I do often see the notion that 'UK is Europe', particularly by American media; and that if something is true in the UK, it's probably true in the rest of Europe, so they often don't bother checking.

Because, sure, we all drive on the left.

Most of europe drives on the right, or was that the joke?

That was the joke.

It's unfortunately, not uncommon for stories to describe something Europeans do (when they really mean Britons), that I seldom can relate to, until I realise they are only using the UK as a sample. Although, I should point out, that sometimes it's other countries used as basis for what Europeans do (say France or Germany), when it might be exclusive to either two countries (or a subset of European countries, say Southern European).

I also notice this in release dates for video games,[0] often a UK release date is published, when they really mean a European release date. (Although, to be fair to Canada, I often see US release dates, when they mean North American.)

[0] The same pattern isn't necessarily true for music, film and book releases, because they don't have so wide releases as video games usually have.

That was irony, which is used often by Europeans.

Yes, that was a joke. We make fun of UK for driving on the wrong side too sometimes.

In France eggs are not refrigerated. Also the refrigeration can cause condensation, and water outside of the egg can cause the infection.

No refrigeration of eggs in stores in Ireland. When we get them home the leprechauns immediately steal them from the shopping bags so we have no idea whether we'd keep them in the fridge or not, pesky leprechauns.

In Spain, supermarkets never refrigerate eggs, but they are refrigerated when they are bought by customers.

Some customers.

I'm Danish. I've also worked in something like 5 different supermarkets and naturally shopped in many, many more. I have _never_ seen a supermarket that doesn't refrigerate them. Which supermarkets don't?

Not refrigerated in many parts of Mexico and Latin America either.

In Turkey, there is no refrigeration either.

Not refrigerated in France either.

Belgium also no refrigeration...

Where have you seen non-refrigerated eggs in Denmark? I have never seen that.

Also Danish eggs aren't washed, they are however salmonella free.

How could you possibly know that

The Danish poultry farmers have been working extremely hard to eradicate salmonella. They do have some small insentive though. If you can prove that your countries chicks do not have salmonella, then the EU allows you to ban import chicks from countries that cannot make the same guarantees. This frees Danish poultry farmers from competing with German or eastern European farmers. The same laws applies to eggs, so throwing huge investments into figthing salmonella pays of in the long run.

Food safety in Denmark, and the rest of Scandinavia is a huge deal, but it's expensive.

http://sciencenordic.com/no-more-salmonella-danish-poultry

How it's actually ensured: http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2014/03/contamina...

> If you can prove that your countries chicks do not have salmonella, then the EU allows you to ban import chicks from countries that cannot make the same guarantees. This frees Danish poultry farmers from competing with German or eastern European farmers. The same laws applies to eggs, so throwing huge investments into figthing salmonella pays of in the long run.

That is a very clever, possibly even devious, way of fighting salmonella. Shield the ones who do it right from competitions by the ones who do it wrong. Maybe we should do that in more industries to get everybody to step up their game.

Your comment prompted me to ask DuckDuckGo that exact question, where I found a quite interesting report on the prevelance of salmonella in eggs: http://multimedia.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/fsis5004report...

Some take-aways:

The overall UK finding was that 9 samples (0.34%) were contaminated with Salmonella , which is equivalent to approximately 1 in every 290 “boxes” of 6 eggs.

Factors that might have influenced whether or not eggs were contaminated with Salmonella were also examined. However, where differences were found these tended to be small and much larger sample sizes would have been required to demonstrate a statistically significant difference.

There was no statistically significant difference between the prevalence of Salmonella contamination in samples purchased in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland; or between the prevalence of Salmonella contamination in samples from different egg production types; or between non-Lion code eggs and Lion code eggs; or between eggs that were stored chilled or at ambient temperature.

However, there was a statistically significant higher prevalence of Salmonella contamination of eggs from medium sized retailers* than large retail outlets.

*independent/local shops

He checks them. All of them.

But people still store them in the fridge after they get back home!

No refrigeration of eggs here in Switzerland.