It's neither easy nor cheap to produce healthy eggs

"In the world of agriculture, few things are more difficult than getting a healthy chicken to lay a healthy egg," writes P.J. Huffstutter for the Los Angeles Times. After a salmonella outbreak in California 15 years ago, the state tightened regulations that industry experts say wiped out salmonella in California-produced eggs. Nine other states adopted the same regulations, but it has made producing eggs in those states more costly than other states, particularly farms in the Midwest. The recent recall was for eggs from Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, both located in Iowa. (Photo by Associated Press)

In California, hens are vaccinated three times, have their droppings checked five times and have their feed tested six times during their two-year life span, for about 8.5 cents per bird, reports Huffstutter. In the Midwest, energy, farmland and feed cost less and regulations are less onerous than California. One dozen Midwest-produced eggs cost 53.5 cents, about 16% less than in California, according to Iowa State University's Egg Industry Center.

But even with tighter regulations, farmers, food-safety experts and lawmakers warn that the FDA's new regulations may not do enough to prevent another massive recall. "In the confusion between who does what, who tests what and who's responsible for what, Salmonella enteritidis falls through the cracks," Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, told Huffstutter. (Read more)