Why you should refrigerate American Eggs, but not British ones

March 5, 2013 3:04 PM

Why American Eggs Would Be Illegal In A British Supermarket, And Vice Versa A look into why each policy makes sense due to each country's laws and regulations.
posted by meowzilla (70 comments total)

So do UK/EU mefites wash their eggs before cracking the shell, or wash their hands in between egg preparation and other ingredients? I don't think US-raised cooks generally do this - at least none of my friends do - and I never considered why I assume there's no harmful bacteria on the outside of an eggshell!
posted by muddgirl at 3:13 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

ten to twenty years ago...eggs were held in cold storage for much longer then before distribution – often up to a year after lay

In days of yore, when the king made a trip around the countryside they called it progress. It didn't have the modern connotation of changing for the better, just changing from one spot to another, eventually back to where he started. Current British and American practices are horrible, but so were the techniques of 20 years ago. Ugh.

(presumably Canadian egg farming is just fine)
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:15 PM on March 5, 2013

What about the eggs that come out of my American backyard? I don't normally wash them but *do* refrigerate them, largely just because it's a convenient place to put them. I also don't generally wash the eggs or my hands while preparing them, but I'm pretty convinced at this point that none of my four hens have salmonella.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 3:17 PM on March 5, 2013 [4 favorites]

The article was interesting but, urgh, the damned thing read like a high school essay. I don't normally get all huffy over shit like this but it is a high profile magazine and I expect better.
posted by Foam Pants at 3:19 PM on March 5, 2013 [7 favorites]

So do UK/EU mefites wash their eggs before cracking the shell...?

If it's got chicken crap on it, yes. If not, no. The chicken crap is strangely reassuring. I wasn't consciously expecting a Nestlé SynEgg® I don't think, but it's good to see evidence that a chicken was involved at some point in the process.
posted by cromagnon at 3:20 PM on March 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

I don't normally get all huffy over shit like this but it is a high profile magazine and I expect better.

Unfortunately, the Forbes website has basically turned into a content farm.
posted by zsazsa at 3:22 PM on March 5, 2013 [6 favorites]

So do they wash or refrigerate the articles before they publish them?
posted by Splunge at 3:26 PM on March 5, 2013 [7 favorites]

We keep our hen's eggs in a cardboard carton on the kitchen counter. Don't wash 'em before using - unless there's a bunch of straw stuck to them. Still not sick, and neither are the hens.
I had a 'regular' egg from the supermarket last week, first one in a while, and bleh - it tasted like nothing.
posted by dbmcd at 3:26 PM on March 5, 2013

muddgirl: I, an American, wash my hands and eggs between every crack and never measure anything else in the vessel that held the eggs.

However, I routinely drink egg nog and gin fizzes and whiskey sours made of raw eggs. I guess Walt Whitman was right about us Americans.
posted by crush-onastick at 3:31 PM on March 5, 2013 [7 favorites]

The article was interesting but, urgh, the damned thing read like a high school essay.

Maybe my standards are low after reading obvious SEO articles from reddit and fark, but this one seemed just fine to me.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 3:38 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

So do UK/EU mefites wash their eggs before cracking the shell, or wash their hands in between egg preparation and other ingredients?

No. I, and most likely many others, were raised with the belief of "a bit of dirt won't hurt you". I guess that if you're eating the egg of a chicken, you're going to be exposed to any illnesses it has anyway, shit or no shit. However, I do turn the egg round if there's any shit on it, and break the clean side. Sometimes you even get small feathers stuck to them.

The article was interesting but, urgh, the damned thing read like a high school essay. I don't normally get all huffy over shit like this but it is a high profile magazine and I expect better.

It was better researched and informed than half the stuff on the internet, so there's that.
posted by Jehan at 3:40 PM on March 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

However, I routinely drink egg nog and gin fizzes and whiskey sours made of raw eggs. I guess Walt Whitman was right about us Americans.

Please help me out with this reference.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:43 PM on March 5, 2013

> > I guess Walt Whitman was right about us Americans.
> Please help me out with this reference

I suspect it's a reference to this bit, from "Song of Myself":

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;
(I am large—I contain multitudes.)

posted by JiBB at 3:51 PM on March 5, 2013 [14 favorites]

As long I end up in a wheelbarrow on my wedding day, I'm content.

That said, brown only (no spawn of shitty, shitty trash bird Leghorns for me), bought from a local farm (thank heaven for Maryland's Mennonite-friendly Southern landscape), and unwashed, but I wash my hands with handling just in case.

And yes, I eat raw cookie dough and have yet to die horribly.
posted by sonascope at 3:53 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

From the article:

British farmers have been vaccinating hens against salmonella following a crisis that sickened thousands of people who had consumed infected eggs. Amazingly, this measure has virtually wiped out the health threat in Britain.

Vaccination has basically wiped out a contagion? That's really amazing. If only someone could have predicted this in advance.
posted by meehawl at 3:58 PM on March 5, 2013 [37 favorites]

Please wash your hands after cracking your eggs. Eggs come out of chicken butts.
posted by bq at 3:58 PM on March 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

Interesting, I'd heard that you have to refrigerate store bought eggs because they had been previously refrigerated and were therefore "dead", whilst eggs that were never refrigerated were "live" and could be kept at room temp.
posted by 445supermag at 3:59 PM on March 5, 2013

I used to convince my grandma to let me crack raw eggs in a glass to drink Rocky-style. (I would add a shit-ton of sugar and vanilla). Never once got sick. I also never got Rocky-strong.
posted by ian1977 at 3:59 PM on March 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

So, the article goes over the diametrically-opposed egg regulations in the US vs. UK (washing vs. no washing, refrigeration vs. no refrigeration, vaccination vs. no vaccination) and shows how they arise out of different regulatory environments and assumptions about the risks. But, the actual outcomes of these different regimes seems to be buried at the very end:

Britain - 581 cases of salmonella
USA - 142,000 cases of salmonella

Assuming a population 62 million for Britain and 314 million for the US, this leads to a per capita salmonella rate ~48 times higher in the US than Britain. Sure, this needs to be corrected for potentially different egg consumption rates, but even allowing for a 2x, 4x, or even 12x difference, this still implies a much, much higher salmonella rate in the US. Is this actually the case or am I not reading this right?
posted by mhum at 4:05 PM on March 5, 2013 [30 favorites]

mhum, that was pretty much my take-away from the article. Much as I'd love to herald this as proof that some dirt is indeed good for you, it's probably got less to do with the refrigeration-or-not/washing-or-not so much as the vaccinating-your-chickens-or-not, which you could quite happily do in either regulatory environment.
posted by Dysk at 4:12 PM on March 5, 2013 [7 favorites]

Chicken egg shells come out with an anti-bacterial "bloom". When you wash them hard you wash that natural protection off, which pretty much requires that you refrigerate them to preserve them. At our place, we wash the really dirty eggs gently (our 35 happy hens produce between 14 and 24 eggs a day - in Canada) and don't refrigerate them. I don't know about you, but I'll take a little chickenshit on my fingertips over a "chemical sanitizer." Then again, I also eat food that's fallen to the floor/ground well after the 5-second rule, as an immune system workout.
posted by kneecapped at 4:14 PM on March 5, 2013 [8 favorites]

On long voyages, eggs used to be preserved in a coating of "water glass" (sodium silicate). They would keep for many many months without refrigeration.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 4:18 PM on March 5, 2013 [4 favorites]

mhum: " this leads to a per capita salmonella rate ~48 times higher in the US than Britain"

Yes, and at around 80 deaths per year in the US from salmonellosis (not to mention the lingering injuries from arthritis, acquired kidney injuries, etc), that's around 78 easily preventable deaths, overweighted in elderly and the very young, at a cost of around 14 cents/chicken.

Salmonellosis is actually a continuum of disease. You only hear about the really bad cases where a particular strain has gone nastily pathogenic. But there are a whole lot more extremely mild cases, with some mild fever, GI distress, myalgia that people write off as "stomach flu" and never see a doc.
posted by meehawl at 4:22 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

There is another country, Japan, where eating raw eggs is commonplace; it's what you dip your sukiyaki in, and beaten raw egg on a bowl of plain white rice is a simple meal. As far as I know, there are very very few--if not zero--cases of salmonella poisoning each year in Japan.
posted by zardoz at 4:22 PM on March 5, 2013

I think I'd be more worried about washing the top of a drinks can than an egg shell. The former has probably been exposed to a lot more random handling, and is in contact with me and liquids heading into me for a lot longer.
posted by edd at 4:24 PM on March 5, 2013

I've wondered why eggs weren't refrigerated in England even since I studied abroad there in 2003. The most I could get out of anyone there at the time was "they taste better that way". This is a much better explanation.
posted by Tesseractive at 4:25 PM on March 5, 2013

Tesseractive: a lot of us refrigerate them once we have them at home, depending on how fast we plan to eat them. I always figured the shops just had enough turnover to not make it worth worrying about.
posted by edd at 4:27 PM on March 5, 2013

Dysk: it's probably got less to do with the refrigeration-or-not/washing-or-not so much as the vaccinating-your-chickens-or-not

Right. I should have made more clear that the article also buries the lead too with the whole vaccination thing. Like, why are they messing around with all this other stuff when vaccination looks to be the bigger part of the story? I guess it provides a hook for the article: "Hey, look at this little-known regulatory difference that makes US eggs illegal in Britain and vice versa."
posted by mhum at 4:32 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

zardoz: "As far as I know, there are very very few--if not zero--cases of salmonella poisoning each year in Japan."

It's seasonal.

In 1999, 11,888 (43%) of 27,741 patients of bacterial food poisoning were caused by Salmonella . While having decreased significantly since 2000, 2,053 (21%), 3,603 (28%) and 2,551 (25%) salmonellosis were reported among 9,666, 12,964 and 10,331 patients of bacterial food poisoning in 2006, 2007 and 2008, respectively

Japan has patchy vaccination uptake, much like the US.
posted by meehawl at 4:35 PM on March 5, 2013

Yeah, we keep our eggs in the fridge too, but I think for us it is a case of "that's where the dairy* goes".

(*Did you know that eggs are often thought of as dairy because in medieval times the jobs of milking the cows and feeding the chickens were done by the same maid? She was called the dey or dairy maid.)
posted by Jehan at 4:37 PM on March 5, 2013 [6 favorites]

Did you know that eggs are often thought of as dairy

No.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:39 PM on March 5, 2013

thanks for the stats, meehawl. I didn't know there were nearly that many cases of salmonella in Japan. But statistically, I think it's pretty low, at least compared with the U.S. 2,500 cases (if I'm reading that right) for 2008. Still far lower than in the U.S., and the consumption rate of raw eggs in Japan (also compared to the U.S.) is most certainly far, far higher.
posted by zardoz at 4:45 PM on March 5, 2013

as sure as eggs is eggs, right?

(i had no idea these differences existed)
posted by pyramid termite at 4:45 PM on March 5, 2013

Eggs. Our girls sometimes get poop on them. We wash at use because of the bloom metioned by kneecapped. We refridgerate because we do no real reason. Mid/dark winter they stopped laying completely and they are old so we had to buy probably factory eggs we still have 9 eggs and our girls are laying again but they are old so that is ok. One prolapsed 2 months ago on one of the coldest days this year it was frozen outside her... I admit I was a wus and waited too long but what was i going to do... I decided to put her out of her misery she truly had looked horrid... I stealed myself and went out... She was better the prolapse had gone back in I cleaned her bumb up as best I could and 7 weeks later there she is giving us eggs again. Chickens are awesome. And I am glad i did nit kill her (her name is Yu). I rant but all this since January... Next GOATS.
posted by mrgroweler at 4:48 PM on March 5, 2013 [18 favorites]

I'd say the problem lies more with the battery farming practices here in the US which lead to contaminated or soiled eggs. When your laying hens' living conditions aren't sanitary would you expect their eggs to be?

Since that situation's not going to change any time soon, vaccinating the hens would be a great idea.
posted by ooga_booga at 4:53 PM on March 5, 2013

In the US, eggs tend to have an expiration date that's not too far in the future (a month, maybe?). Why is that the case when this article says that eggs used to be stored for up to a year before being sold?
posted by jcrbuzz at 4:56 PM on March 5, 2013

I heard British eggs are horse eggs
posted by mattoxic at 5:20 PM on March 5, 2013 [15 favorites]

I wish there were labels on the eggs (This egg comes from chickens vaccinated for salmonella! There is a x% less change of getting salmonella from these eggs than other eggs!). A label like that would quickly get the practice rolling.
posted by Hactar at 5:29 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

I've had chickens. I would keep any eggs I didn't eat right away on the countertop unless I was trying to stockpile them to hard-cook (older eggs are easier to peel).

If I was saving them for boiling, I'd wash them thoroughly first, then refrigerate. If I wasn't, I'd just wash them before I used them.

An egg can come straight out of a cloaca mighty clean-looking, but enough of them don't that I think you can assume the presence of chicken poop in minute quantities.
posted by padraigin at 5:30 PM on March 5, 2013

I wish there were labels on the eggs (This egg comes from chickens vaccinated for salmonella! There is a x% less change of getting salmonella from these eggs than other eggs!).

Big agribusiness doesn't like any labeling except the kind that tells the consumer it's their responsibility to ensure the produce doesn't kill them, by basically cooking the living shit out of it. Quite literally in the case of factory-farmed meat and poultry, I might add.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:47 PM on March 5, 2013

Maybe this is just because I'm a fucking American but I would object to any regulatory change that might result in me buying an egg with chicken shit on it.
posted by silby at 5:57 PM on March 5, 2013

I wish there were labels on the eggs (This egg comes from chickens vaccinated for salmonella! There is a x% less change of getting salmonella from these eggs than other eggs!). A label like that would quickly get the practice rolling.

It would probably get the lawsuits rolling from factory farms for damaging their business by implying their eggs are unsafe. Such is the way of things in America. I see the producers of pink slime are suing ABC News for $1.2 billion for telling people what they are eating...
posted by MikeMc at 6:05 PM on March 5, 2013

The first day of my freshman "Introduction to Dairy Science" class (why, yes, that's a thing) the instructor gave each of us a pre-test to gauge the level of knowledge with which we entered the class. One of the questions was, "List three (3) dairy products." After reviewing the sheets, he regretfully informed us that, no, eggs are not dairy products. This is an easy mistake for US urban and suburban dwellers to make because the eggs are often located right next to the dairy cases.
posted by wintermind at 6:40 PM on March 5, 2013

Did you know that eggs are often thought of as dairy

According to James May, it's because the milkman brings them.


I'd say the problem lies more with the battery farming practices here in the US which lead to contaminated or soiled eggs. When your laying hens' living conditions aren't sanitary would you expect their eggs to be?

My hens living conditions are totally sanitary and clean and the eggs still get poop on them. Chickens are just kinda gross.


(Although battery farms are atrocious and the US should absolutely be vaccinating for salmonella.)
posted by elsietheeel at 6:49 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Lately I've been buying Pasturized eggs. I can't taste any difference. Why aren't all eggs Pasturized?
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:04 PM on March 5, 2013

Not sure if this is true for eggs, but I do know that ultra-pasturized cream is rather hard to whip into peaks.
posted by Foam Pants at 7:18 PM on March 5, 2013

However, I routinely drink egg nog and gin fizzes and whiskey sours made of raw eggs.

Drinks with egg are magical! I recently tried this recipe, which bills itself as The Best Amaretto Sour In The World, and features egg whites (and also, oddly, bourbon). I was skeptical going in, but I have to admit it lived up to the description.
posted by moss at 7:53 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

We've been eating our own ducks' eggs for 3 years now. They have a much waxier bloom on them than chickens' eggs (and they're much richer, with enormous tall yolks. Duck eggnog is substantial. Duck egg french toast is a rich, airy, buttery confection.) I rinse them in warmer-than-room-temp water, dry them, and stick them in the fridge unless they're intended for hatching. I rinse them because my girls aren't choosy about laying in the nest areas, and where there are ducks there is mud. I put the eggs in the fridge cos I've got 14 duck hens and the eggs we don't eat, we sell. Folks are uncertain enough about duck eggs without me trying to convince them that room-temp ones are also fine.

Next GOATS.

Oh mrgroweler. I can tell you right now that goat eggs are terrible.
posted by Lou Stuells at 7:56 PM on March 5, 2013 [7 favorites]

I wish there were labels on the eggs (This egg comes from chickens vaccinated for salmonella! There is a x% less change of getting salmonella from these eggs than other eggs!). A label like that would quickly get the practice rolling.

I'd label the unvaccinated chicken eggs instead.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:34 PM on March 5, 2013

The chicken crap is strangely reassuring. I wasn't consciously expecting a Nestlé SynEgg®

The one thing I don't like about eggs is thinking that they were churned up in the nightmarish innards of a tiny dinosaur and then squozened through a cloaca along with its various foul effluents. Eggs being visibly fresh from the cloaca is not really a selling point to me.

I look forward to the day when we can genetically torture avocado trees into bearing delicious "chicken" eggs that never passed though anything's digestive tract on the way to becoming food. Or nano synthesis. Whatever. Just eggs without the assholes is all I'm asking for.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:58 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

duck eggs...are much richer, with enormous tall yolks.

There was a farmer's market near me in San Francisco that sold chicken, duck and quail eggs. I bought a bunch of duck eggs and made the most amazing lemon meringue pie. We called it duck-egg pie. I haven't been able to get duck eggs since then.

(The quail eggs were a pain because they had really hard shells.)
posted by shoesietart at 9:12 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

In the US, we are told eggs keep for about 3 weeks in the fridge. How long do those who buy eggs at room temperature keep them on the counter/refrigerated?
posted by brujita at 9:31 PM on March 5, 2013

If you can't stomach a lil chickenshit here and again you REALLY shouldn't be buying pork or beef from the grocery store.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:55 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Supermarket eggs can be a couple or few weeks old before you even buy them. Here's how you can decode the USDA pack date, and the sell-by date can't be more than 30 days past the ship date. If there is a use-by date, that can't be more than 45 days past shipping.

I've had eggs three months old, refrigerated. They were fine - I trust the sniff test. Eggs aren't shy about going bad. Of course you can freeze them, too - crack them into a muffin tin or those small lidded gladware thingies, freeze solid, run under warm water to loosen them, and pop them all into a big freezer bag. I'm told you can freeze em in shell and then peel the shell off like a hard-boiled egg, too - I haven't tried it.

And yeah the meringue from duck eggs is pretty special. And oh my goodness the custard is out of this world.

shoesietart, has Whole Foods got duck eggs? The hatchery I got my geese from says they supply duck eggs to 15 WF stores in the SF Bay area.
posted by Lou Stuells at 10:18 PM on March 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Also, if you don't fancy washing eggs, you can just lick them clean.
posted by Lou Stuells at 10:20 PM on March 5, 2013

And yes, I eat raw cookie dough and have yet to die horribly.

Internet high-five for raw cookie dough eaters! I also lick brownie bowls.

YOLO
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 10:48 PM on March 5, 2013

Wouldn't radiating the eggs also get rid of the salmonella? In fact, shouldn't we do this with all groceries in case of cross contamination (e.g. salmonella in peanut butter)?
posted by bookman117 at 12:51 AM on March 6, 2013

Did you know that eggs are often thought of as dairy

Yes, as a lactose intolerant person I sometimes tell people I'd prefer to not eat dairy. The number of people that have thought that includes eggs has surprised me.

In a grumpy mood on a long flight I did once ask a flight attendant who told me I couldn't eat a dish because it had eggs if she had ever seen a cow lay an egg. She seemed more confused than anything.
posted by deadwax at 1:11 AM on March 6, 2013

So do UK/EU mefites wash their eggs before cracking the shell, or wash their hands in between egg preparation and other ingredients?

Not really, no.

I'm not sure why everyone assumes that British eggs must be ugly-looking unwashed things. Most eggs are pretty clean. Here's a pretty Cotswold Legbar egg I brought home from Waitrose. And here's a farmer selling her freshly laid eggs at our farmers market.
posted by vacapinta at 2:22 AM on March 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

In Switzerland, the eggs are in the dairy section. I conclude they are dairy. You can't argue with the Swiss about diary because Gruyère.

They appear clean and don't cause trouble. I always wash my hands after cracking eggs. I hadn't considered this precaution after merely handling them. I will, now. I do keep them chilled at home, because my mom did, and I'd never considered the alternative. Most eggs in my house, of course, end up in pancakes.
posted by Goofyy at 2:30 AM on March 6, 2013

I'm in the UK but had no idea that vaccination was so widespread nowadays or so effective. Given the UK's past consumer worries about eggs it seems odd that it isn't heavily publicised.

(I'll generally give eggs a quick wash, but it's not something I'm overly fussed about)
posted by malevolent at 2:38 AM on March 6, 2013

In the US, we are told eggs keep for about 3 weeks in the fridge. How long do those who buy eggs at room temperature keep them on the counter/refrigerated?

I keep them out of the fridge. Can't remember the last time I cracked open an egg that had gone off, but I'm sure I've had eggs up to a month old that were OK.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:14 AM on March 6, 2013

ROU_Xenophobe: " Just eggs without the assholes is all I'm asking for."

Then stay out of the Publix on West Colonial Drive in Winter Garden. Snotty bunch of assholes, the lot of them.

Just kidding.
posted by Splunge at 7:17 AM on March 6, 2013

I speculate that irradiating food would probably destroy some of the nutrients. This is the case with microwaving breastmilk.
posted by bq at 7:52 AM on March 6, 2013

I wasn't consciously expecting a Nestlé SynEgg®

On weekends I distribute raw milk and sell pastured eggs from a local farm. We often get unusual eggs - small "beginner" eggs from young hens, ripply eggs, lopsided eggs, eggs with rough patches. I think this is fascinating evidence of the non-industrial nature of the product.

Every so often someone buying eggs refuses a perfectly good dozen because the eggs are not all perfectly shaped and sized. Mind you, they have gone out of their way and are willing to spend extra money to get a more natural product - but they want that product to look like it came from an egg machine, not a living animal. Apparently they are expecting Nestlé SynEggs®.
posted by caryatid at 10:17 AM on March 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

brujita: "53In the US, we are told eggs keep for about 3 weeks in the fridge. How long do those who buy eggs at room temperature keep them on the counter/refrigerated?"

If the bloom is intact they should last quite a while. I've seen some prepper web pages where they seal washed eggs with mineral oil or waterglass (liquid sodium silicate) and keep them for up to a year. There's usually a recommendation to turn them once a week which is easy to do if they're in egg cartons. Not exactly sure why... maybe to maintain the structural integrity of the yolk?

If in doubt there's a very simple trick to determine if an egg has gone bad. If you're not sure about an egg simply put it in a bowl filled with water. If it's good it should drop to the bottom. If it's gone bad it'll float at the surface because of gas buildup in the interior. There are probably ways an egg can go bad without floating but if it's floating it's definitely no good.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:44 PM on March 6, 2013

Older eggs float because air sac inside gets bigger as the white dries out. Eggs that float can be perfectly good (especially for hard boiled eggs).
posted by elsietheeel at 8:34 PM on March 6, 2013

How would the egg white dry out if the bloom is intact or if the egg is fully sealed? Plus we're talking raw eggs here, not hard boiled ones. I think I'll stick to the floating equals spoiled approach even if it means that I'll occasionally dispose of a non-spoiled floater.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 1:33 AM on March 7, 2013

Egg shells are porous. The bloom protects the contents but it's not a hermetic seal. Eggs still lose moisture as they age.

And that makes them easier to peel when you hard boil them. Which is what I was referring to in my comment.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:07 PM on March 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

Apparently we've been doing it all wrong with our eggs, as they often come in with a bit of mud or shit on them. I have tended to wash them if they are particularly dirty, but it appears this is of marginal utility.
I don't bother washing my hands after cracking an egg either.
No illnesses to report, but perhaps that is because our chickens are healthy and we are eating eggs from the same 5 girls every day, rather than an industrial dozen which is presumably laid by 12 different hens, increasing the chances of a sick one over time.
posted by bystander at 11:51 PM on March 7, 2013