Here’s my fine brother working toward an egg sandwich, using eggs from his brother-in-law’s flock in beautiful Wayne County.
And these are the beautiful eggs I buy weekly: Elmwood Stock Farm’s certified organic eggs, raised on Kentucky pasture about 12 miles from my house.
Here is where Elmwood’s hens peck and eat and store up the nutrients needed to produce those eggs: on grass — with fresh grass always coming right up, thanks to the “chicken tractor” production method (view pics of 170 chicken tractors)– and with protection from extreme weather and from nighttime predators.
I’m neither farmer, food inspector nor food policy expert — and there are no guarantees — but I am unafraid to eat Hollandaise sauce I make myself from Elmwood eggs, or soft-scrambled eggs that were laid in the backyards of any of my downtown neighbors who have urban hens. It’s about numbers. If Elmwood Stock Farm raised 20,000 hens, or 200,000, 0r 2,000,000,000 — I would be concerned.
Although in theory salmonella can infiltrate eggs in small-scale, excellent farming operations or backyard henhouses, that’s so unlikely that I never worry about licking a beater after making a cake batter — as long as I know the eggs’ source: either friends’ backyard layers or sustainably grown local eggs from producers I know by name. Hens don’t get ill as readily in these situations.
It’s eggs from crowded, confined, giga-gigantic operations that I consider scary – all the time, not just now. I don’t eat under-cooked eggs in restaurants or at other people’s homes, unless I know a LOT about the source of the eggs. This precaution seems simple common sense to me, akin to washing hands before meals.
My brother said yesterday that he didn’t expect his brother-in-law had issued many egg recalls in the last few days. That’s the point, isn’t it? I haven’t heard of any small farms that raise eggs sustainably issuing any recalls, either. And I don’t expect I will. There are no absolute guarantees about these matters, but we can choose sources where we expect hens, eggs, and land to be abundantly healthy. That makes sense for our own health, for our local farm economies, and for the health of the planet.
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The world is coming to visit central Kentucky this year for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. To help our visitors know more about Kentucky’s food and food ways, Savoring Kentucky is rolling out 116 Savory Kentucky Bites, one for each of the 100 days before WEG begins, and 16 for the days during WEG, September 25 – October 10. Today’s Savory Bite is number 68.
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Rona, thank you for your blog and all the wonderful information provided within. I share your thoughts about the safety of our egg source, not a worry here. Keep on blogging friend, I’m loving it.
Thank you, Carlotta. I so appreciate the encouragement!