Chicken Coop Chatter©
June 9, 2015
It’s all over the media headlines. Poultry meat and eggs prices to skyrocket!
We as chicken and other fowl owners sit back, feeling maybe a bit smug, that we raise our own for eggs and meat, and this decimation of commercial poultry will have no effect on us, but wait! Do you realize all the products you purchase for the pantry that contain eggs or require the addition of eggs or poultry products? It’s an exhaustive list and as a result we all will see the impact of these price increases.
Even if you cook from scratch, and offer mostly homemade food, you will still feel the impact. Some products that come to mind whether you cook from scratch or not, are bread and pastry products. That pizza at the corner parlor uses poultry meat for that chicken and garlic pizza that you love. Your favorite Italian restaurant, that makes their own pasta, uses egg to make it. Your favorite Chinese restaurant uses eggs in that egg flower soup, egg rolls, wontons and noodles. Every favorite breakfast food is made with eggs and your favorite pancake or waffle house will raise their prices when they have to pay higher prices for the eggs and poultry products they use.
Pantry products affected
Do you purchase pasta products for your favorite pasta salads, soups and casseroles? Most of us do. They are destined to go up in price as a result of egg prices.
If you cook from scratch, surely there are times when a convenience packaged product saves the day when life gets busy and there’s little time to spend in the kitchen. Many convenience foods contain egg and or poultry products or you must add those to it. When cooking for a crowd, we often turn to some convenience foods to cut down on time and effort. All or most “just add water” products include instructions to add eggs.
We can take this even farther? Do you own pets? Many of us do and most pet food is made with added poultry products.
To add to this impact, I’m sure there are times, especially around late fall and winter holidays when the ladies are not laying, that we rely on store-bought eggs to make all those delectable desserts that everyone enjoys so much. And what about those deviled eggs and eggnog latte’s that are irresistible for every imaginable occasion. If the ladies are not laying, we rush to the market to fill that gap. And if your ladies are not laying, there’s a good chance eggs are not available at your local farm unless they are supplementing light and preventing the natural molting that occurs most often during the fall and winter months.
When we begin to realize so many of the every day products we prepare contain eggs and other poultry products, it’s easy to see that as smug as we may feel right now, these price increases will have an effect on all of us. But the largest segment of the population that will unfortunately feel the impact is the inner-city population, that has few options but to purchase what is available in the super market or corner market. Not just will this affect their food budget, but it will have a much larger impact on their nutritional intake. Eggs and poultry products are high in proteins, vitamins and minerals and low in fats. They contain many of our daily nutritional needs. They are very near the perfect food and up until now, prices have been reasonable so that even the poorest of families and those on fixed incomes could still afford to serve them to their families, but all that may end soon. Even if those families rely upon food programs for their nutrition, it will have an impact on tax payers as those programs increase the tax dollars to cover food service programs and as taxes are increased to assist recovery of the poultry industry.
With summer upon us, I can see a huge impact at the barbeque events. Where we rely on the pasta salad, hamburger and hot dog buns, that delectable grilled chicken and the ever available deviled eggs, desserts and ice cream that line those picnic tables.
I am sure I have not covered all of the possible areas where the poultry industry as a whole will impact every single one of us in one way or another. This just covers some of the foods we eat, but what about the fertilizers for the farms that grow our food, those too will increase the cost of farming and result in higher produce prices.
There are a few things we can do to help ease the blow. Keep the pantry stocked up on pasta and products we use daily that include addition of eggs, contain eggs or canned poultry products. We can freeze, dehydrate or pickle our own eggs when they are abundant. We can can our own meat broth and poultry meat. We can stock the freezer with the poultry meat products so we’re sure to have them on hand as needed. But eventually the pantry runs low and needs to be replenished, and we all will pay the higher prices for those products in a variety of ways.
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