WEBVTT - Cracking the Case on Egg Corruption 0:00:15.740 --> 0:00:17.900 A few weeks ago i was rudely awoken in the 0:00:17.940 --> 0:00:20.940 middle of the night by a terrible squawking ran outside 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:23.919 my house to find a young possum oh possum if 0:00:23.940 --> 0:00:26.680 you're an annoying person had decided to spend the night 0:00:26.860 --> 0:00:29.659 in my chicken coop my chickens had woken up and 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:31.620 somehow backed it into a corner where it was frozen 0:00:31.660 --> 0:00:33.979 in fear with its mouth open trying to look too 0:00:34.020 --> 0:00:36.840 scary to eat. In the middle of the night, in 0:00:36.860 --> 0:00:38.860 my pyjamas, I had to pull it out of the 0:00:38.900 --> 0:00:40.640 coop and then set it all out of the chicken's 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.839 area and shoo it off. Every morning I feed my 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:46.760 chickens from a barrel of treats I keep on my deck. 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.870 I take their layers, pellets and water. Chickens need a 0:00:49.909 --> 0:00:52.510 pretty specific protein percentage in their diets to lay eggs. 0:00:53.250 --> 0:00:55.790 They also need some grit and some calcium. It also 0:00:55.830 --> 0:00:58.230 provides them with seedy roms, which are fun toys for them, 0:00:58.690 --> 0:01:00.510 take care of their medical needs and of course to 0:01:00.530 --> 0:01:03.660 clean out their coop regularly. In return, My four girls 0:01:03.700 --> 0:01:05.580 lay me two to three eggs a day, an amount 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.640 that varies by season and by their age. I have 0:01:08.660 --> 0:01:11.200 two Americana crosses, chickens that were bred to keep the 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.399 colourful egg gene of the Chilean Araucana, but to remove 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.380 its genetic tendency to produce chicks who would die in 0:01:16.420 --> 0:01:19.839 the shell. These chickens lay colourful eggs. My other two 0:01:19.860 --> 0:01:24.990 girls are Rhode Island Reds, who lay brown eggs. I've 0:01:25.030 --> 0:01:27.190 had chickens for most of my life. As a child, 0:01:27.569 --> 0:01:29.110 we had a much bigger coop in a part of 0:01:29.170 --> 0:01:31.110 a field with a big fenced-in run where the chickens 0:01:31.130 --> 0:01:33.890 could run around. We buried the wire fence to keep 0:01:33.930 --> 0:01:37.229 foxes out. When my cousins were smaller, I remember thinking 0:01:37.250 --> 0:01:38.710 it was very funny that they would go into the 0:01:38.730 --> 0:01:42.010 chicken coop using the chicken-sized door. I used to love 0:01:42.030 --> 0:01:44.190 going to livestock markets as a kid, and I still 0:01:44.250 --> 0:01:46.330 sometimes do when I get the chance. I like the 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:48.000 shows as well, where you can see all the breeds 0:01:48.020 --> 0:01:50.340 of chicken and how different they are. I'd always beg 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:51.980 my parents to let me save up my pocket money 0:01:52.180 --> 0:01:55.380 to buy some kind of exotic poultry. I like having 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.640 chickens in part because it just feels like part of 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.340 living for me, but also because I think it's really 0:02:00.380 --> 0:02:02.800 important to remember where our food comes from. which is 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:04.920 to say that all food comes from the soil, the sun, 0:02:05.300 --> 0:02:07.560 the sea, and from things that turn those things into 0:02:07.580 --> 0:02:11.040 something we can eat. Lots of our food in this 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.679 country comes from animals, and it can be very easy 0:02:13.700 --> 0:02:16.150 to forget that if your food comes in boxes and packages. 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.630 Every chicken has a personality, and every egg comes from 0:02:20.650 --> 0:02:22.950 a chicken, with a unique and different way of being. 0:02:24.150 --> 0:02:25.590 I think most of the eggs I've eaten in my 0:02:25.630 --> 0:02:27.430 life come from a chicken that I also fed and 0:02:27.450 --> 0:02:30.350 cared for. For a long time, I didn't eat eggs 0:02:30.610 --> 0:02:32.570 because my chickens didn't lay them, I didn't really want 0:02:32.610 --> 0:02:34.429 to buy them and not know where they came from. 0:02:35.270 --> 0:02:37.460 I'm very lucky in that regard, and it's not something 0:02:37.500 --> 0:02:40.240 that everyone else has the opportunity to do. I have 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.359 a place where my chickens can live, I have time 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.660 and little money to feed and care for them, and 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.200 I guess I'm comfortable around animals and knowing that I 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:52.839 can take care of them. Most people who eat eggs 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.140 have a more transactional relationship. They go to a shop 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:57.940 and swipe their credit card and they get a box 0:02:57.970 --> 0:03:00.730 of eggs. The box makes a series of claims that 0:03:00.750 --> 0:03:02.930 can be hard to verify. and the eggs all look 0:03:02.950 --> 0:03:05.550 the same. Some people prefer to go to a market, 0:03:05.889 --> 0:03:08.029 meet the person who looks after chickens, get their eggs 0:03:08.050 --> 0:03:10.000 from them, and they pay a little bit more for that. 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.200 Over the past few years, the cost of this transaction 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.130 has somehow become a topic of national political concern. 0:03:17.570 --> 0:03:17.769 Eggs! 0:03:20.030 --> 0:03:20.840 I'm getting the eggs. 0:03:21.780 --> 0:03:25.040 Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:25.780 of control. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:27.639 The price of eggs in the US has reached record 0:03:27.660 --> 0:03:30.960 highs recently. A dozen cost about $ 5 on average in January. 0:03:31.020 --> 0:03:33.290 Now Elon Musk has taken aim at the previous administration. 0:03:33.389 --> 0:03:36.870 There was an insane slaughter of 150 million egg-laying chickens 0:03:37.010 --> 0:03:38.850 ordered by the Biden administration, he posted. 0:03:39.970 --> 0:03:43.290 If you cast your mind back to early 2025, before 0:03:43.310 --> 0:03:46.150 you'd heard of Gregory Bovino, And before Mike Lee had 0:03:46.190 --> 0:03:48.390 begun his pathetic attempt to sell off our public lands 0:03:48.510 --> 0:03:51.930 by inserting his bullshit little riders into big bills, the 0:03:51.970 --> 0:03:55.220 price of eggs was a big deal. In large part, 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.720 this was due to an avian influenza outbreak and the 0:03:57.740 --> 0:04:00.600 resulting culls of flocks that were not invented by or 0:04:00.660 --> 0:04:03.480 unique to the Biden administration. Obviously, if you have fewer chickens, 0:04:03.700 --> 0:04:04.880 you're not going to get as many eggs. 0:04:05.620 --> 0:04:09.650 As winter approaches, health experts are raising new concerns. about 0:04:09.670 --> 0:04:11.590 a resurgence of bird flu. 0:04:11.670 --> 0:04:15.120 New York's governor shutting down live poultry markets for one 0:04:15.220 --> 0:04:17.700 week over growing concerns of bird flu. 0:04:17.820 --> 0:04:24.739 The virus is HPAI, highly pathogenic avian influenza, first detected 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:30.109 in 1996, decimating wild bird populations, then spreading into the 0:04:30.150 --> 0:04:31.370 world's food supply. 0:04:31.610 --> 0:04:34.110 And the longer this virus persists, the more species it 0:04:34.130 --> 0:04:36.409 persists in. So we don't know what's going to happen. 0:04:36.750 --> 0:04:39.250 The spread of bird flu in livestock is hitting consumers 0:04:39.330 --> 0:04:41.900 in their wallets with egg prices soaring. 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.940 The high prices were also sustained by giant egg corporations 0:04:47.260 --> 0:04:51.080 acting like a giant egg cartel. Now, we can talk 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.680 about how we should have managed infectious diseases like avian 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.280 flu in our animals. And I'd like to at some 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.850 point because the culling approach was used in the UK 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:00.950 when I was a child and seeing whole herds of 0:05:01.010 --> 0:05:03.790 cattle killed out for BSE was a massive trauma for 0:05:03.870 --> 0:05:06.470 rural people. and one I think is often forgotten or 0:05:06.510 --> 0:05:09.570 brushed off with far too little concern today. But today, 0:05:09.589 --> 0:05:12.890 I want to talk about eggs, their prices, and what 0:05:12.910 --> 0:05:20.500 that means for human and animal welfare. In March of 2025, 0:05:20.500 --> 0:05:23.339 as Elon Musk, the world's most divorced man, was ripping 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.840 apart the federal government with a group of poorly socialised 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.940 tweens that he'd hired, the DOJ sent notice to several 0:05:29.060 --> 0:05:31.860 major egg producers saying, that they were required to preserve 0:05:31.900 --> 0:05:35.140 documents as part of an investigation by the Antitrust Division 0:05:35.500 --> 0:05:40.130 into egg price fixing. Specifically, as a DOJ would later 0:05:40.170 --> 0:05:42.510 claim in a civil lawsuit filed in the Northern District 0:05:42.529 --> 0:05:45.909 of Iowa, the egg producers were conspiring to inflate the 0:05:46.070 --> 0:05:50.180 daily price quotations of Erna Barry, a market reporting company, 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.060 in order to bump up the wholesale price of eggs. 0:05:54.190 --> 0:05:56.310 Let's take a step aside from the fact that this 0:05:56.330 --> 0:05:59.310 seems to undercut Trump's repeated claim that somehow Joe Biden 0:05:59.350 --> 0:06:02.290 was personally responsible for the much bemoaned $ 5 a dozen 0:06:02.390 --> 0:06:05.090 eggs and look into what it tells us about where 0:06:05.130 --> 0:06:09.380 our food comes from when three giant corporations, Calmain Foods, 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:14.220 Vesova Holdings and Hickman's Egg Ranch can buddy up and 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:19.580 run an oligopolistic egg cartel. I got pretty deep into 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.570 this DOJ complaint in preparation for this episode. But to 0:06:22.610 --> 0:06:24.589 understand it, I think you probably have to back out 0:06:24.610 --> 0:06:26.930 a little bit first, understand a little bit about the 0:06:27.029 --> 0:06:30.950 egg industry. The DOJ breaks it down by saying, quote, 0:06:31.310 --> 0:06:34.470 eggs are produced by egg producers. That is a weird 0:06:34.490 --> 0:06:37.380 way of saying chickens. But I think that starting point 0:06:37.540 --> 0:06:41.520 tells us a lot about the capitalization of our food chain. Fundamentally, 0:06:41.820 --> 0:06:44.740 in America, the eggs come from the egg factory. And 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:46.260 it just so happens that chickens are one of the 0:06:46.300 --> 0:06:48.080 inputs that go into the factory to make the eggs 0:06:48.140 --> 0:06:51.610 come out. Now, Some of these big producers do not 0:06:51.650 --> 0:06:54.150 have enough eggs on hand to supply all of their orders, 0:06:54.650 --> 0:06:56.610 so they have to buy more eggs on an exchange. 0:06:57.130 --> 0:06:59.669 Think of this as kind of eBay for eggs. The 0:06:59.690 --> 0:07:03.450 biggest egg exchange is Egg Clearinghouse Inc. It was set 0:07:03.490 --> 0:07:05.310 up in the 1970s as a way to bring the 0:07:05.370 --> 0:07:08.089 wonders of a free market to the output of our poultry. 0:07:09.070 --> 0:07:11.550 When it was set up, its board included the founder 0:07:11.570 --> 0:07:14.250 of Calmain, the largest egg producing company in the US. 0:07:14.990 --> 0:07:17.929 The idea was that a national market would stabilise egg prices, 0:07:18.230 --> 0:07:21.190 help buyers find sellers, and ensure that the market cleared 0:07:21.330 --> 0:07:23.770 through a blind bidding process in which egg buyers only 0:07:23.830 --> 0:07:26.000 find out who they are buying eggs from after they 0:07:26.020 --> 0:07:31.200 have completed the transaction. In a Boston Globe piece titled, quote, 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.160 Unscrambling the Egg Market Across the US, a very funny, 0:07:34.300 --> 0:07:39.000 very punny headline published in 1978 and written by Daniel J. Corcoran, 0:07:39.460 --> 0:07:41.350 we get a sense of what this looked like in 0:07:41.370 --> 0:07:46.510 the 1970s. Raymond F. Delano was the general manager of ECI. 0:07:47.150 --> 0:07:50.020 and ran the operation from his basement in Durham, North Carolina, 0:07:50.460 --> 0:07:54.380 along with his digital equipment core computer with four, gasp, 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.940 video display terminals. Now, in addition to being on some 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.770 Thunderbird shit, Raymond also changed how the quality of eggs 0:08:01.850 --> 0:08:06.870 was determined. Previously, they were graded. Large, extra large, medium, etc. 0:08:07.390 --> 0:08:09.630 And the number of each size in a case was determined. 0:08:10.130 --> 0:08:13.330 But old Ray came up with a new idea. Weighing them. 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:16.489 Later in the process, the eggs are graded by size 0:08:16.610 --> 0:08:19.930 at the wholesaler and placed in retail packaging. Throughout this process, 0:08:20.230 --> 0:08:22.810 Raymond there at Mission Control never sees an egg or 0:08:22.850 --> 0:08:26.890 a chicken. He just sees his four GASP video display terminals. 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.440 The idea here is pretty classic 1970s shit, right? More information, 0:08:32.980 --> 0:08:37.020 easier comparison, more buyers and more sellers. A perfect market 0:08:37.100 --> 0:08:39.380 that should clear at the national clearing point. It's the 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.119 stuff you learn in Economics 101. before they spend the 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.660 next three years teaching you excuses for why it never 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:49.310 works like that. Earn-a-Barry takes anonymized data from this exchange 0:08:49.550 --> 0:08:52.410 and produces an aggregate daily price quote based on region 0:08:52.490 --> 0:08:56.270 and size. Earn-a-Barry gets information for direct trades that occur 0:08:56.370 --> 0:09:00.450 outside of ECI. Those Earn-a-Barry numbers are, in turn, used 0:09:00.490 --> 0:09:03.449 to determine the prices paid in contracts for large egg 0:09:03.490 --> 0:09:07.380 companies that they have with retailers or restaurants. The complaint 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.720 goes on to detail how, from 2022 to 2025, the 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.750 three giant egg companies conspired to submit a large number 0:09:14.770 --> 0:09:17.850 of bids, often in the hours leading up to Erna 0:09:17.870 --> 0:09:20.770 Barry publishing a price quotation, and many of which they 0:09:20.830 --> 0:09:23.709 knew would not be successful. If you're old enough to 0:09:23.750 --> 0:09:26.290 remember bidding up something your buddy was selling on eBay, 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.980 this is a very analogous behavior. Don't you love capitalism? 0:09:29.900 --> 0:09:32.280 Talking of how great capitalism is, it's time for a 0:09:32.300 --> 0:09:53.059 commercial break. Now, Big Egg might be good at extracting 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.640 the most money from consumers, but as it turns out, 0:09:55.650 --> 0:09:59.870 they really suck at crime. Here's one example. Quote, Hickman's CEO. 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.300 repeated his request early the following morning on December 20th, 0:10:03.820 --> 0:10:08.819 emailing senior executives from CalMain, Versova and others, stating, quote, 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.600 Please consider posting strong bids early and often. The market 0:10:12.620 --> 0:10:14.880 reporters don't get in for another hour, so it would 0:10:14.900 --> 0:10:17.640 be good for them to see diverse bidding upon logging on. 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.260 and a barrier is more likely to increase its price 0:10:20.300 --> 0:10:22.679 quotations if it observes higher bids from a variety of 0:10:22.740 --> 0:10:28.160 market participants. Hickman's CEO later emailed again, stating, quote, Hurry, 0:10:28.540 --> 0:10:31.040 there are only 16 bids on ECI right now and 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.120 15 of them are ours. Shortly after that email, all 0:10:34.179 --> 0:10:37.970 three defendants collectively submitted dozens of bids on ECI, most 0:10:38.010 --> 0:10:41.570 of which were at premium prices. Another choice quote from 0:10:41.590 --> 0:10:44.829 their emails, quote, As a group, we need to bid 0:10:44.850 --> 0:10:48.580 like they vote in Chicago, early and often. Amazing stuff. 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.900 We have created machine politics for eggs. Having conspired and 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.950 created an enormous paper trail linking their texts and emails 0:10:55.990 --> 0:10:59.630 to immediate changes in bidding behavior, the conspirators then changed 0:10:59.670 --> 0:11:02.130 their behavior when the DOJ and more than a dozen 0:11:02.150 --> 0:11:06.430 state attorneys general came knocking. At the same time, the 0:11:06.450 --> 0:11:09.440 Trump administration... tried to re-establish the pecking order of egg 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.540 regulations in a court case in which it argued that 0:11:12.580 --> 0:11:16.920 the Egg Products Inspection Act pre-empted California's state laws on 0:11:16.940 --> 0:11:19.800 the sale and shipment of eggs from hens confined in 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:24.140 certain cruel conditions. The Trump administration argued that, quote, California 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.300 has effectively prevented farmers across the country from using a 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.140 number of agricultural production methods which were in widespread use 0:11:31.500 --> 0:11:34.870 and which helped keep eggs affordable. Are you keeping up here? 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.900 That's still not Joe Biden who is responsible for egg 0:11:37.950 --> 0:11:42.569 price increases. The California laws in question, if you're wondering, 0:11:43.050 --> 0:11:47.929 began as 2008 and 2018 ballot initiatives that mandated birds 0:11:47.950 --> 0:11:50.430 to be given enough space to extend their limbs and 0:11:50.500 --> 0:11:55.120 move without touching another animal. That 2008 initiative impacted eggs 0:11:55.179 --> 0:11:57.959 from California farms. It's more or less why you see 0:11:58.020 --> 0:12:02.420 cage-free eggs everywhere now. A decade later, Prop 12 gave 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:06.460 new minimum size requirements, one square foot, and prohibited the 0:12:06.500 --> 0:12:10.209 sale of battery eggs from other states in California. Battery eggs, 0:12:10.230 --> 0:12:12.110 if you're not familiar, are the ones produced under the 0:12:12.170 --> 0:12:17.150 most intense and cruel conditions. The Trump administration didn't stick 0:12:17.170 --> 0:12:18.910 the landing on that one, but they hadn't put all 0:12:18.929 --> 0:12:21.060 their eggs in one basket. At the same time they 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:23.580 began this court case, Elon Musk, a man whose own 0:12:23.620 --> 0:12:26.980 children hate him, began tearing apart the very apparatus that 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.440 would normally respond to an outbreak of avian influenza. So 0:12:30.460 --> 0:12:32.760 instead of dealing with an outbreak that had by that 0:12:32.820 --> 0:12:35.680 point already killed someone and mutated into a disease also 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.160 impacting cattle, people at these federal agencies had to beg 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.880 someone with massive Reddit mod energy to let them keep 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.970 their job. The Trump admin cancelled a contract with Moderna 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.910 for an avian flu vaccine in humans in May of 0:12:48.910 --> 0:12:51.770 2025 and announced a five-pronged strategy to combat avian flu 0:12:52.110 --> 0:12:55.370 that included deregulation of biosecurity, looking into a vaccine for 0:12:55.490 --> 0:12:59.880 birds and exploring import options. Vaccination comes with an acceptance 0:12:59.900 --> 0:13:03.100 that the condition is endemic and that can create export concerns, 0:13:03.140 --> 0:13:06.950 which Y has historically not been the choice. But this 0:13:06.970 --> 0:13:09.030 is all part of the Trump administration's war on what 0:13:09.050 --> 0:13:14.330 were now $ 6 boxes of eggs. I used a handy 0:13:14.370 --> 0:13:17.050 tool on the St. Louis Fed's website to graph egg 0:13:17.130 --> 0:13:20.980 prices against the Consumer Price Index. I am not someone 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.979 who likes studies or cares about economics, or indeed graphs. 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.790 But I'm pretty sure I determined that eggs went up 0:13:27.830 --> 0:13:29.990 in price more than inflation did over the last decade 0:13:30.030 --> 0:13:34.750 or so, with spikes in 2015, 2024 and 2025. Egg 0:13:34.850 --> 0:13:38.650 production fluctuates less, peaking at $ 113 billion and dropping to 0:13:38.650 --> 0:13:42.589 $ 105 billion in 2025. The market is not a perfect 0:13:42.610 --> 0:13:45.130 reflection of supply and demand. It is a thing that can, 0:13:45.550 --> 0:13:49.250 as we have seen, be manipulated by corporate interests. But 0:13:49.290 --> 0:13:51.870 I think looking at these graphs and statistics can rather 0:13:51.929 --> 0:13:56.949 obscure what's going on here. At some point, long before 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:00.689 old Ray fired up his four screens and started selling 0:14:00.790 --> 0:14:02.990 eggs by mass, eggs went from being a thing that 0:14:03.010 --> 0:14:05.170 your chickens laid or your friend's chickens laid to a 0:14:05.309 --> 0:14:09.490 massive commodity. It's easy to forget when our presidential candidates 0:14:09.530 --> 0:14:12.380 are arguing about egg prices, when I'm fairly sure that 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:14.780 neither of those candidates had been to a grocery store 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.500 this millennium, that each of these eggs is laid by 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.000 a chicken that had a whole life, and that often 0:14:20.220 --> 0:14:22.380 that whole life can be spent without seeing the sun. 0:14:23.710 --> 0:14:27.230 The way we get cheap eggs is maximizing efficiency. Here 0:14:27.250 --> 0:14:30.670 we are back with economics 101 shit. Limiting inputs and 0:14:30.730 --> 0:14:35.790 maximizing outputs. Limiting cost and maximizing revenue. What this means 0:14:36.070 --> 0:14:39.240 is cramming the most chickens into the smaller space and 0:14:39.250 --> 0:14:41.050 trying to get the most possible out of them in 0:14:41.100 --> 0:14:44.620 terms of eggs. That's just the economics of it. But 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.180 at a scale such as this, it's a purely economic question. 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.900 And I don't think it should be. I don't think 0:14:51.100 --> 0:14:54.300 we should see this just in terms of agricultural production methods, 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.260 as the Trump administration called them, but also in terms 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.260 of our ethical obligations to other living creatures. Eggs don't 0:15:01.330 --> 0:15:04.210 come from a box or a store or a factory. 0:15:04.530 --> 0:15:07.070 They come from a chicken. Chickens, in the way we 0:15:07.110 --> 0:15:09.450 know them now, have been selectively bred for so many 0:15:09.470 --> 0:15:13.810 generations that their lives and ours are intertwined. If we 0:15:13.850 --> 0:15:17.050 let all the horrifically treated battery chickens out tomorrow, things 0:15:17.070 --> 0:15:19.990 wouldn't end well for them. That doesn't mean they don't 0:15:20.010 --> 0:15:22.170 have the right to be treated with some basic dignity 0:15:22.210 --> 0:15:45.440 and decency though. I've been around animals, raised for food 0:15:45.500 --> 0:15:47.760 and eaten my whole life. When I was little we 0:15:47.780 --> 0:15:49.880 had sheep and we ate lamb When I got a 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:51.460 bit older, I spent a lot of my time on 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.680 my own and with my dad shooting rabbits and pigeons. 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.040 We ate plenty of those as well. In my travels 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.300 around the world, I've eaten all kinds of stuff. In 0:15:59.330 --> 0:16:01.230 the jungle with the Mbara, I ate the eggs that 0:16:01.250 --> 0:16:03.330 came from their chickens that ran around the common areas 0:16:03.370 --> 0:16:06.130 of town. And when my host offered it, I ate 0:16:06.170 --> 0:16:09.750 chicken too. I think there's a fundamental difference between eating 0:16:09.830 --> 0:16:13.750 animals and acknowledging that they were, until very recently, sentient beings. 0:16:14.670 --> 0:16:17.109 and arguing about the price of animal food products in 0:16:17.150 --> 0:16:19.310 a way that totally ignores the thousands of lives that 0:16:19.330 --> 0:16:22.650 are going to be impacted by that conversation. We could 0:16:22.710 --> 0:16:25.940 substitute any number of products for eggs here, but eggs 0:16:25.980 --> 0:16:28.660 are the one that somehow entered the presidential election cycle 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.239 in 2024, and which were being pumped up by the 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.680 megacorporations like they were the latest cryptocurrency, and I just 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:36.380 don't think that's how we should relate to our food. 0:16:37.860 --> 0:16:40.210 Upton Sinclair once said that he'd aimed at the public's heart, 0:16:40.510 --> 0:16:44.180 but somehow hit their stomach. And that's somewhat like how 0:16:44.260 --> 0:16:47.680 I feel about this issue. Where there's abuse for animals, 0:16:48.020 --> 0:16:50.940 there is often abuse of people too. I don't want 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.640 to bombard you with horror stories of exactly what happens 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.400 on a battery chicken farm. Because you're probably driving to 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:59.140 work in the morning right now. Chickens are kept in 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.950 conditions which are inhumane. They don't see the sun and 0:17:01.970 --> 0:17:04.129 they're cooped up so tightly that many have their beaks 0:17:04.230 --> 0:17:07.629 trimmed so they can't attack each other. Think anyone who 0:17:07.670 --> 0:17:10.330 has raised animals or been around them a lot knows 0:17:10.350 --> 0:17:12.699 that they can suffer. and that in these conditions they 0:17:12.740 --> 0:17:17.820 do suffer. But so do people. In 2023, the DOJ 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:22.580 prosecuted a poultry processor, the exclusive Poultry Inc., a supplier 0:17:22.619 --> 0:17:26.070 to Ralph's, Aldi, Grocery Outlet and Cisco, for child labour 0:17:26.109 --> 0:17:28.850 abuses and wage theft. The company used children as young 0:17:28.869 --> 0:17:34.310 as 14 to debone chicken and drive heavy machinery. In 2017, 0:17:34.310 --> 0:17:37.970 a DOJ prosecution for labour trafficking revealed that Trillium Farms 0:17:38.109 --> 0:17:40.830 often employed children who had come to the USA being 0:17:40.869 --> 0:17:44.360 promised an education and the American dream, and who instead 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.699 were forced to live in dilapidated trailers and work 12-hour 0:17:47.740 --> 0:17:52.300 days de-beaking chickens, cleaning their coops, and loading and unloading 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.959 animals from crates. While they worked these long days, they 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.870 paid rent for their shitty trailers and tried to pay 0:17:58.910 --> 0:18:01.330 off the smuggling fees that brought them to the US. 0:18:01.350 --> 0:18:05.629 It's a modern-day form of indentured servitude. The person accused 0:18:05.670 --> 0:18:09.170 of smuggling them pled guilty, but Trillium Farms... who paid 0:18:09.310 --> 0:18:13.109 millions of dollars for child labour, well, their parent companies 0:18:13.150 --> 0:18:16.139 were sober. Remember the big three egg giants colluding to 0:18:16.170 --> 0:18:24.160 hyperinflate prices earlier this episode? That's one of them. Aldo 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.000 Leopold spoke about a land ethic in a quotation I 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:28.960 read in another episode, and I think we need a 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:33.260 food ethic in a similar way. Unless you hunt, fish, grow, 0:18:33.300 --> 0:18:36.399 gather or farm your own food, that food comes to 0:18:36.460 --> 0:18:39.830 you through working people. Sometimes that food also comes from animals. 0:18:40.570 --> 0:18:41.929 I know it can be hard to make ends meet 0:18:41.970 --> 0:18:44.889 right now. I know it's not getting any easier. I 0:18:44.910 --> 0:18:47.300 know that many of you don't have the space, time 0:18:47.500 --> 0:18:50.399 or money to raise chickens and grow vegetables or fish 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.100 and hunt or whatever. I know that making rent each 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.640 month is a struggle for so many Americans right now. 0:18:56.540 --> 0:18:58.270 I also know that while we went through all of that, 0:18:58.770 --> 0:19:02.550 some giant corporations who totally control our food chain decided 0:19:02.590 --> 0:19:06.210 to hyperinflate the price of eggs, abuse animals and force 0:19:06.250 --> 0:19:10.390 children to work in horrible conditions. A friend once called 0:19:10.410 --> 0:19:14.740 me an anarcho-cottagecore lifestyle influencer and that comment has lived 0:19:14.780 --> 0:19:17.100 in my head ever since. I don't want to come 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:19.060 on here and tell people they all have to go out, 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.040 buy chickens and have a little garden. People did that 0:19:22.100 --> 0:19:23.740 when egg prices went up and I think a lot 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.200 of those arrangements ended pretty badly for chicken and chicken haver. 0:19:27.820 --> 0:19:29.540 But I do think we need to seriously think about 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.050 how we engage with our food and the animals that 0:19:32.090 --> 0:19:35.810 form part of our food chain. Right now, far too 0:19:35.850 --> 0:19:38.260 much of the production and safety of our food is 0:19:38.300 --> 0:19:43.109 in the hands of giant corporations who take advantage of workers, consumers, 0:19:43.490 --> 0:19:46.150 and animals. If I eat an egg, or better yet, 0:19:46.210 --> 0:19:48.489 if I give an egg to my neighbours, I know 0:19:48.510 --> 0:19:51.229 that egg came from a certain chicken. Merrill Peep or 0:19:51.290 --> 0:19:54.110 Victoria Peckham, for example, might lay a large or different 0:19:54.130 --> 0:19:57.600 coloured eggs from another chicken. I know what I fed her. 0:19:58.210 --> 0:19:59.670 I know she had access to clean water and a 0:19:59.710 --> 0:20:02.800 safe place to sleep. I know that if a coyote 0:20:02.859 --> 0:20:06.140 tried to hurt her, I'd keep her safe. And in exchange, 0:20:06.380 --> 0:20:09.119 I have these eggs. Admittedly, it's hard to know if 0:20:09.130 --> 0:20:11.940 a chicken consented in that exchange. But as eggs go, 0:20:12.180 --> 0:20:14.440 I'm happy with mine. And I think a world in 0:20:14.460 --> 0:20:16.340 which everyone knows that eggs came from a happy chicken 0:20:16.460 --> 0:20:19.159 is a good one. It's also a world fundamentally at 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.940 odds with the hyper-capitalism of our food system right now. 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.440 To me, there is something very grounding about having animals around. 0:20:27.140 --> 0:20:29.100 About the daily routine of caring for them and the 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.040 little interactions with them. About them coming to trust me 0:20:32.060 --> 0:20:34.500 a bit more over time and me understanding each of 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:38.170 their little unique personalities. I think you can make a 0:20:38.210 --> 0:20:41.190 case for no animals in agriculture. But at least right now, 0:20:41.270 --> 0:20:42.950 I think the case I want to start with is 0:20:42.990 --> 0:20:45.879 for a more cooperative understanding of our lives as animals. 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.080 For seeing them as an end in themselves, not as 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.820 a means to an end. I think it's difficult to 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.119 do that in conjunction with a system where eggs are 0:20:54.140 --> 0:20:58.080 treated like an electronic exchange, based on raw tonnage, and 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.090 pumped up in price like the latest meme coin. I 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:03.490 think arriving at a more cooperative and kind way of 0:21:03.550 --> 0:21:06.350 feeding ourselves is difficult. And I don't think I have 0:21:06.369 --> 0:21:07.889 all the answers for you in the next few minutes. 0:21:08.930 --> 0:21:10.570 But I think that we all need to reflect on 0:21:10.590 --> 0:21:12.889 the way we talk about food right now. And the 0:21:12.930 --> 0:21:16.060 many voices and considerations that are absent from that conversation 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:20.679 when they should be centered in it. I hope you've 0:21:20.700 --> 0:21:22.939 enjoyed another sad episode of my podcast. I do want 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:24.439 to make some of these more fun for you all. 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:27.119 And I want to make sure we approach things like skills, 0:21:27.260 --> 0:21:29.879 equipment and planning for being in the outdoors. I don't 0:21:29.900 --> 0:21:32.340 want to do that in a shitty listicle way. Because 0:21:32.420 --> 0:21:35.320 shitty listicles and content-driven commerce are what killed the ability 0:21:35.340 --> 0:21:38.100 to have serious conversations about the outdoors in far too 0:21:38.140 --> 0:21:41.659 many publications. That and VC buyouts and everyone working at 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.419 those publications being a wealthy white man in Boulder. But 0:21:44.460 --> 0:21:48.020