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Why American Eggs Would Be Illegal In A British Supermarket, And Vice Versa

382 points by memset 14y ago

mongol 14y ago
I don't think the article is accurate. In Sweden, part of the EU, washed eggs are common. I google and find for example this (Swedish): "from 2004 EU labeling rules were changed so it must state if eggs are washed". More, in Swedish on http://producenter.svenskalantagg.se/tvaettade-/vi-tvaettar-ae.html http://producenter.svenskalantagg.se/tvaettade-/vi-tvaettar-...
- vilhelm_s 14y ago
  Yes. I did some Googling, and here is what I found: Prior to 2004, the EU rules was that "class A" eggs could not be washed. The only EU country that used egg-washing was Sweden (where about 50% of eggs were washed), and producers who washed them sold them as "class B" eggs. In 2004, the EU merged class B and class C, and forbid selling class B eggs directly to consumers. This would have banned washed table eggs, so Sweden objected. In response, the European Commission passed a derogation where egg producers who already washed eggs can continue to do so, for 3 years, provided they are authorized by the national food and safety agency, and sold in areas where that agency has jurisdiction (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?mode=dbl&lang=en&ihmlang=en&lng1=en,en&lng2=bg,cs,da,de,el,en,es,et,fi,fr,hu,it,lt,lv,mt,nl,pl,pt,ro,sk,sl,sv,&val=286903:cs http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?mode=dbl&lang=en&...). I.e., Swedish producers can sell washed eggs in Sweden. In 2005 a safety study was commissioned, which turned out positive: "Taking into account the very low prevalence of Salmonella spp. in Swedish egg production, the risk associated with egg washing using the current system under strict rules is considered to be outweighed by the advantages of egg washing." (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/269.htm http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/269.htm) Apparently 9 Swedish egg packeries and one in the Netherland was granted the exception, which was subsequently extended at least to 2007. I couldn't see any information about the current status, but if Swedish producers still sell the eggs, they probably do it under the same form of exemption.
- arrrg 14y ago
  There are always going to be exceptions in the EU. That’s just how it is. It would have been nice if the article were a bit more accurate, but the basic story is very true.
- kawsper 14y ago
  And in Denmark the eggs are also refrigerated.
- timc3 14y ago
  Hate Swedish supermarket eggs. Open the packet and it just is a disappointment. (Grew up on farm with plenty of fresh brown beautiful eggs).
nnq 14y ago
I hate dirty eggs, even when there's just a tiny point of dirt on one in a box! I wish the EU would make egg-washing mandatory, even for purely "aesthetic" reasons :)
- tspiteri 14y ago
  If the eggs are for baking, they're safe. If they're not going to be cooked that long, I usually wash the eggs exactly before use. That way I remove any dirt before opening the shell, and at a point where removing the egg's cuticle is not an issue any more.
- user24 14y ago
  Oh get over it, it comes from a hen's bum.
  - epmatsw 14y ago
    And therefore shouldn't be washed? Seems like you made a pretty good argument for washing them to me...
- mr_bag 14y ago
  If it really bothers you, you can just rinse them yourself at home?
- fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
  Couldn't you just wash the eggs before use?
Vlaix 14y ago
1. Why would anyone ship eggs across the pond ? 2. I don't buy "clean" eggs. They look fake. Eggs come out of a hen's butt, deal with it. But then again, I'm neither American nor British (but French).
- jcoder 14y ago
  I don't think they come out of its butt. [Edit] Fair enough, parent didn't say "anus" "intestine" "digestive tract" or anything more specific. And the "last mile" is a shared pathway. "Butt" works :-)
  - Nursie 14y ago
    I'm no expert, but don't they just have one opening that does everything? So you could call it the butt...
    - wiredfool 14y ago
      It's a cloaca: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca Basically, it's a vent that everything comes out of. (and in, in the rooster -> hen case)
    - chimeracoder 14y ago
      > don't they just have one opening that does everything Yes, it's called a cloaca: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca
- claudius 14y ago
  If eggs were previously stored ‘up to a year’ (p. 2, § 3), then I wouldn’t be surprised if they were also shipped halfway across the world if there was a sufficient difference in price…
- user24 14y ago
  > Why would anyone ship eggs across the pond Complete conjecture, but I know we (Britain) had a food crisis after the war. We were on rationing for years after the end of the war. Maybe we imported eggs too.
simonsarris 14y ago
This is generally one of the first things that people who decide to keep hens learn, and is reprinted in nearly every homesteader/farmer magazine ever. (that said, I'm surprised to find it on the front page of hacker news!) Where I live in NH lots of small farms and people keep a few hens, and most of the smaller places will mention this to customers. Eggs from these "home hens" definitely taste different, though I doubt it has to do with washing and much more to do with hen diet. (And now it's mid noon here, time to go home and make eggs. Far more important than any local food movement, for me, is living within walking distance to work!)
- gadders 14y ago
  I can totally vouch for having your own hens. I have three, and I'm planning on getting another three this weekend. - The amount of work is fairly minimal - about as much effort as a pet rabbit - and you get eggs - When you observe chickens up close, they're surprisingly attractive animals. And not as stupid as you would assume, either - The eggs really do taste better. I think this is because a) they eat better, and b) they are much, much fresher - You can feed most of your kitchen scraps to your chickens to recycle your waste. They're omnivores, so eat meat (although officially you're not supposed to feed them it).
  - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
    Keeping hens alive is a lot harder than most people would predict however. I mean it varies from area to area, but foxes killing hens is a stereotype for a reason. Cats will try too as will many other predators depending on area. You leave that door open one night and expect to return to a garden of feathers...
    - gadders 14y ago
      Well, yes. You can either buy a coop with an attached, enclosed run or a fox-proof electric fence. Our cat did try and stalk the hens for fun when we first got them, but never attacked them and he was a decent mouser.
tptacek 14y ago
You can get unwashed eggs from farms in most parts of the US. Farm-fresh eggs are much better than supermarket eggs, regardless of whether they're washed.
- netrus 14y ago
  Better regarding what? Taste, nutrition, price?
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Taste.
    - msrpotus 14y ago
      Probably better for you as well.
- memset 14y ago
  I listened to an NPR Splendid Table segment [1] where they say that, in a blind taste test, nobody can really differentiate between the taste of farm-fresh eggs versus supermarket. Do you find the experience (colors, community, etc?) of fresh eggs better? [1] http://www.splendidtable.org/episode/july-17-2010 http://www.splendidtable.org/episode/july-17-2010 edit: (Or do you feel that this segment is malarky!)
  - jules 14y ago
    The taste of supermarket eggs and the eggs of my parents' hens is easily distinguished if you eat the eggs the same day or within a couple of days that they were laid. Older eggs have a stronger flavour. The structure is also different. The egg whites of boiled fresh eggs are more firm and crumbly while the egg whites of boiled old eggs are more jelly. When uncooked, old eggs are more liquid and fall apart, while fresh eggs hold together (if you fry a fresh egg in a pan it is generally smaller but thicker, and if you poach a fresh egg it stays together egg instead of becoming a spaghetti). The white of cooked fresh eggs is a little more opaque, and the yellow is generally a little lighter than of supermarket eggs. Fresh eggs are much harder to peel than old eggs because the white sticks to the shell much more. As home-laid eggs age, they become pretty much identical to supermarket eggs, though there are still some differences: they are not as perfectly identical as supermarket eggs (their sizes, colors and shell thickness vary), and they have a small black dot which is the embryo (which some people don't like -- you can prevent it by only having female chickens like most egg plants).
darxius 14y ago
Very informative article. I was expecting the author to finish off on an "Americans are weird and people shouldn't have to worry about refrigerating their eggs" but, instead, he showed why its valid for us to be doing so. Kinda cool, learned something about eggs today.
- ars 14y ago
  Nah, you really don't need to refrigerate eggs. They'll last for months without refrigeration. But if you do that, I guess it's prudent to cook them. (BTW salmonella from home use of eggs is rare. It usually happens in restaurants where they mix a bunch of eggs together.)
  - darxius 14y ago
    I don't know much about the subject, but does cooking a salmonella infected egg neutralize the bacteria?
    - ElliotH 14y ago
      Wiki suggests that food thoroughly heated to at least 75 degrees will be free of salmonella.
      - VLM 14y ago
        Not as many people cook with a thermometer as should... the big problem is egg whites start to coagulate around 65 or so. Your fried egg is not safe unless its frankly somewhat overcooked. If its runny, you're totally rolling the dice. I do not eat eggs, especially at restaurants, I'm tired of food poisoning (which hardly happens every time, or even occasionally, but since fried eggs are greasy and rubbery and gross and the only thing worse than fried eggs is food poisoning symptoms, I don't mind not eating them anymore). In baked goods I don't mind even though unrisen cookie dough is full of raw egg. Its too bad because from a technical standpoint I think sous vide "hard boiled" eggs would be very interesting, but not interesting enough to risk food poisoning.
newishuser 14y ago
This is one of those obvious to some, and eye opening to others things. I had always wondered why other countries keep their eggs unrefrigerated and we Americans have always been very thoroughly warned about the dangers of room temperature eggs. I always figured it was a matter of cultural tradition and that eggs weren't really as sensitive as I've been told. I had no idea there was so much process and science behind it. This kind of fits as a rough analogy for software. Consumers may see eggs in either market as just eggs. Maybe they have a slight different taste, maybe some are kept in a fridge, but they're still plain, simple, safe eggs. Getting to that point of consumption though is a choreography of processes that has no "right way" and is more complex than the average consumer wants or needs to know.
- Spiritus 14y ago
  >Head to an American supermarket on the other hand and eggs are always held in refrigerated units, like milk and cheese and other dairy products. This applies to Sweden as well. Every supermarket I know of sells the eggs refrigerated (by the dairy products).
  - dagw 14y ago
    Some do, some don't. The two smaller stores I normally shop at don't, the huge supermarket a bit down the road does.
alphaoverlord 14y ago
I feel like this story is a great example of how its easy to come up with ad hoc justifications. After you decide to do something, it's quite easy to find evidence for your perpsective and justify standard practice. At the point that there is such a huge variation in practice, for most of these steps, I can't imagine that they are very significant/important. The two systems are made to sound like there is significant justification for each step, which protects one from the shortfalls of other steps, but I can imagine that a combinatorial approach for each of the requirements would work just as well. Then again, I don't know anything about hens. Just my thoughts.
- mauvehaus 14y ago
  On the contrary, I think it's interesting that two different standard practices evolved in different directions, and that with a scientific look at them, we can understand why they're both effective for different reasons.
- munificent 14y ago
  > At the point that there is such a huge variation in practice, for most of these steps, I can't imagine that they are very significant/important. It seems a little premature to jump to that conclusion. The US and Great Britain are entirely different countries with different geography, climate, history, culture, laws, economies, etc. Farming doesn't exist in a vaccum. It's affected by all of that, so it stands to reason that those things will influence policies and practices. What I found interesting about the article was that while each system was different, each was internally cohesive. Trying to cherrypick one facet of one country's system and applying to the other would almost invariably make things worse. You have to understand the entire system. That's an important lesson to keep in mind when we constantly read articles like "Country X does Y and it makes Z B% better so we should too!" We need to always remember that X is doing Y in some context that likely matters deeply.
  - mturmon 14y ago
    Smart comment. It's like each country is an ecosystem, which has evolved procedures that work. Still, each could be informed by the other. Presumably at the annual "International Conference on Egg Hygiene and Fowl Maintenance".
elptacek 14y ago
Coincidentally, I was just telling our kids last night how much store-bought eggs and raw chicken skeeves me out. I don't know where these things have been, who has touched them or what they've been fed. We never washed eggs with water (I grew up on a farm), just knocked any big bits off with a soft brush, like the kind you'd use for mushrooms. Too bad I can't keep some hens...
user24 14y ago
> Since the late 1990’s British farmers have been vaccinating hens against salmonella [...] Amazingly, this measure has virtually wiped out the health threat in Britain. "Amazingly"? No not really! Vaccination stops disease. It's completely expected, not amazing at all. edit: Likewise it's not "amazing" that cases of Diptheria, Measles, Polio, etc have been drastically reduced - by 100% in some cases - since widespread vaccination began in the USA (source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/02/19/a-graphic-that-drives-home-how-vaccines-have-changed-our-world/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/02/19/a-graph... )
- falcolas 14y ago
  When addressing a public who largely still links vaccines and autism, they would indeed find it amazing. To the remaining, thinking public, you're right. It's not amazing at all.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    Hah, that's probably the next stop on the crazy train. "My child ate chicken that was vaccinated, and it gave my child autism!" On second thought, don't want to give them any ideas...
  - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
    I would argue that the public doesn't "largely" believe that. The majority of parents get their kids vaccinated. It is a small fringe of people who believe things like that; just unfortunately these same people are the most likely to catch the disease (and be unable to afford decent treatment).
    - sliverstorm 14y ago
      The really unfortunate thing is they can compromise herd immunity, leading to people who can't be vaccinated or even people who WERE vaccinated getting infected. I would be much more tolerant of the people who are afraid of vaccines, if it wasn't for the risk of them hurting other people with their decisions.
MichaelGG 14y ago
It seems like there should be solid data backing up the EU or US regulations. Is it not possible to accurately calculate how much/often contamination gets inside the egg? Do health records not provide sufficient evidence to determine if cross-pollution by end-users is causing sickness?
- rsynnott 14y ago
  Hard to do the experiment, as you need two countries with otherwise identical production practices, where one washes and the other doesn't. For instance, the US and the UK would be a bad example, because egg producers in the UK generally vaccinate for salmonella, while those in the US don't; regulations on things like cage sizes also differ substantially. You also need identical reporting regimes, which may actually be a greater problem; salmonella is not generally a mandatory reporting thing, and many people infected with it don't go to the doctor with it anyway; if you're a healthy adult it's pretty much just nasty food poisoning.
mauvehaus 14y ago
"guidance set out by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers recommends supermarkets maintain a temperature of between 66.2F to 69.8F in the winter and between 69.8F and 73.4F in the summer. Room temperature is generally considered to be between 68F to 77F." Does it drive anybody else a little nuts when newspapers don't either 1) leave the numbers in their original units and put the conversion in parentheses (or vice versa) or 2) round sensibly? It's misleading to suggest that anybody is measuring supermarket temperature to the tenth of a degree Fahrenheit by using so many significant figures. It would both help people understand the metric system and be a more accurate description of the situation to say that what's actually specified is 20 degC +/- 1 degC in the winter and 22 degC +/- 1 degC in the summer.
- MrMember 14y ago
  Reminds me of body temperature. In the US we're taught that the standard body temperature for a human is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know about anyone else, but when I was young I thought this was very specific and must mean that a temperature variation of a few tenths of a degree is worth noting. Turns out 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is just a direct conversion from 37 degrees Celsius.
- gpvos 14y ago
  As a non-American, the sentences are basically unreadable when they don't give the Celsius conversions (actually, in this case, the original values). The only thing I know is that 100F is roughly 37C. I have to get out a conversion tool. Doesn't Forbes have an international audience?
  - adamauckland 14y ago
    There's plenty of countries who use the imperial system... Liberia and Myanmar!
DanBC 14y ago
This is a fascinating look at different systems. I hope that cooks are frequently washing their hands when preparing food, especially when moving between items that cary a risk of contamination (raw meats, etc) and already prepared items (cooked meats). Also: egg yolk colours are controlled by feed additives. Farmers can get colour charts and specify the colour of the yolk they want.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  I assume that the colors are limited to a fairly basic range of yellows, right? Or can I get blue yolks?
  - ars 14y ago
    You can get green. Blue would be hard since blue + yellow = green.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    Ha, yes. (http://www.robotmation.co.jp/keiranycceng.htm http://www.robotmation.co.jp/keiranycceng.htm) Range from a very pale yellow to a deep orange colour. Different countries have different preferences. EDIT: Here's a Tufte page about Salmon colour charts. (http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000XT http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...)
  - gadders 14y ago
    No, but with the right breed you can get blue shells.
spiritplumber 14y ago
This is why laws that cannot prove that they're consistent with physics and formal logic are useless and should not be considered when transacting business.
- dagw 14y ago
  Which part of which law here isn't consistent with which parts of physics and formal logic?
gcb0 14y ago
Both sound good in theory. And they arebeing applied for decades. Just get the delta of salmonella cases from before and after each solution was implemented and you will be able to measure which is better in practice.
greghinch 14y ago
Basics that I've seen when it comes to regulations of these kinds in US vs UK/EU: In the US, the regulations are primarily to serve the corporate interests (consistent production at scale, distribution over a wide area) In the UK/EU, the regulations are primarily to protect the citizens, often to the point of impeding business to a degree. I'd rather see the latter but it goes against pretty much everything we're taught from birth in the US.
- rmc 14y ago
  There is lots of EU law and regulations to do with making things easier for companies. Consistent naming and measurements (the metric system) as well as standardisation and certification (so that if you can sell in one member state, you can sell in all the others). Making a "single market" (as opposed to 30 different markets) is one goal of the EU.
  - greghinch 14y ago
    Didn't mean to make it sound like the EU was anti-business, just meant that given the need for a choice, the EU/UK regulations tend to favor the needs of consumers/citizens over those of a corporation. In the US, the citizens are basically protected just enough to keep them complacent/prevent lawsuits, but the goal is to let the corp. maximize profit.
    - rmc 14y ago
      Oh, it's complex. I'm just saying there are lots of examples of the EU doing laws that make things easier for businesses.
      - PeterisP 14y ago
        Yes, but I've not really seen new EU-wide laws that make things easier for business by removing some of the many consumer-rights or worker-rights. And there are quite a few things that could be done that way to improve the economy.
kemiller 14y ago
I feel like there's a lesson for software here. You can have more than one effective system. Each will have its own properties, upsides and downsides, but you can't cherry-pick specific practices within the system and transport them into the other system, or even evaluate them in isolation. What is best practice in one system may be actively harmful in another.
mozboz 14y ago
To summarise the numbers: the American laws result in 0.045% of the population being affect by salmonella related disease, whereas the British laws result in 0.00093%, that's 50 times more illness in the US per capita.
- bencoder 14y ago
  You can't really judge how often chicken poo on unwashed eggs has caused illness though, that would probably not result in salmonella, I think.
- Mvandenbergh 14y ago
  It looks like that's purely because of the salmonella vaccination which is not required by American or British law but which British supermarkets require of their suppliers. Maybe that's easier to do because the UK supermarket space is more concentrated than it is in the US?
mydpy 14y ago
Why is this on Hacker News?
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  Because it's a practical example of A/B testing on a large scale.
- tirant 14y ago
  Look at the number of comments. It seems a lot of people are interested here.
scrumper 14y ago
Enjoyed this, very interesting. The salmonella scandal in the '90s was absolutely huge in Britain. The health minister at the time, Edwina Currie, was forced to resign over it. The tabloids subsequently dubbed her 'Eggwina' and she's never really lived it down.
- alexkus 14y ago
  > she's never really lived it down And dropped even further after the revelations about her affair with former PM John Major. mind bleach
rmc 14y ago
As a European who watches American TV & films, the one thing that strikes me about American eggs is the colour. They're white! This just looks wrong! Eggs here are a peach/pink colour. White eggs look like fake eggs.
- felideon 14y ago
  For some reason, I tend to buy brown eggs.
- Aqwis 14y ago
  Be careful with the "as a European". Eggs are sparkling white in many European countries.
- rdouble 14y ago
  It's simply because of different breeds of hens.
- ars 14y ago
  > Eggs here are a peach/pink colour. That's just the breed of chicken, not the post processing. You can get eggs in almost any color. Brown, white, and everything in between (peach) are common.
- justincormack 14y ago
  When I was a kid in the UK brown and white eggs were equally common. Now white is much more common but in the past few years you can buy brown and blue and so on in specialist places again.
  - drucken 14y ago
    Your second sentence is a bit strange in my experience, unless you're referring to yourself now living in the US. I have never seen a white egg in a UK supermarket, stall market or cornershop. They are always brown/pink.
    - justincormack 14y ago
ndespres 14y ago
I'm a new (small) farmer, and I've just begun selling eggs from my small (70 hens) to neighbors, and they're often surprised when they see that the eggs are not refrigerated. I do have conversations a lot about this, and folks are often surprised to learn that the eggs in their grocery store cooler are often 2-3 weeks old already and that the refrigerator is a requirement to keep them edible for so long. Mine will be edible for just as long, and they taste fresher too!
hiharryhere 14y ago
So in short both methods = lower disease. Let's review the approaches: - EU relies on natures own mechanism along with responsible farming and vaccination - US relies on energy intensive washing, coating with a chemical spray and constant refrigeration Hmm...
- dagw 14y ago
  So in short both methods = lower disease. But the British method leads to even lower level of salmonella by an order of magnitude.
  - fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
    And with lower effort/expense too, it seems.

382 points by memset 14y ago

I don't think the article is accurate. In Sweden, part of the EU, washed eggs are common. I google and find for example this (Swedish): "from 2004 EU labeling rules were changed so it must state if eggs are washed". More, in Swedish on http://producenter.svenskalantagg.se/tvaettade-/vi-tvaettar-ae.html http://producenter.svenskalantagg.se/tvaettade-/vi-tvaettar-...

vilhelm_s 14y ago
Yes. I did some Googling, and here is what I found: Prior to 2004, the EU rules was that "class A" eggs could not be washed. The only EU country that used egg-washing was Sweden (where about 50% of eggs were washed), and producers who washed them sold them as "class B" eggs. In 2004, the EU merged class B and class C, and forbid selling class B eggs directly to consumers. This would have banned washed table eggs, so Sweden objected. In response, the European Commission passed a derogation where egg producers who already washed eggs can continue to do so, for 3 years, provided they are authorized by the national food and safety agency, and sold in areas where that agency has jurisdiction (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?mode=dbl&lang=en&ihmlang=en&lng1=en,en&lng2=bg,cs,da,de,el,en,es,et,fi,fr,hu,it,lt,lv,mt,nl,pl,pt,ro,sk,sl,sv,&val=286903:cs http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?mode=dbl&lang=en&...). I.e., Swedish producers can sell washed eggs in Sweden. In 2005 a safety study was commissioned, which turned out positive: "Taking into account the very low prevalence of Salmonella spp. in Swedish egg production, the risk associated with egg washing using the current system under strict rules is considered to be outweighed by the advantages of egg washing." (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/269.htm http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/269.htm) Apparently 9 Swedish egg packeries and one in the Netherland was granted the exception, which was subsequently extended at least to 2007. I couldn't see any information about the current status, but if Swedish producers still sell the eggs, they probably do it under the same form of exemption.
arrrg 14y ago
There are always going to be exceptions in the EU. That’s just how it is. It would have been nice if the article were a bit more accurate, but the basic story is very true.
kawsper 14y ago
And in Denmark the eggs are also refrigerated.
timc3 14y ago
Hate Swedish supermarket eggs. Open the packet and it just is a disappointment. (Grew up on farm with plenty of fresh brown beautiful eggs).

nnq 14y ago

I hate dirty eggs, even when there's just a tiny point of dirt on one in a box! I wish the EU would make egg-washing mandatory, even for purely "aesthetic" reasons :)

tspiteri 14y ago
If the eggs are for baking, they're safe. If they're not going to be cooked that long, I usually wash the eggs exactly before use. That way I remove any dirt before opening the shell, and at a point where removing the egg's cuticle is not an issue any more.
user24 14y ago
Oh get over it, it comes from a hen's bum.
- epmatsw 14y ago
  And therefore shouldn't be washed? Seems like you made a pretty good argument for washing them to me...
mr_bag 14y ago
If it really bothers you, you can just rinse them yourself at home?
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
Couldn't you just wash the eggs before use?

Vlaix 14y ago

1. Why would anyone ship eggs across the pond ? 2. I don't buy "clean" eggs. They look fake. Eggs come out of a hen's butt, deal with it. But then again, I'm neither American nor British (but French).

jcoder 14y ago
I don't think they come out of its butt. [Edit] Fair enough, parent didn't say "anus" "intestine" "digestive tract" or anything more specific. And the "last mile" is a shared pathway. "Butt" works :-)
- Nursie 14y ago
  I'm no expert, but don't they just have one opening that does everything? So you could call it the butt...
  - wiredfool 14y ago
    It's a cloaca: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca Basically, it's a vent that everything comes out of. (and in, in the rooster -> hen case)
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    > don't they just have one opening that does everything Yes, it's called a cloaca: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca
claudius 14y ago
If eggs were previously stored ‘up to a year’ (p. 2, § 3), then I wouldn’t be surprised if they were also shipped halfway across the world if there was a sufficient difference in price…
user24 14y ago
> Why would anyone ship eggs across the pond Complete conjecture, but I know we (Britain) had a food crisis after the war. We were on rationing for years after the end of the war. Maybe we imported eggs too.

simonsarris 14y ago

This is generally one of the first things that people who decide to keep hens learn, and is reprinted in nearly every homesteader/farmer magazine ever. (that said, I'm surprised to find it on the front page of hacker news!) Where I live in NH lots of small farms and people keep a few hens, and most of the smaller places will mention this to customers. Eggs from these "home hens" definitely taste different, though I doubt it has to do with washing and much more to do with hen diet. (And now it's mid noon here, time to go home and make eggs. Far more important than any local food movement, for me, is living within walking distance to work!)

gadders 14y ago
I can totally vouch for having your own hens. I have three, and I'm planning on getting another three this weekend. - The amount of work is fairly minimal - about as much effort as a pet rabbit - and you get eggs - When you observe chickens up close, they're surprisingly attractive animals. And not as stupid as you would assume, either - The eggs really do taste better. I think this is because a) they eat better, and b) they are much, much fresher - You can feed most of your kitchen scraps to your chickens to recycle your waste. They're omnivores, so eat meat (although officially you're not supposed to feed them it).
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  Keeping hens alive is a lot harder than most people would predict however. I mean it varies from area to area, but foxes killing hens is a stereotype for a reason. Cats will try too as will many other predators depending on area. You leave that door open one night and expect to return to a garden of feathers...
  - gadders 14y ago
    Well, yes. You can either buy a coop with an attached, enclosed run or a fox-proof electric fence. Our cat did try and stalk the hens for fun when we first got them, but never attacked them and he was a decent mouser.

tptacek 14y ago

You can get unwashed eggs from farms in most parts of the US. Farm-fresh eggs are much better than supermarket eggs, regardless of whether they're washed.

netrus 14y ago
Better regarding what? Taste, nutrition, price?
- tptacek 14y ago
  Taste.
  - msrpotus 14y ago
    Probably better for you as well.
memset 14y ago
I listened to an NPR Splendid Table segment [1] where they say that, in a blind taste test, nobody can really differentiate between the taste of farm-fresh eggs versus supermarket. Do you find the experience (colors, community, etc?) of fresh eggs better? [1] http://www.splendidtable.org/episode/july-17-2010 http://www.splendidtable.org/episode/july-17-2010 edit: (Or do you feel that this segment is malarky!)
- jules 14y ago
  The taste of supermarket eggs and the eggs of my parents' hens is easily distinguished if you eat the eggs the same day or within a couple of days that they were laid. Older eggs have a stronger flavour. The structure is also different. The egg whites of boiled fresh eggs are more firm and crumbly while the egg whites of boiled old eggs are more jelly. When uncooked, old eggs are more liquid and fall apart, while fresh eggs hold together (if you fry a fresh egg in a pan it is generally smaller but thicker, and if you poach a fresh egg it stays together egg instead of becoming a spaghetti). The white of cooked fresh eggs is a little more opaque, and the yellow is generally a little lighter than of supermarket eggs. Fresh eggs are much harder to peel than old eggs because the white sticks to the shell much more. As home-laid eggs age, they become pretty much identical to supermarket eggs, though there are still some differences: they are not as perfectly identical as supermarket eggs (their sizes, colors and shell thickness vary), and they have a small black dot which is the embryo (which some people don't like -- you can prevent it by only having female chickens like most egg plants).

darxius 14y ago

Very informative article. I was expecting the author to finish off on an "Americans are weird and people shouldn't have to worry about refrigerating their eggs" but, instead, he showed why its valid for us to be doing so. Kinda cool, learned something about eggs today.

ars 14y ago
Nah, you really don't need to refrigerate eggs. They'll last for months without refrigeration. But if you do that, I guess it's prudent to cook them. (BTW salmonella from home use of eggs is rare. It usually happens in restaurants where they mix a bunch of eggs together.)
- darxius 14y ago
  I don't know much about the subject, but does cooking a salmonella infected egg neutralize the bacteria?
  - ElliotH 14y ago
    Wiki suggests that food thoroughly heated to at least 75 degrees will be free of salmonella.
    - VLM 14y ago
      Not as many people cook with a thermometer as should... the big problem is egg whites start to coagulate around 65 or so. Your fried egg is not safe unless its frankly somewhat overcooked. If its runny, you're totally rolling the dice. I do not eat eggs, especially at restaurants, I'm tired of food poisoning (which hardly happens every time, or even occasionally, but since fried eggs are greasy and rubbery and gross and the only thing worse than fried eggs is food poisoning symptoms, I don't mind not eating them anymore). In baked goods I don't mind even though unrisen cookie dough is full of raw egg. Its too bad because from a technical standpoint I think sous vide "hard boiled" eggs would be very interesting, but not interesting enough to risk food poisoning.

newishuser 14y ago

This is one of those obvious to some, and eye opening to others things. I had always wondered why other countries keep their eggs unrefrigerated and we Americans have always been very thoroughly warned about the dangers of room temperature eggs. I always figured it was a matter of cultural tradition and that eggs weren't really as sensitive as I've been told. I had no idea there was so much process and science behind it. This kind of fits as a rough analogy for software. Consumers may see eggs in either market as just eggs. Maybe they have a slight different taste, maybe some are kept in a fridge, but they're still plain, simple, safe eggs. Getting to that point of consumption though is a choreography of processes that has no "right way" and is more complex than the average consumer wants or needs to know.

Spiritus 14y ago
>Head to an American supermarket on the other hand and eggs are always held in refrigerated units, like milk and cheese and other dairy products. This applies to Sweden as well. Every supermarket I know of sells the eggs refrigerated (by the dairy products).
- dagw 14y ago
  Some do, some don't. The two smaller stores I normally shop at don't, the huge supermarket a bit down the road does.

alphaoverlord 14y ago

I feel like this story is a great example of how its easy to come up with ad hoc justifications. After you decide to do something, it's quite easy to find evidence for your perpsective and justify standard practice. At the point that there is such a huge variation in practice, for most of these steps, I can't imagine that they are very significant/important. The two systems are made to sound like there is significant justification for each step, which protects one from the shortfalls of other steps, but I can imagine that a combinatorial approach for each of the requirements would work just as well. Then again, I don't know anything about hens. Just my thoughts.

mauvehaus 14y ago
On the contrary, I think it's interesting that two different standard practices evolved in different directions, and that with a scientific look at them, we can understand why they're both effective for different reasons.
munificent 14y ago
> At the point that there is such a huge variation in practice, for most of these steps, I can't imagine that they are very significant/important. It seems a little premature to jump to that conclusion. The US and Great Britain are entirely different countries with different geography, climate, history, culture, laws, economies, etc. Farming doesn't exist in a vaccum. It's affected by all of that, so it stands to reason that those things will influence policies and practices. What I found interesting about the article was that while each system was different, each was internally cohesive. Trying to cherrypick one facet of one country's system and applying to the other would almost invariably make things worse. You have to understand the entire system. That's an important lesson to keep in mind when we constantly read articles like "Country X does Y and it makes Z B% better so we should too!" We need to always remember that X is doing Y in some context that likely matters deeply.
- mturmon 14y ago
  Smart comment. It's like each country is an ecosystem, which has evolved procedures that work. Still, each could be informed by the other. Presumably at the annual "International Conference on Egg Hygiene and Fowl Maintenance".

elptacek 14y ago

Coincidentally, I was just telling our kids last night how much store-bought eggs and raw chicken skeeves me out. I don't know where these things have been, who has touched them or what they've been fed. We never washed eggs with water (I grew up on a farm), just knocked any big bits off with a soft brush, like the kind you'd use for mushrooms. Too bad I can't keep some hens...

user24 14y ago

> Since the late 1990’s British farmers have been vaccinating hens against salmonella [...] Amazingly, this measure has virtually wiped out the health threat in Britain. "Amazingly"? No not really! Vaccination stops disease. It's completely expected, not amazing at all. edit: Likewise it's not "amazing" that cases of Diptheria, Measles, Polio, etc have been drastically reduced - by 100% in some cases - since widespread vaccination began in the USA (source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/02/19/a-graphic-that-drives-home-how-vaccines-have-changed-our-world/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/02/19/a-graph... )

falcolas 14y ago
When addressing a public who largely still links vaccines and autism, they would indeed find it amazing. To the remaining, thinking public, you're right. It's not amazing at all.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Hah, that's probably the next stop on the crazy train. "My child ate chicken that was vaccinated, and it gave my child autism!" On second thought, don't want to give them any ideas...
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  I would argue that the public doesn't "largely" believe that. The majority of parents get their kids vaccinated. It is a small fringe of people who believe things like that; just unfortunately these same people are the most likely to catch the disease (and be unable to afford decent treatment).
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    The really unfortunate thing is they can compromise herd immunity, leading to people who can't be vaccinated or even people who WERE vaccinated getting infected. I would be much more tolerant of the people who are afraid of vaccines, if it wasn't for the risk of them hurting other people with their decisions.

MichaelGG 14y ago

It seems like there should be solid data backing up the EU or US regulations. Is it not possible to accurately calculate how much/often contamination gets inside the egg? Do health records not provide sufficient evidence to determine if cross-pollution by end-users is causing sickness?

rsynnott 14y ago
Hard to do the experiment, as you need two countries with otherwise identical production practices, where one washes and the other doesn't. For instance, the US and the UK would be a bad example, because egg producers in the UK generally vaccinate for salmonella, while those in the US don't; regulations on things like cage sizes also differ substantially. You also need identical reporting regimes, which may actually be a greater problem; salmonella is not generally a mandatory reporting thing, and many people infected with it don't go to the doctor with it anyway; if you're a healthy adult it's pretty much just nasty food poisoning.

mauvehaus 14y ago

"guidance set out by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers recommends supermarkets maintain a temperature of between 66.2F to 69.8F in the winter and between 69.8F and 73.4F in the summer. Room temperature is generally considered to be between 68F to 77F." Does it drive anybody else a little nuts when newspapers don't either 1) leave the numbers in their original units and put the conversion in parentheses (or vice versa) or 2) round sensibly? It's misleading to suggest that anybody is measuring supermarket temperature to the tenth of a degree Fahrenheit by using so many significant figures. It would both help people understand the metric system and be a more accurate description of the situation to say that what's actually specified is 20 degC +/- 1 degC in the winter and 22 degC +/- 1 degC in the summer.

MrMember 14y ago
Reminds me of body temperature. In the US we're taught that the standard body temperature for a human is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know about anyone else, but when I was young I thought this was very specific and must mean that a temperature variation of a few tenths of a degree is worth noting. Turns out 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is just a direct conversion from 37 degrees Celsius.
gpvos 14y ago
As a non-American, the sentences are basically unreadable when they don't give the Celsius conversions (actually, in this case, the original values). The only thing I know is that 100F is roughly 37C. I have to get out a conversion tool. Doesn't Forbes have an international audience?
- adamauckland 14y ago
  There's plenty of countries who use the imperial system... Liberia and Myanmar!

DanBC 14y ago

This is a fascinating look at different systems. I hope that cooks are frequently washing their hands when preparing food, especially when moving between items that cary a risk of contamination (raw meats, etc) and already prepared items (cooked meats). Also: egg yolk colours are controlled by feed additives. Farmers can get colour charts and specify the colour of the yolk they want.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
I assume that the colors are limited to a fairly basic range of yellows, right? Or can I get blue yolks?
- ars 14y ago
  You can get green. Blue would be hard since blue + yellow = green.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Ha, yes. (http://www.robotmation.co.jp/keiranycceng.htm http://www.robotmation.co.jp/keiranycceng.htm) Range from a very pale yellow to a deep orange colour. Different countries have different preferences. EDIT: Here's a Tufte page about Salmon colour charts. (http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000XT http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0...)
- gadders 14y ago
  No, but with the right breed you can get blue shells.

spiritplumber 14y ago

This is why laws that cannot prove that they're consistent with physics and formal logic are useless and should not be considered when transacting business.

dagw 14y ago
Which part of which law here isn't consistent with which parts of physics and formal logic?

gcb0 14y ago

Both sound good in theory. And they arebeing applied for decades. Just get the delta of salmonella cases from before and after each solution was implemented and you will be able to measure which is better in practice.

greghinch 14y ago

Basics that I've seen when it comes to regulations of these kinds in US vs UK/EU: In the US, the regulations are primarily to serve the corporate interests (consistent production at scale, distribution over a wide area) In the UK/EU, the regulations are primarily to protect the citizens, often to the point of impeding business to a degree. I'd rather see the latter but it goes against pretty much everything we're taught from birth in the US.

rmc 14y ago
There is lots of EU law and regulations to do with making things easier for companies. Consistent naming and measurements (the metric system) as well as standardisation and certification (so that if you can sell in one member state, you can sell in all the others). Making a "single market" (as opposed to 30 different markets) is one goal of the EU.
- greghinch 14y ago
  Didn't mean to make it sound like the EU was anti-business, just meant that given the need for a choice, the EU/UK regulations tend to favor the needs of consumers/citizens over those of a corporation. In the US, the citizens are basically protected just enough to keep them complacent/prevent lawsuits, but the goal is to let the corp. maximize profit.
  - rmc 14y ago
    Oh, it's complex. I'm just saying there are lots of examples of the EU doing laws that make things easier for businesses.
    - PeterisP 14y ago
      Yes, but I've not really seen new EU-wide laws that make things easier for business by removing some of the many consumer-rights or worker-rights. And there are quite a few things that could be done that way to improve the economy.

kemiller 14y ago

I feel like there's a lesson for software here. You can have more than one effective system. Each will have its own properties, upsides and downsides, but you can't cherry-pick specific practices within the system and transport them into the other system, or even evaluate them in isolation. What is best practice in one system may be actively harmful in another.

mozboz 14y ago

To summarise the numbers: the American laws result in 0.045% of the population being affect by salmonella related disease, whereas the British laws result in 0.00093%, that's 50 times more illness in the US per capita.

bencoder 14y ago
You can't really judge how often chicken poo on unwashed eggs has caused illness though, that would probably not result in salmonella, I think.
Mvandenbergh 14y ago
It looks like that's purely because of the salmonella vaccination which is not required by American or British law but which British supermarkets require of their suppliers. Maybe that's easier to do because the UK supermarket space is more concentrated than it is in the US?

mydpy 14y ago

Why is this on Hacker News?

anigbrowl 14y ago
Because it's a practical example of A/B testing on a large scale.
tirant 14y ago
Look at the number of comments. It seems a lot of people are interested here.

scrumper 14y ago

Enjoyed this, very interesting. The salmonella scandal in the '90s was absolutely huge in Britain. The health minister at the time, Edwina Currie, was forced to resign over it. The tabloids subsequently dubbed her 'Eggwina' and she's never really lived it down.

alexkus 14y ago
> she's never really lived it down And dropped even further after the revelations about her affair with former PM John Major. mind bleach

rmc 14y ago

As a European who watches American TV & films, the one thing that strikes me about American eggs is the colour. They're white! This just looks wrong! Eggs here are a peach/pink colour. White eggs look like fake eggs.

felideon 14y ago
For some reason, I tend to buy brown eggs.
Aqwis 14y ago
Be careful with the "as a European". Eggs are sparkling white in many European countries.
rdouble 14y ago
It's simply because of different breeds of hens.
ars 14y ago
> Eggs here are a peach/pink colour. That's just the breed of chicken, not the post processing. You can get eggs in almost any color. Brown, white, and everything in between (peach) are common.
justincormack 14y ago
When I was a kid in the UK brown and white eggs were equally common. Now white is much more common but in the past few years you can buy brown and blue and so on in specialist places again.
- drucken 14y ago
  Your second sentence is a bit strange in my experience, unless you're referring to yourself now living in the US. I have never seen a white egg in a UK supermarket, stall market or cornershop. They are always brown/pink.
  - justincormack 14y ago

ndespres 14y ago

I'm a new (small) farmer, and I've just begun selling eggs from my small (70 hens) to neighbors, and they're often surprised when they see that the eggs are not refrigerated. I do have conversations a lot about this, and folks are often surprised to learn that the eggs in their grocery store cooler are often 2-3 weeks old already and that the refrigerator is a requirement to keep them edible for so long. Mine will be edible for just as long, and they taste fresher too!

hiharryhere 14y ago

So in short both methods = lower disease. Let's review the approaches: - EU relies on natures own mechanism along with responsible farming and vaccination - US relies on energy intensive washing, coating with a chemical spray and constant refrigeration Hmm...

dagw 14y ago
So in short both methods = lower disease. But the British method leads to even lower level of salmonella by an order of magnitude.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
  And with lower effort/expense too, it seems.