<div style="clear:both;"></div>This morning I opened up a carton of Trader Joe&#39;s eggs and was vaguely disturbed to find that each and every egg was tattooed with an expiration date and a code.  I remember reading somewhere that product traceability was a thing of the future (maybe it was 1984).  Well, I&#39;m afraid that the future is here folks.

<p>Here is one of the eggs:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/82625267@N00/63724825/" title="Photo Sharing"><img alt="Good Egg" class="at-xid-6a00d8341db04e53ef0133ee277ab9970b" height="180" src="http://www.everydaytreats.com/wp-content/uploads/6a00d8341db04e53ef0133ee277ab9970b-pi.jpg" width="240" /></a></p>

<p>I became curious about egg # 1153 299J10.  Where did it come from?  How did it get to my fridge? And crucially, WHY do we need to tattoo an egg?  </p>

<p>At first I thought that the tracing of food products was an activity of importance to national security.  But come on - what can terrorists do to an egg?  Let&#39;s not get carried away with the paranoia.  I&#39;d rather we spent our time securing more vulnerable things like the water supply.  Just my humble opinion.</p>

<p>I went on the internet in search of some answers.</p>

<p>I found all sorts of things about eggs.  My favorite is <a href="http://humboldthens.blogspot.com/">this blog</a> which lovingly chronicles the lives of some backyard chickens.  I hope to someday chronicle my Baby Boy&#39;s first nine months so thoroughly and elegantly.  But it will have to wait.  I have to research my egg.</p>

<p>I thought I finally found what I was looking for at EggFusion&#39;s <a href="http://www.eggfusion.com/">website</a>. According to this company one day you will be able to enter that code on your egg and find out where your egg was produced, what day and time it was processed, what lane is was processed in along with some “key egg dates”.  To think I’ve lived 29 years not knowing this.  And why is the Egg Traceability checker not up and running yet?  Isn’t this the whole point of scarring this poor egg?</p>

<p>I also became upset because my food carton clearly states that the eggs within it will expire on December 9.  You can see in the picture of egg # 1153 299J10 that he will expire on Dec. 24.  I don’t know who to believe - Trader Joe’s or EggFusion.</p>

<p>This all seemed like too much ado about one egg; yes, it is an egg with a name and an expiration date, but still, its just an egg.  Then I found <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,164919,00.html">this</a>.  Of course!  EggFusion wants to make money by tattooing ads on my egg.  Is anything sacred anymore?</p>

<p>This was too much for me, and my husband was getting hungry.  Frankly, so was I.  So I took egg # 1153 299J10 along with his a few of his carton mates and made an omelette.</p>

<p>He was a good egg indeed.</p>

<p>Tags:  <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/eggs" rel="tag">eggs</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/useless" rel="tag">useless</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/national%20security" rel="tag">national security</a><div style="clear:both; padding-bottom: 0.25em;"></div></p>
