answer me this please

[ChooksChick]

Quote:

Hogwash. If you look at the date code, you can determine for yourself the age of any eggs you buy. Some are VERY old. Some are not. This is why some peel very easily when you boil them, and some don't. It depends on your retailer, your region, your store, and no one can say without looking at an individual box. I have found some 2 months old in the store RIGHT next to eggs 2 weeks old. It is an individual thing and calling someone brainwashed is not exactly nice.

 

[Neil Grassbaugh]

Quote:

Hogwash. If you look at the date code, you can determine for yourself the age of any eggs you buy. Some are VERY old. Some are not. This is why some peel very easily when you boil them, and some don't. It depends on your retailer, your region, your store, and no one can say without looking at an individual box. I have found some 2 months old in the store RIGHT next to eggs 2 weeks old. It is an individual thing and calling someone brainwashed is not exactly nice.

Please read more carefully. OP said that the "store eggs are almost a month old by the time they reach the store". This is what I contend is untrue. There maybe eggs that a retailer allowed to get old but it is not good business for them to let any fresh product age.
Did you know that in the EU with all their consumer protection regulations that refrigerating eggs is not at all common?
Eggs peal more easily because of dehydration, not age. Dehydration may be a result of age but it is not the proximate cause. Commercially produced eggs that are commonly called "hard boiled" are not labeled with that description. They are called "hard cooked" because they are not boiled- they are roasted. That process causes some dehydration which makes the membrane easier to remove after the mineral portion of the eggshell is fractured and washed away.
My remark about being victimized by the food scare industry was one expressing sympathy, not a jest.

 

[Mervin]

My grandmother, who is now in her late 80s, is very much like this as well. She grow up on a farm, went to a one-room school, and had to live in a boarding house in town to complete high school. She still had a lot of the farm in her when it came to most things like work ethic and ingenuity--boy could she cook. With regard to meat though, she wasn't going near it if it didn't come from the IGA or some other grocery. She canned most everything and bought milk from the dairy, but meat and eggs came from a cooler at the store. I don't even think she'd go to a butcher shop. My family used to butcher hogs. As soon as my great-grandfather died my grandmother, I believe, put a stop to butchering. I don't really remember her being involved anyway, which was odd. She was up in everybody's business. It was very quirky and I still don't understand.

I grew up with a lot of folks who are put off but "fresh" farm flavors. My wife surprises me though. She used to be like that, but lately we've made an effort to eat more "locally". The other day she told me she prefers the "grass-fed" beef in the cooler at the dairy we go to. I'm surprised that she doesn't even seem concerned that it is probably made up of, at least in part, retired milkers. She's really taken to venison of late too. And, when she sees lambs now, she thinks roast and not a fuzzy puppet on PBS. It actually seems pretty contagious, her mother is becoming more daring as well and her mother is largely the reason she was epicuriously timid in the first place. Comparatively speaking, I've always been a bit of a gastronomic risk taker. It truly seems to be rubbing off now. Whenever I see my MIL slurp down a raw oyster or asks me to take her to the sushi place, then I'll know my work is done.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Quote:
I may be wrong, as I'm not the poster you quoted, but I'm pretty sure she meant the eggs you purchase at the store and boil at home, not the ones you buy already cooked.

 

[Cindy in PA]

When I first got EEs. I gave my Dad a dozen green and brown eggs. I told him before that some were green, but being 84 he forgot. Later on he told me he didn't know why, but some of the eggs in the carton had turned green, but he ate them anyway and they seemed OK.

 

[SpringChickens]

 

[Nostalchic]

I've given some of our eggs - lovely blue, green, brown and cream - to my older neighbor, and today he told me thanks, but that his wife said that she couldn't use those "off color eggs". I told him to tell her that these are gourmet eggs, (they ARE - organic free range eggs, super fresh and spotlessly clean) and that they charge $4.50 to $5.00 a dozen at the farmer's market or the health food store for eggs that aren't quite as good. He said he thought that might change her mind!

 

[Nostalchic]

I've given some of our eggs - lovely blue, green, brown and cream - to my older neighbor, and today he told me thanks, but that his wife said that she couldn't use those "off color eggs". I told him to tell her that these are gourmet eggs, (they ARE - organic free range eggs, super fresh and spotlessly clean) and that they charge $4.50 to $5.00 a dozen at the farmer's market or the health food store for eggs that aren't quite as good. He said he thought that might change her mind!
P.S. Sorry for the double post, but since I'm chiming in again, I'll say that to call intelligent analysis of the problems with the "food industry" a "food scare industry" is NOT a sympathetic statement, but a condescending and misguided one. I'm with you, Renee!

 

[NeeleysAVLChicks]

Quote:
I would contend that there are plenty of terrifying things found in the aisles of our grocery stores and we should all take a good hard look at what we're eating, where it comes from and what it contains. If the OP wouldn't mind a deviation from her original topic, would you please explain what you mean exactly by the "food scare industry"?

 

[ChooksChick]

Food and the wool being pulled over America's eyes regarding full disclosure is a hot topic for me. I'm afraid if I start down the rant on the tip of my tongue, this whole post is going down in flames, so I won't. I will say that the book The Ethics of What We Eat is an incredibly well researched book without any intended spin, just a record of what an ethicist and a journalist found when tracing groceries back to the source. If you want to call that a scare tactic, fine. It scares me. I wrote the Publisher's Weekly review back when I was a book critic, and it was one of the books that stays with a person for life. Great diet aid, too- I lost 10 pounds after reading it because some very common foods in our pantry were boycotted FOREVER.

http://www.amazon.com/Ethics-What-We-Eat-Choices/dp/1594866872

BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED THREAD...

I love the change in attitude folks get when they find the differently colored eggs 'gourmet' over 'different.' That will never lessen in amusement for me.

Regarding egg age: Grocery stores often get things shipped into a distribution center long before the get to stores. Eggs are no different, and may arrive at the grocery shelves quite aged because of this. Egg distributors often label the very same eggs for many, many different clients, and thus if demand is down, the eggs labeled for that client may sit for a bit. I worked for a grocer. I know sometimes stock would come in with VERY little time left prior to 'Use By' date, which invariably ended up in a Manager's Special or sale. Since there is such a prolonged shelf life for eggs, I'm guessing this means the eggs were a month-plus old, though at the time I didn't have chickens so I never looked.

Quote:
This sounds immensely condescending, so I'm going to assume you DON'T mean to. On certain things regarding food production to which many object, which may be what you considered the 'Food Scare Industry,' --if it is an industry, who profits from it? If you didn't mean to condescend, what did you mean?