Having been abandoned for the evening, I was feeling rather peckish, and all we had in were eggs, so I decided to poach a couple. The eggs in question are earmarked to go into the incubator tomorrow, and should emerge as cute baby chicks in exactly three weeks.
For some reason, it felt rather odd eating these eggs, compared to ‘normal’ eggs. This was doubly strange, considering that I ultimately intend to eat them anyway when they become big fat chickens.
As an aside, something else that’s odd is that pretty much everybody who discovers that we intend to eat our happy and healthy chickens expresses their horror with a “how could you?” and then zips off down to Tesco to purchase a tortured beast that is frankly lucky to be dead, having spent its ‘life’ in a dark cage.
Anyway, back to my ‘point’ (there isn’t really one of course) – a vegan wouldn’t eat the egg no matter what, that seems pretty straightforward, but I believe that a vegetarian would eat an egg. However, at some point during the next three weeks, it will magically turn into something they wouldn’t eat. When does that happen? At the point where we said “these eggs are going in the incubator”? Tomorrow? Next week? When it hatches?
I can’t figure it out, but they were very tasty eggs anyway.
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Actually it is pretty simple. Vegetarians will not eat a corpse or anything from it.
You can’t really compare an Egg which is pre-living to something which is already alive and has been killed. An egg can be transformed from something which is a mass of cells into a living creature though.
Alternatively, a meat robot that only has design schematics available and has not been built is just bits of organic material on an assembly line.
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I’m still not convinced it’s that simple. The egg, so long as it is in an environment that will sustain it (i.e. the right temperature), will hatch into a chick of its own accord. As such, I disagree with “can be transformed” – it will ‘transform’ itself.
Your meat robot, I would say, has already been assembled to a point where it can finish the job itself. On the other hand, my wife seems to think I am talking shite and it is not ‘alive’ until a heartbeat is discernable.
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Possibly but at the same time some materials for our meatbot are present, a yoke for building material for example but there are resources unavailable too such as heat so it can not if left by itself grow.
In the case of a chicken egg its too difficult to make the claim its alive as a mass of gooey yellow cells that don’t use oxygen for fuel.
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Well now, you and I would also perish unless the correct amount of heat was present, but we’re definitely alive. My wife proposed the ‘oxygen test’ as well, incidentally. I think you’re ganging up on me.
Anyway, it definitely felt odd eating eggs that were about to become chicks, but the remainder are now in the incubator so it can’t happen again. It’s probably best to ignore my mad ramblings on subjects like this, otherwise there is the risk of getting sucked into a debate on the merits of Quorn-fed Chicken.
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How about a distinction by weight. I haven’t thought this through fully yet, but I’ll make a start. An egg becomes a chick when it weighs more as a chick than an egg. This is measureable although it could be messy. You could also do it by volume. This is not a general way to measure aliveness though. I’m planning to weight my wife before and after birth and subtract the weight of the baby before and after fist dump and do some calculations, but that is another story and it’s to do with betting on the characteristics of an unborn. And whilst I was playing croquet at the weekend and the ball isn’t through until it is fully through like a ball has to be classed as out or in in many games erm… it isn’t born until it is all the way out, so my problem is when do I weigh my wife or do I get her to give birth on the scales?
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I believe that eating either the egg (any egg) or the chicken is murder. Although, you do have a point that your chickens live much better lives than farmed chickens. My parents raise chickens as a hobby as well and they eat the eggs, but not the meat. I personally can’t bring myself to do either, but I do admit that that’s better than eating farmed eggs or chickens. But, I used to eat eggs and even meat myself and didn’t feel that it was wrong — now I do… It’s an interesting concept, this slope of what’s okay to eat: there are cannibals who would eat other people, then typical people who will eat meat, then vegetarians who still eat eggs, then vegetarians who won’t eat eggs (like me), and then the even more strict complete vegans who won’t eat any animal products at all. How can all these people act so differently and believe that their way is the right way? Who really is right?
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Eggs that are sold aren’t fertilized therefore they can not become a chicken so you are not taking a life.
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