Image from ANDI2 via Flickr
This post is a bit off topic from software and programming etc., but it is an event that forced me to rethink things about the way the world works, and my place in it…
I was out on site at a client of mine yesterday morning, who is an egg wholesaler. Normaly I go out there at the end of the week, when their deliveries have been completed and they need assistance with end of month etc., but this time I was out there early in the week, before they had made their deliveries and I was amazed to see their warehouse piled high with boxes and boxes of eggs.
I casually asked the manager how many eggs they move each week. “Oh, about 40,000 dozen or so”. What?? Forty thousand dozen eggs?? That is 480,000 eggs. Each week. This is in a small town of about 120,000 people. That equates to about 4 eggs per week for every man, woman and child living here. I would hate to think of the numbers that a wholesaler would ship in a bigger city elsewhere in Australia or the world.
It is just that I never ever thought about the number of eggs that would be consumed by our little town. And if you are reading this, you probably cannot comprehend or visualise such a large number of eggs. I know I couldn’t – until I saw for myself a whole warehouse packing shed piled high with boxes upon boxes of eggs. It is mind blowing.
I even started thinking about the sheer number of chickens that would be needed to produce that quantity of eggs each week, and then the land and other resources to support that number of chickens…and on…and on.
Personally, I am not a big egg eater at all, and neither is our family. We used to do a regular bacon and eggs fry up every Sunday breakfast, but not for many years now. My wife in fact only purchases free range eggs nowadays on the occasional basis, however reading the definition of ‘free range’ these days doesn’t really make me feel better for the poor chickens. Apparently as long as a caged, confined chicken can ’see’ a patch of grass it can be considered ‘free range’, which I don’t think is a fair call.
This experience has shaken my beliefs a little bit, and has made me less keen to consume eggs in the future. If not the enormity of the numbers, then the memory of the smell there certainly will. Have you ever smelt thousands of eggs in one room?
So apologies again for the off topic post, but I think that in this day and age, we need to take a step back and look at the rate at which we are consuming, and the resources, and animals which go into satisfying those needs. Perhaps we need to go back to the old days when we have to hunt for our food again?
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