Why Don’t Vegans Eat Backyard Eggs if they’re Free Range & Happy Hens

In vegan communities and social media groups, one of the most commonly asked question is “Why don’t vegans eat backyard eggs if they’re free range & happy?” The short answer is because it’s not ours to take and still exploiting animals for our gain.

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Why Don’t Vegans Eat Backyard Eggs If They’re Free

Do True Vegans Eat Eggs

The short answer is no, true vegans do not eat eggs because they don’t eat anything that comes from an animal at all. Regardless of if the hens are rescue hens or free range, a true vegan will not eat these eggs anyway. Vegetarians can eat eggs as generally they don’t eat meat or fish.

Factory Farming

Before I started looking into Veganism in 2016 I believed the big myth that free range eggs are better, as the hens are no longer kept in battery cages and they get to roam free. Unfortunately, this is really not the case.

However, looking into it further the new ‘enriched’ cages are only slightly bigger than the battery cages which were banned in the EU in 2012.

Free Range

What’s wrong with free range eggs is the issues with the egg industry in the first place. Not everyone is aware of this but male chicks are a by product of the industry. As they do not lay eggs, male chicks are killed either by gassing or something called Instantaneous mechanical destruction which is a machine which kills the day old chicks immediately. This method is supposed to be humane, however is it humane to kill an animal that doesn’t want to die?

It is estimated that 6 billion male chicks are killed every year and around 72 weeks old the hens are also sent to slaughter as they no longer produce enough eggs to make it viable to keep them alive.

Peta talks a lot about the free range and organic myths. On free range farms they get de-beaked to prevent them from pecking at themselves or other hens due to boredom.

Viva also talks about how hens in the wild would only lay 20 eggs a whole year, however these days hens are subjected to constant lighting and fed high protein feed so that they can produce 300+ eggs a year.

In the above article they state that free range cages still home up to 80 hens per cage, meaning they have an extra postcard size amount of space per hen than the battery cages.

There’s no monitoring on how much time the hens spent outside either. Apparently due to the huge number of hens that are housed in locations the majority of them do not spend any time outside at all. Free range farmers are encouraged to make the outside areas more appealing for the hens, however it is not a requirement.

Rescued Hens

It has grown in popularity over the years for those with a bit of land or a reasonable sized garden to rescue hens and keep them – aka backyard hens.

I think it’s a really lovely thing to do, to give the hens are much better lifestyle and give them the true life that they deserve. I spent a few months on a yurt camp in Portugal 2009 where they kept donkeys and chickens. The chickens whilst at times were daft were also so sweet. I named one Bob and it used to follow me around. To deny that animals such as these feel pain or love is ridiculous.

Backyard Eggs

Now we’re getting back to the question “Why do vegans not eat backyard eggs, if the hens are free range and happy?”. Of course when hens are rescued and looked after as members of the family, their quality of life is immediately better. They are no longer living in cramped, filthy conditions and all cramped together in cages. It’s what every vegan wants for all animals.

However, due to constant breeding over the years hens do continue to lay eggs now and the problem with this is that if you take the egg away, it triggers the hen to make more.

It takes the hens a lot of energy and vitamins to produce eggs. Many vegans scrambled the eggs and feed them back to them, or they break the shell to signal to the hens that it’s ok for them to eat them. This gives them back the vitamins that were depleted from the laying process.

It is 100% not vegan to eat backyard eggs, that-being-said I do think that if vegetarians and plant based individuals are getting their eggs from people with backyard chickens that at least is not funding the egg industry.

Are Eggs Healthy?

Even if you forget all of the torture and awful conditions that so called ‘free range’ hens live in. Health wise eggs are not particularly healthy for us either, although they contain a lot of vitamins and minerals they do also contain very high levels of cholesterol. One egg yolk contains 185mg of cholesterol which is more than half of the daily amount recommended.

Of course eggs do contain protein, during my last pregnancy I did have a craving for eggs. Instead of eating eggs, I made sure that I had a protein rich snack and that really helped.

What Do Vegans Replace Eggs With

Egg Substitutes

If you really like the taste and texture of eggs there are so many vegan alternatives to eggs. They are as follows:

• Tofu (good for scrambled and quiche)
• Chickpea flour (omelettes)
• Egg replacers (baking)
• Flaxseed (baking)
• Banana (mashed for baking)
• Aquafaba (egg white replacement)

My personal favourites are scrambled tofu and quiche. The secret ingredient is Kala Namak (black salt) as it gives the tofu a real eggy flavour. You can even use silken tofu in desserts, however I haven’t really experimented with that much yet.

I even went through a faze of making omelettes with chick pea flour (gram flour) and black salt because they were so good!

Some things I realised since I’ve been vegan is that eggs aren’t really necessary either, pancakes (crepes) do not even need an egg substitute. They taste delicious with just flour and plant based milk. For fluffier vegan pancakes you can use an egg substitute as there are a few to choose from, such as aquafaba (Affiliate) which is the liquid that is a tin of chickpeas. Someone strangely figured out that if you whip this water it can make a frothy alternative to egg whites.

You can use this to make marshmallows, meringue and even yorkshire puddings. Although, I personally haven’t got the patience to make meringue my sister has made some before and it looked amazing!

In cakes as well, although there’s more of a trick to making them fluffy without eggs it is totally possible. Recipes that I’ve tried use vinegar and a small amount of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and that helps it to rise. There are some other things that people use to replicate eggs in recipes, such as half a banana mashed up, soaked chia seeds (Affiliate) and soaked ground flaxseed (Affiliate). However personally I always prefer the recipes that are more simple and just use things like baking powder or baking soda instead.

I hope I answered the question why vegans don’t eat backyard eggs if the hens are happy and free range. Let me know your thoughts. I have listed the 12 best vegan documentaries to watch if you would like to learn more about veganism.

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