Refrigerating eggs

[CESOrtega]

When we were in Australia and New Zealand, I could not help but notice that they don't refrigerate the eggs for sale in the grocery store. Looked at me like I had two heads when I asked them why. My husband is from Mexico and they never refrigerate eggs there, either. But, when I was in Greece last year they do refrigerate theirs. I've talked to friends who "grew up on the farm way back when" and they said they went by the rule that you could leave them out unless they had been in the fridge for a time. In other words, once they were in there they couldn't be taken out and left on the counter. But, if you took them directly from the hen you could leave them out and they would be fine.

I've read a few comments on here that say you can leave them out for like 10 days, but surely in places like Oz and NZ, they can't sell everything they collect in 10 days? Heaven knows our eggs at the grocery store are older than that. Is this just yet another cultural thing?

Just wondering.

 

[mdbokc]

Actually, outside the USA, farm fresh eggs are rarely refrigerated and sold off the shelf in stores. Why? Because eggs that are fresh and have not been washed still have a protective shell or skin on them. Remember that a hen sits on the eggs for around 20 days or almost three weeks and eventually out pops a little chick. Does bacteria grow and contaminate the chick? No.

If they are washed and that protective skin is removed, or if they have been refrigerated ever, then yes, refrigerate them. Farm fresh, room temperature eggs, so say many naturalists, are far better for positive nutrition benefits than those bought in refrigerated grocery store cartons.

You can actually store fresh eggs at room temperature for about a
week. If you store them in the refrigerator, you can easily keep them there for as long as 6-8 weeks before they become "old".

 

[isadream]

If you leave the eggs out on the counter make sure you check them in a separate bowl before using them. I had gotten lazy and I tossed some eggs on the counter instead of in the fridge. A few days later I round them up and my extra spare eggs and went to scramble them for the dogs. One I had left on the counter was already ROTTEN and STINKY!! I will feed the left out eggs to dogs but not to me after that happened. The egg had not been washed or anything just left at room temps.

 

[Akane]

I don't see any reason why you can't refridgerate an unwashed egg and take it back out again for awhile. Eggs are good on the counter for quite awhile. Think about eggs being stored for incubating. They can sit around for weeks (preferably not more than a week but plenty have set 2 week old eggs) and not only aren't they rotten but they still hatch. If you aren't going to get to your eggs for months then refrigerating would be a good idea but if you eat them quickly then no reason they need to go in the fridge unless your house in the mid to high 90s F. In the fridge eggs that aren't contaminated will still be edible 4-6months later. Flavor may decline but they aren't at all bad.

If you get a rotten egg after just days that egg either sat in the coop longer than you thought or was very badly contaminated. Although even if it did get badly contaminated it should still take quite awhile to get very rotten. A bad egg can sit in the incubator and "cook" for days to a week before it really smells. The egg would not have been good even if you put it in the fridge. It just might not have been as bad. I've left some on the counter for more than a month or not collected from the coop for a week while gone and then fed them to the dogs. The worst eggs I've broken just had runny yolks that didn't hold firm. They were still far from being rotten but bad enough not to be eaten. The only smelly eggs I've broken were out of an incubator.