Guess which statement came from Marie Claire magazine, and which came from The Humane Society of the US:
- Statement A: Cage-free: This egg carton label means nothing nutritionally and not much ethically. Cage-free hens can still be packed wing-to-wing in a windowless indoor space.
- Statement B: By just starting to switch to cage-free eggs, you can reduce some of the worst factory farming cruelty.
From the title of this blog post, you've probably guessed, correctly, that Statement A came from Marie Claire, and Statement B came from HSUS.
According to animal rights blogger Tracy Habenicht, HSUS apparently got permission to use COK's undercover footage from their Dunkin' Donuts investigation in a campaign to ask the International House of Pancakes to switch to cage-free eggs. And while COK's campaign asks for vegan donuts, HSUS is not asking for vegan pancakes. Just cage-free eggs.
I totally agree with campaigning against battery cages and pointing out the death and suffering involved. But cage-free eggs are not the solution. I know IHOP is not going to go vegan any time soon, but let's leave the greenwashing to the cage-free egg producers and the restaurants who want credit for switching to cage-free eggs. Animal advocates do not need to make those arguments. Do we really want businesses and consumers to think that cage-free eggs are great or even acceptable?
While Marie Claire is not exactly a pro-animal publication (fur is featured in the very same issue) it is refreshing to see such a strong criticism of cage-free eggs in a mainstream publication. The same article also criticizes the "free-range" label.
Thanks to @liberationbc for tweeting Habenicht's blog post, and @VanceTune for re-tweeting.
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Doris, thanks for linking to my blog and for writing about the Marie Claire piece. I hadn’t heard about that.
One of the arguments in favor of The HSUS’s tactics here is that many of their members aren’t familiar with veganism. But Marie Claire shows that even if your audience isn’t veg, you can still encourage them to give up eggs (or anything else).