The KInd Life Community Forum

I'm a complete vegan and have been for a while. I did it for health reasons, for sanctity of life reasons, and also for environmental reasons. I'm very happy with the choice I've made and while it would be easier if the whole world would go vegan (wouldn't it, though? LOL) I wouldn't trade it for convenience!

But I have a conundrum:I have a friend who owns chickens. They are egg-layers and pets. They live the high-life, chicken-wise. They kind of live the life we imagined chickens lived when we were all young and naive and believed in Old MacDonald's farm. My friend jokes that the only thing he hasn't done for these chickens is send them to summer in europe to have a chance to contemplate their life choices.

While I've learned to compensate for eggs in many of the recipes I make, there are times when an egg would be darned nice. That sounds horrible, doesn't it? I've seen enough videos on commercial egg production to turn me off of them forever. But I'm not sure what it would really mean to eat these eggs. What does it mean to a "kind life" diet in this situation? To be honest, I'm not sure if my stomach would even tolerate an egg at this point in my life, but to know there is such an easy source of a complete protein that doesn't involve grains (I don't always do well with wheat and keep my simple carbs to a minimum because they upset my stomach) or cruelty to an animal is kind of tempting.

I think I need a sanity check. Perhaps I'm not thinking about all of the implications in this situation and I could really use some feedback from you all.

Thank you for your help!

Lorance made some good point though not totally relavent to your situation. What does your friend do with the rooster? That ques did stand out to me. If he sells them then he's probably contributing to cruelty. The only issue i see with eating eggs from pet chickens would be that u let down your guard a bit and start feeling like eggs are ok and maybe give into things at restarants or grocery store that are made with eggs or have eggs in ingredients. I only say this because i am that way. If i find out something i ate accidentally had eggs or dairy or something i then have a hard time resisting cheese or butter for the rest of that day because i already been eating dairy. Or once you get that taste back on your pallet it's like an adiction and u start giving in to other things. Slippery slope. Just another opinion

The scenario you mentioned for the lives of these chickens seems ideal. They are pets. They lay eggs whether or not someone eats them. You are not contributing to cruelty by eating them assuming they are not killed at any point and treated with continued kindness even once they can no longer lay eggs. So it seems there is no reason not to eat their eggs, except, wait.....they are so bad for you. I'm not sure one egg every now and then will really cause you to fall of the vegan band wagon or cause your heart to develop heart disease. But, one usually turns into two and before you know, you'll be baking and cooking all the time with these cruelty free eggs. I have considered the same situation you are in, with getting cruelty free eggs from a neighbor. Afterall, dairy milk substitute in recipes is easy, but egg substitute is a whole other story. But, I chose not to eat any eggs for the reason of health. And I think you will regret eating those eggs.