Single Man’s Kitchen

Fear of eggs
By Jeremy Goodwin, May 11, 2007

People familiar with the eggs bought in the US have an irrational fear of unrefrigerated eggs that are most often available in SMA.

One hundred years ago, most refrigeration was dependant on ice blocks, cut in the winter and stored against the summer weather. Until the advent of reliable, affordable cooling systems, iceboxes were never used to preserve the humble hen’s egg. At that time a significant number of people had their own hens, ducks, geese and doves which provided a really fresh and almost constant supply of eggs, but those that made it to market traveled at ambient temperatures.

The loudest argument about egg safety is usually about salmonella. Over the last few decades, public awareness of salmonella poisoning has been exaggerated to the point that many people are scared of runny yolks. This is more a result of the unsanitary conditions in a battery farm, as chickens are not inherently transmitters of salmonella.

The truth is that until the advent of battery farm egg production, room temperature eggs were the norm and seldom caused any problems. With the factory farm techniques of both chicken and egg production, the birds were forced into conditions that accentuated the potential for producing toxins.

The first factor in the chain is that chickens have a cloaca, a combination of the anal orifice and the reproductive orifice, meaning that they lay eggs through the same passage used for defecation.

For a normal, free-range chicken, the eggshell is a thick, oxygen permeable barrier. The hen’s diet usually includes a significant percentage of insects, which provide both protein and the products that result from digesting the chitin, or exoskeleton. It is those products that are crucial in the formation of the eggshell and its unique properties. Insect chitin is commonly used as both an ingredient of wood varnishes and as the covering of many candies (e.g. M&Ms) So it has great potential as a barrier to the effects of high temperature and mold or bacterial contamination.

The battery egg production system over-emphasizes the number of eggs produced per chicken, and the grading system provides sufficient product to satisfy the retail market. The majority of eggs produced fall into gradings that are sold to the commercial interests, and are so inferior to a naturally produced egg they are barely recognizable as the same product. The shells are transparent and the proteins in the albumen are so weak that when broken, the albumen will spread over four times the egg’s diameter.

When it comes to refrigeration, a battery-produced egg is usually available for purchase at six to ten weeks from having been laid and is still edible up to the sixteenth week.

Ironically, a free-range egg that has never been refrigerated is still good until the eighth week, after you should apply the float test: if it floats, throw it away.

The weakest aspect of my cooking skills is desserts and baking. Most of the recipes I have some skill with require eggs at room temperature, but the quality of the eggs makes a huge difference.

Battery eggs have the normal division between the two levels of albumen (white) but the protein bonding is so weak that beating to soft peaks is not sufficient to provide the required stiffness if the final product is meringue. The contrast between various grades is easily visible in the photograph as the thinner proteins cook much quicker than the farm eggs.

Another indicator of the quality of an egg is that it shares a lack of self-support with gelatin. The lower-quality egg contains less binding proteins and appears flatter when broken.

Over the years I have developed a taste for eggs from a large variety of birds and reptiles, but the most commonly consumed is the jungle fowl that is nowadays known as chicken. Even within this fairly narrow range, there is a surprising variety of taste, shape and color.

All the eggs in the final two photos are of chickens of various breeds and sizes.

Insert eggs “fresh and varied” and “three egg”

Jeremy Goodwin is an author, freelance food writer and owner of The Best Kept Secret. He may be contacted at Jeremy@dcnet2000.com.