On the occasion of the World Environment Day on June 5, it came to my attention through a press release from CAPIA - the Argentine Egg Producers Association - that eggs are considered as a low-impact food on greenhouse gas emissions per gram of protein together with a medium retail price, also per gram of protein. The World Resources Institute (WRI) has a scorecard that ranks foods as low, medium and high impact. And yes! Eggs rank low, together with several vegetable-origin foods and fish. Meanwhile, in the medium range, first chicken and then pork, come remarkably close, also at a medium retail price.
Honestly, I did not know of this scorecard, apparently published in 2016 by the WRI. The information is interesting and simple to understand. Argentina’s egg association refers of it, praising its egg producers for contributing to a sustainable food production system, in cages, by the way. As a matter of fact, last week I blogged about the Latin American position against cages at the OIE.
Taking the celebration of the World Environment Day is another "excuse" to show the general public what is their contribution to the society. Producing eggs has almost the same effect on the environment as producing nuts, soybeans or rice, and far much less than other food products. This is exactly what we need to do. Let's shout out about the good things.
We need to show this, not only to the general public, but also to certain legislators, like those in the state of Nevada in the U.S., that praise the animal rights groups to impose a cage-free law in all of the state. "They recognize and support to egg industry moving in this direction" (sic), so they "will prevent large-scale producers of eggs and egg products from thinking they can escape those regulations by moving their operations to Nevada."
I wonder ─ where do they leave the impact on the environment? And welfare? And retail price for the consumer?
Let's talk about the good things against fallacious arguments.
What do you think?
