Why Organic Eggs?

At the beginning of the year Hugh Fernley Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver put across a pretty convincing case on the merits of free range chicken and eggs. Thanks to their campaign most people seem to understand the benefits of choosing free range. But why should we choose organic eggs?

I usually buy 'Crocker's Organic Eggs' which I get from the farmers market. I used to have a stall next to Gary Crocker at the farmers market in Monkstown. Gary is passionate about his organic farming and is proud that his customers find his eggs to be the best they've tasted. His farm is certified organic by IOGFA and the yokes are a beautiful deep orange colour. Recently I was baking a cake and I discovered that I didn't have enough eggs for the recipe, so I picked up some organic eggs in Tesco. When I broke them into the bowl I was shocked at the difference in colour between the Tesco eggs and Crockers eggs. This got me wondering about what exactly makes an egg organic, what are the rules and how can there be such a difference in quality?

Back in 2005 the London Independent published an article on the validity of organic eggs. It revealed that in order for eggs to be labled organic they merely needed to be fed a diet of 80% organic feed for 6 weeks. Thankfully the standards were soon to be tightened. On the first of January 2006 organic standards in the UK were changed requiring organic chickens to be fed organic food from hatching. 

According to The Organic Trust here in Ireland,  standards require that:

...producers use certified organic grain based feeds that are free from specific additives.

It does seem however that a small amount of non organic feed is permitted with only 80% needing to be sourced from organic raw materials.

But there are more reasons to choose organic eggs than what the chickens are fed on. Buying organic guarantees standards of animal welfare. Whereas battery, barn reared and free range chickens can be subject to the cruel practice of beak clipping or 'debeaking' The Soil Association and The Organic Trust standards prohibit this. Debeaking has become common practice amongst poultry farmers and is practiced in order to stop birds from pecking each other. It is thought that this aggresive behavior is due to bordem and stress. Organic chickens have to have access to the outside and as with many of the organic standards the Soil Association in the UK go far beyond this simple requirement. 

Conventional chickens and free range chickens are generally drip fed antibiotics as part of their feed. This practice is also banned in organic production, it is a misconception that if a Chicken gets ill that it under organic standard it is not allowed to be treated. The organic movements commitment to animal welfare would not sit well with this. If a bird is ill antibiotics and other medications may be administered as prescribed by a vetrenarian. Before a bird that has been treated with drugs is allowed to produce food there is a 'withdrawl period' which should ensure that the drugs have passed through the system and don't make it into our food.

So why the difference in yolk colour? Yolk colour is dependent on the feed that the hen consumes and to some extent on the breed of hen, it is thought that a free range hen has a more varied diet which contributes to the colour. Gary Crocker, as I have mentioned is passionate about his eggs and his farming practices so I would imagine that his hens would have a lot of ground to roam on. The Tesco eggs also had orange yolks, they just weren't as vibrant as Gary's eggs. Maybe the quality of the feed wasn't as good, maybe they were just a different breed or maybe the hens spent less time roaming free.

But beware of judging an egg by it's yolk colour, there are additives in some feeds which when given to the chickens can cause the yolk colour to change, if you want to be sure of a good quality egg, always look for the organic certification.

Further reading: International Journal of Poultry Science

Recipe - Flour Tortillas

This week I made a big pot of veggie chilli, I got most of the ingredients from the farmers market and the local health food shop but whilst in the supermarket I found myself staring at a pack of flour tortillas. I started wondering how hard could it be to make these myself? So the pack went back on the shelf and I went home assuming that I would find all the ingredients I needed at home.

Luckily I wasn't wrong. I scoured the Internet and found a Texan cook book that had been given to me earlier this year. I combined a couple of the recipes that I found (some of them called for Lard and as a vegetarian I needed to find an alternative) and cooked up my first batch last night.

They were simple to make and much tastier than the shop bought ones. Like pancakes the last few I produced were far better than the first batch, probably because the pan had heated properly. 

You will need a bit of time if you want to make these because as with all bread making the dough needs to prove for a while but the wait will be worth it.

Ingredients

250g Plain Flour

1/2 tbsp Baking Powder

1 tsp sea salt ground

2 tsp vegetable oil

180ml warm milk

Combine the flour and baking soda in a bowl

Whisk the milk, vegetable oil and salt together.

Add a small amount of the milk mixture at a time into the flour to form a sticky dough.

Flour a flat surface and turn the dough onto it. 

Knead with the heal of your hands for a few minutes. You will find that the dough is more sticky than regular bread dough but this will improve with kneading.

Return to the bowl, cover and allow to prove at room temperature for approx. 20 minutes.

Cut your dough in half, and divide each half again and again until you have 8 equally sized portions. Roll each into a ball and cover them allowing them to prove for a further 20 minutes.

Heat a dry, large, heavy based frying pan on the hob.

Start to roll out the first flat bread. Roll in one direction, turn the dough 90 degrees then roll again. The dough will still be quite sticky so be sure to keep both the work surface and your rolling pin well floured.

Keep rolling until the dough is so thin you can see through it, don't worry too much about getting a perfect circle, I came nowhere close! 

Cook on the hot frying pan for about a minute each side or until the bread starts to bubble and colour on the underside.

Whilst the first one is cooking roll out the next and so on until all 8 are cooked.

Just like regular bread these taste best freshly cooked. If you have some left they can be reheated the next day in the microwave or even frozen.

If your looking for something to put inside the flat breads sign up for my recipe of the month, I'm in the middle of creating something quite interesting... I hope it works out.

Coca-Cola, The Environment and Mark Thomas

I was lucky enough to be invited to a book launch last week. The book in question, 'Belching Out The Devil' written by British political comedian and activist Mark Thomas is an investigation into the behaviour of Coca-Cola.

I first became concerned about the environmental impact of drinking Coca-Cola and other carbonated drinks after watching 'A World Without Water' broadcast on Channel 4 back in 1996. One particular segment of the documentary stuck in my mind. It showed Indian farmers who due to the amount of water being pumped away by the nearby Coca-Cola plant were finding their wells were drying up. Some dug as deep as 450 feet without finding any water. The documentary also suggested that it took three litres of water to produce one litre of Coca-Cola. I stopped drinking Coke after that figuring that it was unfair of me to drink it if it was depriving other people of the water they needed to live.

It seems that the Indian situation is not unique. In his book Mark Thomas tells us of his visit to Nejapa a small community in El Salvador and home to a Coca-Cola bottling plant. When Coke moved in the locals welcomed them with just a few conditions, one of these was that they would respect the environment. As the author travels to a community who rely on the water which flows down steam from the Coca-Cola plant he discovers that far from protecting the environment Coke are polluting the water. Children who used to swim and bath in the stream before Coca-Cola moved in were now developing allergies attributed to the water. Fish were dying and this impoverished community, which once had the asset of clean drinking water, were now being forced to pay for safe water pumped from wells and distributed from water tanks.

I find it hard to believe that I ever drank Coca-Cola, it seems natural to me now that I would reject it but there are bigger issues with the company than the environmental impact that it is having. I would recommend the book, Mark Thomas seems to be able to infuse the horror of the places he visits and the things he finds out with such humor that I find myself chuckling through even the most horrendous stories. Unusually this doesn't distract from the message but means that you won't feel too depressed when you read it. There's even a chapter on Ireland!

The bigger issue is that we really need to consider the impact of our consumerism. It isn't just Coca-Cola that is destroying our environment, our reliance on all fizzy drinks and even bottled water is plundering the worlds resources. These products seem to have gone from being a treat to being a part of our everyday lives. I am as much of an offender as anyone else, a quick look in my recycling bin is testament to that but if we all just cut down a bit at a time there is the possibility of making a real difference.

You can buy 'Belching Out The Devil' on Amazon.

Also check out the Mark Thomas Website for tour dates, there's one promised but not yet listed for Dublin.

Further reading on the world water crisis here

The documentary 'A World Without Water' can be viewed here.

Just found an Irish site where you can buy the book also.