Miracles in the Grocery Aisle

I just came from the grocery store where eggs are selling at 80 cents a dozen.... in WINTER when egg laying is seasonally low (and demand is not).

The American farm is an amazing production unit.

Thanks to unnatural selection (no hormones are used) today's meat chickens are more than twice as big, in half the time, at a cost of less than half the feed per pound, and with one fifth the mortality of their brethren 65 years ago.

And what about egg production? Here too unnatural selection has resulted in tremendous gains in production, with hens moving from 150 eggs a year in the 1930s, and a mortality rate of about 40 percent, to 250 eggs per year, and a mortality rate of just 5 percent.

And it isn't just chickens that has seen astounding gains due to selective breeding at the hand of man.

Improved efficiency in milk production has enabled the U.S. dairy industry to produce 186 billion pounds of milk from 9.2 million cows in 2007, as compared to only 117 billion pounds of milk from 25.6 million cows in 1944.

What about beef cattle? Here too selective breeding is at work, with steers and heifers adding 150-170 lbs in size as compared to their brethren just 20 years ago.