8 ms·
Why Europeans Don't Refrigerate Eggs but Americans Do
- rini17 5y agoBecause UK = Europe? In some european countries refrigerate eggs too. Without washing.
- Zababa 5y agoIn France, they're not refrigerated in stores, but at home, it depends from person to person. I think the fact that some refrigerators have some special compartments for eggs might have influenced people.
- mbeex 5y agoIn Germany you can find both variants. My local market switched from refrigerated to non-refrigerated a year ago. Personally I (and probably most people?) have them in the fridge.
- cycomanic 5y agoThis might be regional, but almost all people I know in Germany keep their eggs outside the fridge. One important thing to note (which is mentioned in the article) is that once eggs have been refrigerated you need to keep them refrigerated, because the warming up after refrigeration makes the shell more permeable thus increasing the chance of salmonella entering the egg.
- faebi 5y agoIn switzerland they are without fridge in the store and then go straight into it at home. No idea if and how this makes sense.
- Bayart 5y agoWe usually do the same in France. Not so much out of a belief than the cold is necessary, but more so that it's practical to have the eggs close by the other ingredients.
- jjgreen 5y agoI'm from the UK and lived in France for a couple of years. French food is almost always superior to British, from carrots to kebabs (if expensive) with the single exception of eggs. French eggs are OK, but British eggs are noticeably better. On visits to the UK I would return to France with a dozen eggs in my bag, prompting suspicious looks from customs inspectors at Paddington station.
- sschueller 5y agoWe also have dishes in Switzerland that use raw eggs so they better not be contaminated with salmonella etc.
- scotty79 5y agoThe trouble with cooling eggs is that when you stop, moisture from the air condensates on them and wets their shells which may let bacteria develop. So it's safer (from European point of view) to never cool them on supply chain but after bringing them home put them in the fridge and take them out immediately before eating when condensation is not a problem anymore. They obviously last longer in the fridge than out of it. But since they are sold quickly it's not worth to refrigerate them before they are in the hands of consumers.
- pvaldes 5y agoHen will lay one egg a day until finishing the clutch. Eggs are programmed to stand in an empty nest for up to 15 days without moving a eyelash. Its development is triggered when the temperature reachs 40ºC and remains stable for some hours, and the eggs with 1 and 10 days will hatch at the same time. So eggs in a supermarket are just doing what they are programmed to do; no problem. But when moved to home there is a problem. Eggs in a sunny kitchen could activate. Cracking some eggs a week later to find several dead chicken embryos is disgusting. Keeping them in the fridge will avoid this problem.
- kbelder 5y agoMy wife doesn't refrigerate eggs. Crazy Italian woman! It hasn't seemed to kill us yet, even though I was convinced it would at the start. She also calls tomato sauce 'gravy', and considers bread to be a main course.
- uncoder0 5y ago'Sugo' it's pretty popular in Pennsylvania, NY and NJ to call meat sauce gravy.
- Normille 5y ago2014 called. It wants its article back
- procombo 5y agoThe article confirmed my knowledge. Around here if the eggs are washed and sanitized then you refrigerate them out of caution. Last year we got a flock of chickens. They are happy, free-range, and "expensive". But we have loads of eggs and constantly give them away. We've seen everyone immediately wash and refrigerate them, regardless. It's just what people are used to. We give away the "pretty" eggs. Mine, I pick off the hay and scrub off dried poop before cracking. Even so there really is no comparison between the bland, bleach-white eggs at the supermarket and organic ones grown from happy chickens with a balanced diet.
- RavingGoat 5y agoPasteurized eggs and milk suck compared to non-pasteurized
- jjeaff 5y agoThe color of the eggs has nothing to do with flavor. It is a product of the breed of hen. And I grew up around all types of heritage breed organic chickens with white, brown, and even green eggs and can tell no difference between the flavor of their eggs and store bought eggs. And I consider myself a bit of a foodie. There was a good writeup in serious eats and they found that in blind taste tests, no one could tell the difference. But when people could see what they were eating, they preferred the fresh eggs because they tended to have brighter orange yolks. Putting a bit of orange food coloring in the store bought eggs effectively squashed the difference.
- beezischillin 5y agoI'm Eastern-European, not refrigerating eggs is weird to me. I spent ages looking for eggs in the fridges at the store in the UK, only to find them stuffed onto a shelf between sweets and Doritos.
- nicbou 5y agoI had the same problem when I moved to Germany. I couldn't find the eggs until I saw them on a shelf near the produce.
- dfawcus 5y agoUK based, and I do both. Most eggs are stored in the fridge, because it happens to have egg trays, although more recent models tend to omit those. Those folks I know without egg trays usually store boxes in the fridge. The eggs I'm likely to use are stored outside the fridge, being moved from fridge to outside as and when the external supply reduces. These can stay they for a week or two. I suspect we actually washed our eggs prior to joining the EEC, and hence how we 'traditionally' had egg trays in the fridges. Now that we've left the EU, I can't see any reason to change the current practice, so imagine the current don't need to refrigerate, and forbidding washing approach will continue.
- herbst 5y agoWe too have trays in our fridges, I generally only use them for pre cooked eggs tho
- dagw 5y agoIn Sweden I don’t know anybody who doesn’t store their eggs in the fridge. Edit: in stores I’d say it’s 50/50 if they’re refrigerated or not
- kalleboo 5y agoEggs produced in Sweden are washed like they are in the US and so they should be refrigerated. https://www.fjaderfa.se/?p=19600#.YO-jei33KD8 https://www.fjaderfa.se/?p=19600#.YO-jei33KD8 I guess imported eggs at places like Lidl are not washed+ refrigerated.
- wodenokoto 5y agoA similar article hit the front page of Reddit a few days ago. These don’t always have the best research. In Japan, eggs are washed and are generally not refrigerated, even though articles like this will often say they are. In Denmark eggs are always found in the refrigerator in super markets and you often see feathers and other dirt on the egg shells, so they aren’t washed to any useful degree. So the cause and effect between washing and refrigeration is not globally recognized.
- Doxin 5y agoNote that some brands of eggs have a machine to stick a feather to one egg every so many cartons. Just seeing a feather doesn't mean the egg isn't washed.
- schwartzworld 5y agoWhat? Why?
- Doxin 5y agoTo make the consumer think the egg is so fresh from the chicken that the feathers are still stuck to it I suppose. I'm sure it got A/B tested at some point.
- nly 5y agoEggs stay fresher longer in the fridge...so yeah, as a European, we do refrigerate them.
- herbst 5y agoSwiss here who spent a lot of time in Austria. No, that's not a general European thing. I never noticed eggs in a fridge around here
- yakubin 5y agoMore accurate title: Why The British Don't Refrigerate Eggs but Americans Do. As evidenced by a lot of comments here and my own experience in an Eastern European country.
- LandR 5y agoBritish here, everyone i know keeps eggs in the fridge. I assumed if they weren't kept in fridge they would go off, but now i actually think about it they aren't in fridges in the shop... It does say on the box though to refrigerate after purchase so i have no idea... WWhy is my house different to shop?
- dudul 5y agoI've lived in a few European countries, eggs were definitely kept in the fridge.
- herbst 5y agoI too and have the exact opposite experience. I don't think it's a national thing anymore.
- warmfuzzykitten 5y agoSomeone writes this every six months or so. tldr; Europeans don't wash their eggs; unwashed eggs keep longer. But they would keep even longer if refrigerated.
- wpearse 5y agoNew Zealander reporting in: only the weird people put egg cartons in the fridge. We buy our eggs off a shelf at the supermarket (not refrigerated) and the carton gets thrown in the pantry or left on the bench at home. No issues with egg longevity. Only rotten eggs we’ve found were in the garden from our chickens — could’ve been there for many many months. That’s a smell you never forget.
- utf_8x 5y agoAs a European, we absolutely do refrigerate our eggs.