The Incredible Edible Egg

In an Irish supermarket you will find chicken eggs in these convenient six-packs.  And they are not refrigerated.     

I’ve taken note of this in France and you will find it to be generally true throughout Europe.  You go the grocery and you’ll find the eggs either at the end of an isle or on the shelf along with routine canned goods, pasta, rice or other nonperishable foods.  In the US the eggs are found in the refrigerated dairy case along with milk, butter, cheese and orange juice.     

Why is this?      

In the states egg production occurs in large-scale vertical operations. We go big.  Nevertheless, while this occupies less space the eggs are more susceptible to contamination by hen feces raining down from above.  As a consequence they have to be washed and decontaminated.  In Europe free-range systems are preferred.  The priority is to produce clean eggs at the point they are collected instead of cleaning dirty eggs after the fact.  It is also useful to know that washing an egg damages the outside layer known as the cuticle.  Without that natural protective barrier it becomes easier for bacteria to penetrate the egg.  Finally, vaccination has been linked to a rapid decline of salmonella cases in the EU.  US regulators have still not mandated immunizations - although many eggs producers do vaccinate their hens nowadays. 

In the end a freshly-laid Irish egg can hang-out on your kitchen counter or in a cool dry pantry for more than a week.  Although once you put it in the fridge it has to stay in the fridge.      

I’m not suggesting one paradigm is necessarily better than the other – they’re different.  And anyone that has barnyard, free-range, or backyard chickens already knows this. 

Clean eggs are next to godliness. 

And they taste great.     

According to the US Food and Drug Administration salmonella remains the most common cause of food poisoning in the United States.