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How can this have been a thing? First, eggs don't need to be refrigerated; they keep at least a week at room temperature. Second, they can be bought in lots o
by username223 11y ago
How can this have been a thing? First, eggs don't need to be refrigerated; they keep at least a week at room temperature. Second, they can be bought in lots of 6, 12, 18, and 36 in most supermarkets; choose based on your rate of consumption. Third, they're dirt cheap, typically less than 25 cents apiece. We're talking Vessyl levels of pointlessness here.
- dasil003 11y agoAre you European? The reason I ask is because the US and the EU take opposite approaches to the issue of egg safety. In the EU eggs are not allowed to be washed before sale, that means the eggs retain their natural anti-bacterial coating from when they are laid, so they are naturally microbe resistant and that's why European eggs are not refrigerated in the store. In the US they mandate that eggs must be washed before sale, but the egg shell is a semi-permeable membrane, and washing off the natural coating renders the egg vulnerable to spoilage, therefore it must be refrigerated or the eggs will tend to go bad.
- username223 11y agoI'm a 'Merkin, actually, and I've never had problems leaving eggs out for a week, then eating them hard-boiled, scrambled, or over-easy. Then again, I sometimes find it hard to understand the Purell Nation in which I live.
- venomsnake 11y agoYou have 1/20000 chance of having an salmonella egg in a batch that can be inactivated with proper cooking. For people with working immune system basically any food is safe-ish. So we are overdoing it. But there are people for which (AIDS, immunosuppressors, cancer) a very low bacterial load could be deadly.
- jakobegger 11y agoIt does depend on the kind of eggs you buy. If you buy eggs from chicken in cages where chicken peck each other to death, I assume that your salmonella risk is higher than if you buy eggs from free ranging chicken in organic farms. At least that's what I like to tell myself when I buy the fancy eggs at twice the price.
- venomsnake 11y agoA few thoughts - there are people that cheat on the "free range" label. Sometimes the free range chickens if done improperly can live in worse conditions than caged. And industrial farms have really got good at safety. That doesn't mean don't buy. It means research so that you are not ripped off. My opinion is follow the flavor - absolutely anecdotal evidence - but the deeper and more flavorful an animal based product is - the better living conditions the animal had. The tastiest eggs I have eaten were the ones which I have stolen right under the hens in small family farms.
- zorf 11y agoAt least in Sweden and Finland it is recommended to refrigerate eggs. This way the eggs are edible up to two months, even though the packaging (based on EU rules) says 28 days.
- crocal 11y agoThere are different patterns for egg storage even in Europe, with or without fridge, etc. In any case, I use the "floating egg" test every time I cook an egg. If the egg floats in water, I don't eat it. No need for a dedicated device.
- omginternets 11y agoFrance, here. We refrigerate our eggs ...