year ago for 85% of the eggs it buys – which equates to 400 dozen annually! That means if you want to eat on campus and buy eggs that come from birds who were not intensively confined in cages their entire lives, you can do so by eating at any of the following EMU food services locations: The Buzz, Mangiamo (in the fishbowl), Union Market, Lillis Café, the Atrium in Willamette Hall or any of the library coffee shops. While some of the baked goods/sweets at these shops still contain caged-egg products, any of the cooked eggs you buy there are cage-free, such as hard boiled eggs, egg-salad sandwiches or breakfast sandwiches (like the one at the Buzz).
Even better, request vegan products with no animal ingredients at all. That way, not only were the birds not caged, they weren’t killed either – nobody was. Holy Cow has the best selection of vegan foods on campus, as it’s all vegetarian and they only use cheese in a few dishes and never use any eggs at all. Or go get a pita from Alexander’s Great Falafel stand near the bookstore. And in your own cooking, substitute for eggs in baking by using Ener-G egg replacer mix or _ cup applesauce or one small mashed banana per egg.
If you need encouragement, see pictures of the miserable lives battery-caged hens lead at www.uoregon.edu/~seta or meetyourmeat.com. If you eat animal products, you should know what you are financially supporting. Until U.S. legislators make humane farming reforms, like they have in Europe, the only way to reduce the massive animal suffering in agribusiness is to support only humane small farmers or to eat plant-based proteins like soy, beans, or nuts instead. It’s good for all animals – us included.
Carrie Freeman is a University doctoral student in Communication & Society
Students should request more cage-free egg options at UO
Daily Emerald
October 22, 2006
0
More to Discover