The Egg Dilemma

One of the many necessities of living – anywhere – is knowing where to find your food. A convenient spot that we’ve found is literally 32 floors below us, the Woolworths grocery store. Here you will find most everything you need: fresh produce, eggs, dairy, meats, bakery, non-perishables, household supplies and even some house décor.

You may think a supermarket is a supermarket, and having been to several in other countries (oh how I cherish the memories of time spent in Italy’s PAM…) I felt more than prepared to handle this. Besides, English is the main language here – how hard could it be??

Dun dun dunnn! Haha…so there aren’t just real estate gods who have a sense of humor apparently. This grocery store is mega huge and, I’m not going to lie, slightly intimidating when your cabinets and refrigerator are 100% empty. Little did I know how morally challenging this mere shopping trip would turn out to be. But then came the eggs…

Australians love their animals and wildlife. It is amazing to see how this can be put into action – if anyone caught the terrible news on how mistreated the AU cattle were a few weeks back you would be impressed to see that within one week the government enacted bans on exporting live animals to the offending slaughter houses until the standards were increased and the abuse stopped. Now, I’m not saying that it will work or that it would work for every country – but the fact that the government moved so quickly in large part to due public clamor and petitioning, that says something about how serious they are about animals. So, with that in mind it came as no surprise that Woolworths had a huge selection of cage-free eggs, even naming them “Happy Hens”. What was a bit surprising was that they were right next to the much cheaper “Cage Eggs” in drab gray boxes, perhaps with the intent to show you how drab and unhappy these cage chickens are compared to their free neighbors.

What a dilemma.

In full view of your fellow shoppers you must make the choice – bust your wallet on the happy hens or be economical with the hens of questionable happiness.

Guess which one I chose…I’m sure I wasn’t actually getting looks, but you can bet your tail I skedaddled on out of that section quicker than originally planned, strategically hiding my depressed eggs underneath healthier items. “Oh yes, look at all this fresh lettuce I just piled on top…that and the RICE milk…did you see that one? It’s rice milk.”

I wondered…does it make up for it if I immediately take the eggs out of their drab surroundings and place them in the less restrictive built in container in the fridge? What if I sing to them? Tell them jokes?

Just when I was done consoling myself over this wrenching decision I came across the Roo Steaks…

…lords help me when I finally make it to the zoo…