Big Reforms in the Egg Industry, Big Scandal in the Competitive Eating World

By Jonathan Kauffman Fri., Jul. 8 2011 at 8:49 AM

Today's notes on national stories, local trends, random tastes, and other bycatch dredged up from the food media.

1. Good news for egg lovers. After almost a decade of activism, the Humane Society of the United States, an animal-welfare group that is not connected to local animal shelters, has forged an agreement with the United Egg Producers (which represents the commercial egg industry) to try to get U.S. Congress to pass a law doing away with battery cages for laying hens. I wrote about the two groups in 2005, back when the HSUS was lobbying Trader Joe's to switch to "free-range" eggs and the UEP was claiming battery cages prevented the spread of avian flu, then perceived as a real threat. In 2005, the HSUS was asking commercial egg farmers to switch from battery cages to the "enriched" cages they're now talking about installing. (After researching battery cages for the article, I haven't bought conventionally produced eggs since.) If the federal legislation is passed, it would represent a big win for advocates of factory farming reform.

2. Scandal! Instead of competing directly in the Nathan's Famous hot dog competition on Coney Island this year, superstar competitive eater Kobayashi simulcast his own contest, claiming that he set a world record. But careful examination of the video evidence proves his record was a hoax. OMG! Will the sport of force-feeding be forever tarnished? Personally, I'm a little traumatized by his hair.

3. Your ____ is making you fat. The latest contestant in the worldwide armchair sport of explaining why we are all overweight is the U.K.'s Daily Mail, which doesn't blame the government, or individual willpower, food processors, or genetics. It's our kitchens! They're too big, they're too comfortable, they put us in close contact with our food. Perhaps we should return to cooking everything in a pit hearth in the backyard. I can see the diet book now.

Follow us on Twitter: @sfoodie, and like us on Facebook.
Follow me at @JonKauffman.

We Recommend

jai daily

Egg, meat ingredients in an egg sandwich should be flavorful and sliced very thin. Some ideas are prosciutto, bacon, ham or sausage. There are those out there who use a tiny swipe of anchovy paste or even a thin anchovy filet broken up. This is a dicey idea and suited to very unique tastes. Crumbled, crunchy bacon bits and a thin, thin, thin slice of prosciutto work well together to enhance both the texture and the flavor of an egg sandwich. www.1wallmart.com Vegetable ingredients can also be as varied as your imagination. The best application is sliced, again, very thinly. Try using a vegetable peeler and drawing it gently across a washed (and peeled?) squash, cucumber, radish or carrot to make for a much needed crunch addition on an egg sandwich. Also using red onions or scallions, green onions or chives sparingly can uplift the egg?s flavor and move the sandwich to the next notch up from blah and boring. Be cautious, though, of using white or yellow onions. Unless they are parboiled or cooked first (perhaps a thin onion ring would be nice), these onion varieties are commonly too pungent and strong to accompany an egg in a sandwich of this type.