Quality and Safety. Eggs have had an undeservedly poor reputation since
the early 1980’s. Firstly there was the
cholesterol issue. Medical opinion at that
time was that eggs, being a source of cholesterol were a potential hazard to health. More
recent research, both in the UK and in the USA has proven that dietary intake of
cholesterol has very little impact on our blood cholesterol, and most of us can happily
eat eggs without any problems Back in the eighties, the weekly recommended intake of eggs
was 3 per person. This has now been revised to 6 eggs per person, but sadly doctors are
still relying on 20-year-old advice.
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Then, of course, there was the salmonella scare of
1988. Once again there has never been any
real evidence of a link between eating eggs and salmonella, but the media conducted such a campaign against eggs at the time, that the two
are now inextricably linked. To the egg
industry’s credit, it did make every effort to clean up its act at that time, to the
extent that the Food Standard Agency has stated that the egg industry is “light
years” ahead of the rest of the primary food industry in its food safety assurance
schemes. In this, it was referring to the “LAID IN
BRITAIN” and the “LION” safety assurance schemes. The “Lion”
scheme is well documented, and widely advertised. It relies on a hygiene programme, backed
up by the fact that all laying hens are vaccinated against Salmonella Enteriditis and
Salmonella Typhermurium, the two strains associated with eggs and human food poisoning.
The “Laid in Britain”
scheme is less well known, as it is the one adopted by the smaller, independent egg
producers in the UK, who supply the independent retail sector, rather than the big
supermarket groups. While it adopts very similar hygiene codes of practice to the Lion
scheme, it stands apart from it through the use of “competitive exclusion”
Rather than vaccination. In nature, the newly hatched chick is in close
contact with its mother, and in the first few days it acquires its mothers gut flora. i.e.
it develops a gut content similar to its mothers, which would be pathogen free, and would
line its stomach wall, preventing the invasion of harmful pathogens such as E.Coli and
salmonella. With modern agriculture, this does not happen, as the newly hatched chick
comes out of an incubator and never comes into contact with its parent. Under the Laid in Britain scheme an adult gut flora, cultivated from a
special flock of pathogen free chickens, is given to the day old chick, and again when the
bird comes in to lay. Trials have proven
this system to be extremely effective in warding of salmonella as well as a whole range of
invasive pathogens. To reinforce the safety
aspect, laying hens under this scheme are blood tested for the presence of salmonella. It is this
“belt and braces” scheme, along with its welfare friendly aspects that we
have adopted at Paxcroft farm.
Since 1988, we have produced and sold over 150
million eggs. During that time we have not
been implicated in any food poisoning incidents. We
firmly believe that eggs are one of the safest, and one of the most nutritious natural
food products available. |
