#because more support/demand would allow farms to afford better welfare

[worldofgoo]

ive been following the is the fox video cute blog for a while now and while i understand where theyre coming from its still a bit wild to me how pro-farm they are. like i watch videos they share sometimes and stuff bc the ethics of animal husbandry interests me a lot and like i guess the foxes seem relaxed enough? but it must be insanely boring/understimulating even if theyre not stressed to the point of illness. and like. anyone would agree that putting a cat or a dog in a cage their whole life is kinda unfair. dunno

[elane-in-the-shadows]

Red Queen Fan Fiction - Red Huntress Chapter 1

A/N: Here’s the Farley prequel story I promised!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Find this on Wattpad and on AO3

Diana Farley had always known how to wield a knife.

It was nothing unusual for her, the daughter of hunters and butchers; it was what she was expected to learn. Her mother’s hands had taught her, hands pink, callused and sun-tanned, with nails forever stained red-brown by her trades.

Stains from the wrong kind of blood, Diana noticed as she held her mother’s hand. Both of them were standing on the edge of a large expanse of brown fields, in lines and rows with the rest of their village, assembled to await the arrival of the Silvers.

Her other hand didn’t clench a knife, but a sickle. It would be Diana’s first time to serve in the greeny corvee that took place in her village, Sieverling, every three years.

In preparation of it, the peasants had left the fields before them, a full third of the whole lands belonging to Sieverling, lying fallow for months, for when a handful of Silvers storms, nymphs, and greenfingers came to their petty northern village. Several times, the Silvers were to water the soil, summon blazing sunlight, spread the high-yield custom seeds they brought and make the plants grow in mere hours. And then they’d tell the local Red serfs to reap the crops and perform the other manual farm work, or whatever tasks the Silvers couldn’t be bothered with and claimed the Reds were better suited for anyway.

Diana squeezed her mother’s hand at the thought. She knew it looked childish when she was already eleven and not some infant, deemed old enough to do her share in the corvee. She didn’t care what it looked like, though she appreciated the concerned gaze Mama gave her, a reassurance when she was uncertain what to expect besides the obvious, ordinary drudgery.

No one seemed excited about the greeny corvee and everyone was tense, standing firmer than usual under the glaring midday sun. She admired how her mother kept her face straight while the June heat burned her skin even pinker but lit her braided hair to wheat-yellow. It was already eleven o’clock, late to start any kind of farm work. As Diana tamed her blond, shoulder-length curls in something between a ponytail and a bun, she heard some neighbours grumble at the waste of time, a waste she felt as well. She and the other children could be in school (if their two teachers weren’t among the waiting farm hands today), or doing a few of the endless tasks at home, or she could just, for once, if there was really nothing better to do than kicking her heels, play with her friends. For example with Giselle, the beautiful girl who’d been transferred with her family to Sieverling only a few months ago, a girl that fascinated Diana so much she neither knew to how talk to, nor how to avert her eyes from her.

Even now, she caught herself searching for Giselle among the few hundred people around, and the teeny glimpse of Giselle’s dark brown hair made her heart beat faster for a minute. Diana bit her lip to subdue her ill-fitting smile. But what should happen? There was no Silver lord here yet to scold his Red serfs for daring to feel amusement.

Not even their Silver lord. Isère, the lord of Sieverling and several surrounding villages, who owned the lands and whom the Red serfs owed their tithe and service, rarely showed himself unless there was something for him to take. And he got no share in the greeny corvee either. However the greenies and their companions calculated their numbers, Diana didn’t know, but there was nothing for the local lords. The greeny corvee was a “service” from the High Houses of the Lakelands to the Red peasants, granted by the crown. And the High Houses and the crown had, decades ago, assessed some lists that claimed how much each village was to produce during the corvee. The greenies didn’t care that Diana was a child, like many others expected to work today, that villagers had been conscripted for the war, or how many inhabitants had died in or joined a settlement lately. There was a quota to meet and crops to be delivered to the Silver citadels. And the quota demanded that Diana replaced the labour of her father, who was far away in the south, to fight for the Lakelands in the war against Norta.

That was the true meaning of standing beside her mother, and why she grasped her hand again and again. The moment she fell in line, she was reminded of her father’s absence that was lasting for three years by now, its end – in whichever way – uncertain.

That was a silly notion, in a way. His absence was blatant every day, because it was every day that Mama had to work for two adults because of it. The lakelander army was scant with its pay; it only arrived once a year when Papa was on leave and visited. In the meantime, her mother had to do his work as a hunter besides her job in the butcher’s shop.

It was the same as everywhere: When the Silver lords of the manors demanded their meat, crop, goods and farm hands, the Red serfs had to comply or be sent to prison or to the crown fields; the large expanse of lands where High House Silvers had whichever plants or livestock they wished for grown with every technology available.

The greeny corvee was actually supposed to be supportive in that regard. It made for a few harsh days, but the crop brought in then could be used for the tithe to the manor lord or kept as food – although it was only a fraction of the yield the Reds were allowed to keep. Diana assumed it was hardly a third of it for the whole village, because the biggest share was delivered directly to the crown for “The Allocation of Silver Abilities for Red Welfare,” and the handful of greenies took a similarly large part for their “expenditures”, which Diana guessed meant efforts.

“Why is the greeny corvee only every three years?” she blurted out.

“Diana …” Mama frowned, because she knew that Diana knew why.

“Because of the soil,” said Tava, her uncle Timo’s husband standing to her right. He met her eyes, needing to lean down only a little as Diana had almost his height by now. Trying to be nice despite the day’s bad prospects, he patted her shoulder with his brown hand. She was glad for it.

“The greenies’ seeds are special, and take too much from the soil to be grown frequently in the same place,” Tava explained, his dark eyes showing a warm gleam. “Not without better fertilizers.”

“Better not to have those fertilizers,” objected Anam, the woodcutter and Tava’s cousin. “You hear nothing good of those or the plant protectants used in the crown fields.”

“From what little we get to hear from the crown fields,” Mama uttered. “Almost no one comes back from there. People toil for the food of the High Houses for years, and if they’re lucky enough to survive their time, they return sick or dying.”

“Clara …” Tava sighed, but the grim set of his jaw told Diana that he shared her mother’s opinion.

“Dad?” Tava’s tautness loosened as Kevin, the orphan he and his husband had adopted, tucked on his sleeve. At ten, Kevin was the only one of Diana’s cousins old enough for the corvee. The rest of the young children, her little sister Madeline among them, stayed at the farms and pastures to look after the few animals. Kevin went on, “all will be better when we win against Norta and take the farm machines they have.”

Clara blanched. “Norta may built machines, but I doubt there’re farming ones among them,” she claimed.

“You know that for sure, Clara?” a peasant woman who’d listened in asked. “Did your husband tell you so?”

Mama didn’t reply.

Diana had figured her mother preferred to remain quiet about Papa’s doings in the war. She thought it was for the ache of missing him they all felt. But more and more, she suspected Mama was decidedly secretive.

It was why Diana had become curious about Norta lately. She was as versed as anyone in Sieverling in the usual but rare news they received, or in their small school’s teachings. The fecund and bountiful Lakelands where no one had to go hungry, fighting the barren Norta whose soil was poisoned and dried out by her burner kings.

Easy to believe, wasn’t it? But people did go hungry, starved, and died in the Lakelands all the time. Because Reds failed to take care of themselves, as the Silvers liked to argue? Or rather because Red peasants had to work the fields with their own hands although better equipment existed, as Kevin had said? Then there were the fields frozen in unending, icy winters. And the floods and droughts destroying crops no nymph kings or queens bothered to protect their people from. Silvers never did anything, not even when hard-working people were killed by small infections and common illnesses a skinhealer – or a simple, but overpriced medicine from the city – could heal in an instant.

If Diana was certain of one thing, it was that Reds did work enough, tried hard enough. But what was that worth if the Silvers still stole the rewards of their work, and gave nothing but contempt in return? And her village was one that held together. If someone couldn’t afford the tithe, another with more would help them out even if that meant less for everyone else, so very few from Sieverling were ever sent to the crown fields, to work off their debts.

Mostly, these few were people already indebted, who had taken loans to buy goods, livestock, machines, fertilizers or seeds to grow more profitable crops. People who wanted more than bare survival. Who took risks with whatever way to improve their lives, and met failure and despair as a result.

Diana didn’t pity, or scoffed at them. She felt with them, because she believed she was also likely to end up banished to the crown fields, since she couldn’t help but yearn for more than this never-changing misery.

She had no idea if Norta was any better. Because nobody would, or could, tell her. She didn’t even have the means to leave Lord Isère’s county, was supposed to stay in the place she was born in like all serfs.

It was afternoon by now, with no sign of the Silvers arriving. People began to give up their stiff stances, and sat down on the ground, some producing canteens and slices of bread.

In the distance, Diana glimpsed a few kids carrying more baskets with provisions. She hoped her sister was among them, and when the next seconds gave her certainty, she brushed her mother’s arm. “Mama, look there’s Madeline – ”

But Clara Farley only shook her head with resigned smile. “What does it this matter? All we’ve done was for nothing. It’s a fraud, as the Silvers aren’t coming.

“They just don’t care about us.”

And, although Diana had thought the same thing, many times so, she felt something shattering in her to hear her mother confirm it. Yet a part of her was glad, because there was freedom in knowing that even if you served perfectly, you’d be left for dead.

A/N 2: If you got until here, thank you very much! ;-) I expect the next chapter to be less info dumpy, so please stay tuned. One more chapter is certain to come, maybe two, and Clara will show more of her character there.

I’d like to point out the “fertilizers” and “plant protectants” mentioned in the story are references to Monsanto’s Glyphosat/Round-Up and other harmful pesticides. And the villagers have few animals since the costs of keeping massive numbers of livestock aren’t affordable anymore. Extreme meat production is out.

@elliemarchetti @lilyharvord @clarafarleybarrow @mareshmallow @marecalrandomstuff @wessanade @redqueenfandom @scxrletguardsdawn  @almostconstantlyawkward @sxfik @olivegreenolives @mvaen @abbyboul @sparrow-ceol @choosememaven @maudthebookeater @ifyouholdmebackimightexplode

[judahrqog790]

Clinical Cannabis Regulations: What You Should Understand about 14 Legal States

"Marijuana has been utilized as a source of medicine for centuries - an usual medicinal plant for the ancients. Even as innovation became part of just how we live, it was thought about a practical treatment for numerous disorders. Nevertheless, in 1923, the Canadian federal government outlawed cannabis. Although marijuana cigarettes were seized in 1932, nine years after the law passed, it took fourteen years for the first fee for marijuana property to be laid against an individual.

In 1961, the United Nations authorized an international treaty referred to as the Solitary Convention on Controlled Substances, which introduced the 4 Timetables of dangerous drugs. Cannabis formally became a worldwide controlled medicine, categorized as a routine IV (most limiting).

Additionally included in the treaty is a need for the member nations to establish government agencies in order to control cultivation. As well, the demands consist of criminalization of all processes of an arranged medication, including farming, production, prep work, ownership, sale, delivery, exportation, etc. Canada authorized the treaty with Health Canada as its government agency.

As a result of its medical applications, many have attempted to get marijuana removed from the routine IV classification or from the routines entirely. Nevertheless, because cannabis was specifically discussed in the 1961 Convention, the alteration would certainly need a bulk ballot from the Compensations' participants.

Canada's Changing Medicinal Cannabis Laws

The phrasing of the Convention seems clear; nations who sign the treaty has to treat cannabis as a Schedule IV drug with the suitable punishment. However, several posts of the treaty include stipulations for the medical and also clinical use of abused substances. In 1998, Marijuana Control Plan: A Discussion Paper was made public. Written in 1979 by the Division of National Health and also Welfare, the Marijuana Control Policy summed up Canada's obligations:

"" In summary, there is considerable positive latitude in those arrangements of the worldwide medication conventions which obligate Canada to ensure types of cannabis-related conduct culpable offenses. It is submitted that these responsibilities associate just to habits associated with illicit trafficking which even if Canada should choose to proceed outlawing consumption-oriented conduct, it is not required to found guilty or punish individuals who have committed these offenses.

The obligation to restrict the possession of marijuana items exclusively to legally licensed medical as well as clinical purposes describes management and circulation controls, and although it might require the confiscation of cannabis possessed without permission, it does not bind Canada to criminally punish such property.""

The clinical research continued on the medical uses cannabis. In August 1997, the Institute of Medication started a review to asses the clinical evidence of cannabis and also cannabinoids. Launched in 1999, the record states:

"" The collected data suggest a possible therapeutic value for cannabinoid medications, particularly for symptoms such as pain relief, control of nausea and throwing up, and appetite stimulation. The therapeutic effects of cannabinoids are best developed for THC, which is generally one of the two most bountiful of the cannabinoids in cannabis.""

Additionally in 1999, Wellness Canada developed the Medical Marijuana Research Program (MMRP); gradually, Canada's legislations for medicinal cannabis started to alter.

- April 1999 study shows 78% percent support the medical use the plant.

- May 10th - court gives AIDS client Jim Wakeford an interim constitutional exception for property and also growing

- May 25th - House of Commons passes modified medical cannabis movement: ""the federal government ought to take actions immediately concerning the feasible legal clinical use of marijuana consisting of ... professional tests, appropriate standards for clinical usage, along with accessibility to a risk-free medicinal supply ..."".

- June 9th - Minister of Health reveals medical trials program; individuals who efficiently apply to Health and wellness Canada are exempt from prosecution.

- October sixth - 14 even more people get unique exceptions to make use of cannabis for medicinal objectives.

- September 2000 - Federal Preacher of Wellness introduces the federal government will certainly be expanding medicinal cannabis and government regulations will be made into law.

- January 2001 - Ontario court declares the legislation banning cultivation of medical marijuana is unconstitutional.

- April 2001 - Health and wellness Canada reveals proposed law for securely managed accessibility to medicinal marijuana.

- August 2001 - Health Canada MMAR (Cannabis Medical Access Regulations) enter into effect; acne treatment truckee Canada comes to be the first country enabling lawful ownership of medicinal cannabis.

Because 2001, there has actually been a consistent uphill climb for victims of numerous persistent as well as terminal conditions. A year after cannabis came to be lawful for clinical usage, the Canadian Senate began pushing for MMAR reform. Others promoted ways to lawfully obtain cannabis without having to expand it themselves; numerous sufferers, such as those with MS, we're unable to grow the plant as a result of bad health and wellness.

In 2003, the Ontario Court of Charm began to compel adjustments to the MMAR. Among these changes included offering affordable accessibility via sanctioned providers of a legal marijuana supply.

Over the last seven years, scientists have delved deeper right into the capacity of medicinal cannabis for use in dealing with health problems. In many cases, cannabinoids have shown the capacity of being able to aid cure a few illness, which had been thought to be incurable. At the time of this writing, medical marijuana and the cannabinoids it has has been made use of in study for numerous illness, including cancer cells, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid joint inflammation, and Crohn's disease, to name a few."

"Arthritis is a problem that includes damage to the body joints. There are various type of arthritis and every one has a various cause. The most typical kinds of arthritis include osteoarthritis which arises from joint trauma, age or infection. In numerous researches, it is shown that medical marijuana is a reliable cure for arthritis pain and likewise inflammation.

Concerning 27 million Americans have osteo arthritis which can cause the break down of the joint cartilage which causes inflammation and pain. An added 1.3 million are dealing with rheumatoid joint inflammation, an autoimmune that develops severe pain. In addition, 300,000 kids in the United States have adolescent joint inflammation. Although lots of physicians will certainly not suggest making use of medical cannabis for young kids, older teens as well as adults can treat their arthritis with the hemp.

In a 2005 research study, THC as well as cannabidiol were located to create significant improvements in high quality of sleep, discomfort and also decreases illness activity in those people with rheumatoid arthritis. Both compounds are among the cannabinoids that normally happen in marijuana. Throughout the year 2000, investigates discovered that cannabidiol obstructed the development of arthritis properly in animal tests. However, there is still the inquiry of the validity of using medical cannabis however there currently a number of states legislating its usage and also regulating it with the use of a clinical cannabis card.

Nevertheless, there are lots of people that claim that they actually really feel soothed by smoking a controlled quantity of marijuana. Some patients claim that it is a better alternate to the medications they often take such as pain relievers which could likewise have negative adverse effects, particularly in long term usage. When you choose to use clinical marijuana to ease your arthritis symptoms, you should constantly consult your physician. Bear in mind that your medical professional is the best person to make a decision whether marijuana is good to alleviate the discomfort and inflammation because of your arthritis. In some states where cannabis is lawful, they make use of clinical marijuana cards to check as well as regulate its use. Making use of the card is limited just to patients who have prescriptions and recommendations from their physicians to use clinical cannabis to soothe the signs and symptoms of their illnesses. Some states allow one to expand his/her own marijuana plant strictly for health factors. Too much growing and also utilizing the plant is punishable and also there is a danger of prosecution if discovered. There are still arguments going on in many states whether clinical marijuana should be legalized or not."

[sherristockman]

Big Chickens, Little Nutrition Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Most people would agree with the assessment "you are what you eat," yet many overlook the fact that this holds true for the food you eat, too. If the chicken on your dinner plate was fed an unnatural diet of genetically engineered (GE) soy and grains (or worse) — what essentially boils down to junk food for birds — it can't be expected to be optimally healthy, nor optimally nutritious. Because most poultry in the U.S. comes from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), The Guardian went so far as to state, "In 50 years, poultry has gone from being a health food to a junk food," pointing out a study from London Metropolitan University that found, compared to 1940, chicken in 2004 contained more than twice as much fat, one-third more calories and one-third less protein, the latter being the main nutritional reason most people eat chicken.1 Levels of healthy fats in chicken, namely beneficial animal-based omega-3s including DHA, have also changed considerably. The London Metropolitan University study, written by professor Michael Crawford of London Metropolitan University, found that eating 100 grams (about one-quarter pound) of chicken in 1980 would give you 170 milligrams (mg) of DHA, but that same amount of chicken in 2004 would provide just 25 mg. Omega-6 fats, on the other hand — the kind most Americans get way too much of, courtesy of highly processed vegetable oils — increased, rising from 2,400 mg in 1980 to 6,290 mg in 2004. If you're not familiar with the importance of the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, the ideal ratio is 1-to-1, but the typical Western diet may be between 1-to-20 and 1-to-50. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a ratio of 1-to-5 for general health and 1-to-2 for optimal brain development. CAFO chicken, and for that matter CAFO anything, certainly isn't helping anyone achieve that goal. Nutrition Declines When Animals Are Fed Grains Instead of Grass Crawford told The Guardian that a large part of the problem with declining nutrition in chicken and other animal foods is the fact that nearly all livestock is fed grains instead of grass and other species-appropriate foods:2 "Animal husbandry started with grass and green foods, which are rich in omega-3. That is the beauty of [some] fish and seafood because it's still largely wild, it's still living in an omega-3-rich environment. The same used to be true of livestock animals — even chickens used to roam free and live off seeds and herbs — but that is no longer the case. It really is a question of redesigning our food and agriculture systems so they are more keyed in to the pivotal priority of human physiology — namely, our original genome being shaped by wild foods." The American Pastured Poultry Producers Association (APPPA) also published a study that compared the nutrition of chickens fed on pasture with the USDA's National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference values for CAFO chicken. The pasture-raised chickens were higher in vitamins D3 and E and had an average omega-3-to-6 ratio of 1-to-5, compared to the USDA's value of 1-to-15.3 Bigger Chickens Were Made Possible by Antibiotics You might consider the plump chicken breasts at your grocery store to be the norm when it comes to chicken sizes, but as recently as the 1920s, most people did not consider raising chickens for their meat — they were far too scrawny. At that time, chickens were raised for eggs only, but that changed around 1923, when a farmer in Delaware accidentally placed an order for too many hatchling chickens (500 instead of 50), so she sold them for meat. In her book "Big Chicken: The Incredible Story of How Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats," journalist Maryn McKenna explains how this one mistake led chickens to become big business. Part of the story, unfortunately, was the discovery that feeding chickens antibiotics made them grow about 2.5 times faster. Around that same time, in 1948, a national "Chicken of Tomorrow" contest, seeking to develop a meatier chicken, was sponsored by A&P supermarket and supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The major lines of chickens sold in the U.S. today can all be traced back to the contest's winner. Between the use of antibiotics for growth promotion and the genetic selection of chickens that grow faster and larger, the average chicken today is four times bigger than chickens in the 1950s; chicken breasts are also 80 percent larger.4 'The Hidden Cost of Cheap Chicken' As noted by the Cornucopia Institute,5 the price of chicken has dropped dramatically over the past few decades, becoming the cheapest meat available in the U.S. As a result, consumption has doubled since 1970. Seeing how chicken is supposed to be a healthy source of high-quality nutrition, the fact that it has become so affordable might seem to be a great benefit. But there's a major flaw in this equation. As it turns out, it's virtually impossible to mass-produce clean, safe, optimally nutritious foods at rock-bottom prices, and this has been true since the beginning of "industrialized farming." McKenna wrote:6 "Chicken prices fell so low that it became the meat that Americans eat more than any other — and the meat most likely to transmit foodborne illness, and also antibiotic resistance, the greatest slow-brewing health crisis of our time." In their report, "The Hidden Cost of Cheap Chicken," the Cornucopia Institute pointed out three primary issues with the CAFO chicken that accounts for 99 percent of poultry sold in U.S. grocery stores:7 • Ethics: Chickens are intelligent and deserving of access to the outdoors where they can express their natural behaviors. Sadly, in CAFOS, "The National Chicken Council, the trade association for the U.S. chicken industry, issues Animal Welfare Guidelines that indicate a stocking density of 96 square inches for a bird of average market weight — that's about the size of a standard sheet of American 8.5-inch by 11-inch typing paper … They are unable to move without pushing through other birds, unable to stretch their wings at will, or to get away from more dominant, aggressive birds." • Environment: CAFOs are notorious polluters of the land, air and water, with problems reported across the U.S. The report noted: "In Warren County, in northern New Jersey, Michael Patrisko, who lives near an egg factory farm, told a local newspaper that the flies around his neighborhood are so bad, 'You literally can look at a house and think it's a different color.' Buckeye Egg Farm in Ohio was fined $366,000 for failing to handle its manure properly. Nearby residents had complained for years about rats, flies, foul odors, and polluted streams from the 14-million-hen complex. At the same time, [former] Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson was threatening to sue Arkansas poultry producers, including Tyson Foods, saying that waste from the companies' operations is destroying Oklahoma lakes and streams, especially in the northeast corner of the state." • Human Health: The spread of infectious disease and antibiotic-resistant superbugs is a fact of life at CAFOs. In 2015, a bird flu outbreak among U.S. poultry led to the destruction of millions of chickens and turkeys in three states (Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa) before spreading elsewhere in the U.S. Even though there were supposed safeguards in place to contain deadly disease outbreaks from spreading, poultry veterinarians noted that those strategies failed, as the bird flu managed to spread across 14 states in five months. Not to mention, one study by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) found that chicken samples gathered at the end of production after having been cut into parts, as you would purchase in the grocery store, had an astonishing positive rate of 26.2 percent contamination with salmonella.8 Growing Soy to Feed Chickens Is Also Devastating the Environment Allowing chickens to roam freely is better for the chickens, the planet and nutrition, yet another reason being because it could cut down on the staggering amount of soy and other crops grown as chicken feed. A report by wildlife group WWF noted that poultry is the biggest user of crop-based feed globally and, in turn, 60 percent of the loss of global biodiversity can be tied back to the food we eat, particularly crop-based animal feed.9 Further, the report estimated that if demand for animal products continues to grow as expected, soy production would need to increase by nearly 80 percent to feed those animals, which would strain already vulnerable areas:10 "Feed crops are already produced in a large number of Earth's most valuable and vulnerable areas, such as the Amazon, Cerrado, Congo Basin, Yangtze, Mekong, Himalayas and the Deccan Plateau forests. Many of these high-risk regions already suffer significant pressure on land and water resources, are not adequately covered by conservation schemes. The growing demand for livestock products and the associated intensification and agricultural expansion threaten the biodiversity of these areas and the resource and water security of their inhabitants, as well as the stability of our food supply." Again, the research shows that feeding CAFO animals an unnatural and environmentally expensive diet does not yield a superior product. On the contrary, you'd need to eat six CAFO chickens to get the same amount of omega-3 fats found in a chicken from the 1970s.11 Eggs From Pastured Hens Are Also Healthier It's not only chicken meat that benefits nutritionally from pasture. Not surprisingly, chicken eggs do too. A study by researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences revealed that eggs from pastured hens had twice as much vitamin E and long-chain omega-3 fats compared to eggs from CAFO hens. The eggs' omega-6-to-3 ratio was also less than half that of the commercial hens' eggs.12 Study co-author Paul Patterson, professor of poultry science, said in a news release:13 "The chicken has a short digestive tract and can rapidly assimilate dietary nutrients … Fat-soluble vitamins in the diet are readily transferred to the liver and then the egg yolk. Egg-nutrient levels are responsive to dietary change … Other research has demonstrated that all the fat-soluble vitamins, including A and E, and the unsaturated fats, linoleic and linolenic acids, are egg responsive, and that hen diet has a marked influence on the egg concentration." You can usually tell eggs are from pastured hens by the color of the egg yolk. Foraged hens produce eggs with bright orange yolks, and this is what most people who raise backyard chickens are after. Dull, pale yellow yolks are a sure sign you're getting eggs from caged hens that are not allowed to forage for their natural diet. Chicken Can Be at the Center of Large-Scale Regenerative Agriculture Regenerative agriculture focusing on grass fed beef is a popular topic, and a worthy one at that, but chickens also have an important role to play in regenerative agriculture. Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, an innovator in the field of regenerative agriculture, has developed an ingenious system that has the potential to transform the way food is grown. According to Reginaldo, regenerative agriculture needs to be centered around livestock in order to be optimized, and adding chickens is an easy way to do that. Reginaldo's program has generated a system that has regenerative impact both on the ecology and the economy, meaning it restores the ecology that produces food, and the economic flows necessary for that food to be economically sustainable and resilient. It also addresses the social conditions of food production in the U.S (and elsewhere), which is important considering the fact that farmworkers are typically poorly paid immigrants. The chickens are completely free-range, with access to grasses and sprouts as they are rotated between paddocks. This system significantly reduces the amount of labor involved as compared with other ideas out there. Further, in a poultry-centered regenerative system, tall grasses and trees protect the birds from predators instead of cages — in addition to optimizing soil temperature and moisture content, extracting excess nutrients that the chickens deposit, bringing up valuable minerals from below the soil surface and being a high-value perennial crop. It's the opposite of CAFOS — regenerating the land instead of destroying it, raising chickens humanely instead of cruelly and producing nutritionally superior, not inferior, food. Choosing Safer, More Humane Chicken and Eggs Choosing food that comes from small regenerative farms — not CAFOs — is crucial. While avoiding CAFO meats, look for antibiotic-free alternatives raised by organic and regenerative farmers. Unfortunately, loopholes abound, allowing CAFO-raised chickens and eggs to masquerade as "free-range" and "organic." The Cornucopia Institute addressed some of these issues in their egg report and scorecard, which ranks egg producers according to 28 organic criteria. It can help you to make a more educated choice if you're buying your eggs at the supermarket. Ultimately, the best choice is to get to know a local farmer and get your meat and eggs there directly. Alternatively, you might consider raising your own backyard chickens. Backyard chickens are growing in popularity, and many U.S. cities are adjusting zoning restrictions accordingly. Requirements vary widely depending on your locale, with many limiting the number of chickens you can raise or requiring quarterly inspections (at a cost) and permits, so check with your city before taking the plunge. You might be surprised to find that your city already allows chickens, as even many large, urban cities have jumped on board (Chicago, Illinois, for instance, allows residents to keep an unlimited number of chickens, as "pets" or for eggs, provided you keep a humane and adequately sized coop). However, even if you don't want to raise your own chickens but still want farm-fresh eggs, you have many options. Finding high-quality organic, pastured eggs locally is getting easier, as virtually every rural area has individuals with chickens. If you live in an urban area, visiting the local health food stores is typically the quickest route to finding high-quality local egg sources. Farmers markets and food co-ops are another great way to meet the people who produce your food. With face-to-face contact, you can get your questions answered and know exactly what you're buying. Better yet, visit the farm — ask for a tour. If they have nothing to hide, they should be eager to show you their operation.