It did surprise me very much since I don't know much about that field, and the article itself had a lot more curious/useful/new to me info like, quote, "We don't have massive [food safety] issues on either side of the Atlantic. Both methods seem to work" that expanded on the title. I hate clickbait as much as anyone else, but this didn't look like it.
> Why go to the trouble of washing eggs? A lot of it has to do with fear of salmonella.
> [...]
> eggs contaminated with salmonella are responsible for about 142,000 illnesses a year in the U.S., according to the Food and Drug Administration
Sounds like 2014 had some solid data on the fact that it was a pointless practice.
So, atleast in germany, you're 3 times less likely to get infected by salmonella, relative to the population.
I would however note that there is no reliable statistic on how many of those are due to eggs and how many are from other sources, considering meat and other products can carry it as well.
https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/01/poultry-vaccinations-...
On the other hand, according to Galiş et al. (2013), "Control of Salmonella Contamination of Shell Eggs—Preharvest and Postharvest Methods: A Review" (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.1...), vaccination of chickens against Salmonella is _banned_ in Ireland. Yet, the country has the second lowest incidence rate of Salmonellosis (5.6-7.1 cases per 10K population over the five-year period 2012-2016, second only to Portugal) among all countries in the EU. In contrast, the incidence rates in the UK over the same period were significantly higher (12-15 cases per 10K).
Why are the Irish figures so low? Perhaps the Irish eat fewer eggs than the others. Perhaps most Salmonella infections are due not to eggs, but to other contaminated foods or poor kitchen hygiene. While vaccination of chickens against Salmonella is effective against egg-based Salmonella infection alone, without a detailed breakdown of numbers, we cannot tell what's its impact on the overall incidence rate.
I'm not saying that the only way to control Salmonella is vaccination, but it is clearly an extremely effective method.
Other countries immunize their chickens. In the US only about half the chickens are immunized.
Vaccinating the chickens and keeping the eggs unwashed is basically as much natural protection as you can get from nature, washing them means you have to protect the egg yourself a lot more, otherwise salmonella and other bacteria can infect it.
> With this layer, an egg cannot be invaded by bacteria after it's been laid.
They spray mineral oil, which works just as well. This layer the chicken leaves is just some oil, not magic. You do NOT need to refrigerate washed eggs in the US. You just don't.
Try it if you don't believe me. Take some eggs and leave them out for 2 months - they'll be just fine.
> washing them means you have to protect the egg yourself a lot more, otherwise salmonella and other bacteria can infect it.
See this is not factual either. Salmonella infects the eggs before they are laid, not after. That's why vaccinating the chickens works.
And as I said above, there is no additional protection needed with washed eggs.
Refrigerating eggs in the US is SOLELY to keep salmonella from multiplying inside the eggs. Despite what this article says it is NOT about washing the eggs which is simply done because they have unsightly feces on them, that's all.
If not, someone ought to be able to make a big spinning needle-wheel to vaccinate chicks at a rate of 10 per second from a big bucket of vaccine.
If there's a patent, you can bet it'll be billed at a couple of dollars per dose, which is totally infeasable when 1 cent per chick can be the profit margin.
Buy some here: https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=FBE23AC3-EB6...
$41.40 for 5,000 doses.
Production chickens have a one day laying cycle, so you get about an egg a day, for about a year before production drops off to less than that. So that's 5 cents on a minimum of 350 eggs (more if the chicken is kept despite production drop-off), which would be a staggeringly irrelevant price increase per egg if vaccination would be legislated into being a mandatory practice.
Which it should be.
Years ago.
I always wash the eggs I receive from farm under running water before I cook them into omelette.
Certainly we've never had problems with eggs staying fresh in the cupboard for months, and would never put them in the fridge. Course it's not common to get that old, but we often go past the 2 weeks best before date. First thing to do with a new fridge is throw away the pointless egg tray. :)
The eggs from the chickens my wife and I raise on the farm can be stored for about 4 weeks at room temperatures. Probably more, but we usually use the eggs or trade them away long before that.
Putting a six-pack of eggs in the refrigerator is one thing though. If you have larger quantities than that, it's rather unpractical (and unnecessary) to store them in a refrigerator.
I won't say the usage is definitely wrong (being English, after all), but it struck me as interesting.
Now I'm intrigued how different stores / Woolies / Aldi handle this...
Bought free range eggs at Coles yesterday. I still put them in the fridge when I get home out of habit; not sure why now. :)
Edit: Found this article, probably inspired by TFA linked to story. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/should-you-refrigerate-eg...
"if you keep your eggs in the fridge, then you should let them come to room temperature before cooking – if you start with a cold egg, then you're more likely to end up overcooking the yolk trying to get the white to set."
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/no...
Australia only started washing eggs recently, in the last 10-20 years. Before then you could leave eggs on the bench for 2+ weeks with no issues, now they need to be refrigerated if you're going to keep them longer than a couple of weeks. It's silly.