I think part of the article that's getting glossed over is:<p>"<i>A refrigerated egg, no matter the source, will be good for four or five weeks. Unrefrigerated eggs are best used within a week, though they may be fine for two.</i>"<p>So, one would want to refrigerate eggs (washed or unwashed) anyway if they're not all going to be used immediately.
Not explicitly mentioned, but is linked from the article:<p><i>In Europe, the understanding is that this mandate actually encourages good husbandry on farms. It’s in the farmers’ best interests then to produce to cleanest eggs possible, as no one is going to buy their eggs if they’re dirty</i> [1]<p>So in Europe, you need a clean environment as you're not allowed to wash the eggs. I find this equally compelling than not wanting to wash the protective cuticle off that protects against bacteria.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/25/why-american-eggs-would-be-illegal-in-a-british-supermarket-and-vice-versa/#58478d01a53e" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/25/why-ame...</a>
I'm a swede and I had no idea, I've refrigerated eggs as long as I can remember. My parents are from Croatia though so it's kind of weird that I picked up this habit. My relatives in Croatia do not refrigerate eggs.<p>Most swedes that I can think of refrigerate their eggs straight from the store. The recommendation is printed on the box to refrigerate.<p>Now that I've read this article it suddenly makes sense why I've sometimes seen dirt (maybe poo?) and feathers on store bought eggs.
My wife bought our chickens mainly on how pretty the basket of eggs would be on the counter. This is this weeks haul that we didn't eat - <a href="https://imgur.com/a/T9x4K" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/a/T9x4K</a>.<p>If you have the room, I highly recommend them as pets. They're quite cool and very low maintenance, and they make the best eggs you've ever had.
The thing is, salmonella <i>is</i> most prevalent on the outside of the shell, and that cleaning does save some lives (and misery). Meanwhile you can let your egg come to room temp if you prefer, before use. Finally, if you really want fresh eggs, you can raise them or hook up with a local farmer. Even in a big city, you can raise chickens for eggs.
A friend with chickens sent me this article a long time ago: <a href="http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/how-to-store-fresh-eggs-zmaz77ndzgoe" rel="nofollow">http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/how-to-store-fresh-...</a><p>Summary: unwashed eggs are edible for up to eight weeks on the counter, and can go much longer than that if refrigerated. Washed eggs go bad more quickly, but should still be ok for a couple of months. The hard part is, you really have no way to know how long it's been since a store-bought egg was laid.
I (Europe/Germany) put them in the fridge because the fridge came with an egg tray. Simple as that, never thought about leaving them outside.
Maybe that's a simple answer to why many people put them in the fridge, independent of 'how long they will stay good'.
In Swedish egg farms, if salmonella is discovered (in a mandatory screening), the entire flock must be killed off. This provides a good incentive to avoid salmonella outbreaks. The state reimburses up to 50% of the costs incurred (up to 70% if the farm is part of the additional voluntary salmonella screening program).
As someone who raises chickens for eggs on our hobby farm and have done much research surrounding this, having been raised in the U.K. and now living in Canada I have the following info:<p>In North America, I cannot speak to the quality of the conditions in which the eggs are laid, but they are washed. The Health Department requires that washed eggs be refrigerated due to the removal of the cuticle or "bloom". In the supermarket, eggs are refrigerated accordingly and they should be refrigerated at home too.<p>In the U.K. the eggs don't undergo any process that removes the cuticle and thus they're not refrigerated in the supermarket and thus don't need to be refrigerated at home.<p>When I pick the eggs from our free as in "can come and go as they please" chickens in the morning, some of the eggs I have been stepped all over by careless chickens with dirty feet and thus I like to wash those eggs and they can either then be dipped in mineral oil to mitigate the need for immediate refrigeration or as I frequently do, I put them in the fridge after I wash them. If the eggs are clean, I don't wash them and leave them on the counter where I treat them as good for 2-3 weeks without a second thought. Of course, if I were selling these eggs, which sometimes I do, it's usually less of a ball ache my explaining why they don't need refrigeration than it is just to wash them and tell people just to keep them in the fridge as normal - unless they want the whole "farm fresh organic treated like wild chickens" experience, in which case I tell them to keep them on the counter in a little wicker hay lined basket for that farmhouse vibe... and eat them up within a week... because that way they'll buy more.
Please excuse me if my question is dumb, I've never been to the US so I might just be uninformed...<p>I've noticed in movies and shows that eggs in the US usually have a white shell, whereas in other countries (at least the ones I have lived in, i.e. Europe, SE Asia and Australia) they are usually of a colour that I would describe as beige/light-brown. is that because of the washing process described in the article, or is it just because of the hen's breed?
If this interested you, then you might also be interested in water glass, or sodium silicate [1]. It is still used today by some sailboat crews to keep fresh eggs on board without refrigeration for up to five months, without resorting to powdered eggs.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_silicate#Food_preservation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_silicate#Food_preservat...</a>
Ah ha! I had always wondered why we'd buy a crate of 24 eggs at Carrefour in France when I lived there for two years, just off the grocery floor. I didn't feel bad not refrigerating them there, but of course must do so again now. Satisfying answer.
Whenever I buy eggs from the store I refrigerate them. My chickens and ducks however I don't bother with. Eggs don't last long around my house, have a few labradors who I feed a home cooked diet in which eggs are a daily item.<p>I think the washing/not washing discussion is interesting. It really highlights a difference in food approaches between the US and EU. One of the things that really annoys me about the US is the raw milk stuff. I live in PA so I can get raw milk pretty easily; live a mile from a raw milk farm that's been in business since 1840 or something. This farm has a good track record, some others don't. I remember in Mike Pollan's Netflix's documentary series the part about the cheese nun and the FDA. The FDA individual simply stated that in France the practices are much more rigorous than the US. Why can't we develop a system that allows raw milk from farmers who follow similar procedures? Why can I still not buy raw milk cheese under so many days old directly from France? The ban probably angers me more than anything since I'm really big into cheese and raw milk cheese from France tastes better than pasteurized stuff. Raw milk itself I'm content with since I get it from the farm nearby. It's what I grew up on, whenever I have milk from other sources the differences are night and day. The differences in food approaches is interesting.. and really shows how far the US has gone off track. Not to mention the damn ban on tonka beans.
Wait, this is seen as an American thing?<p>Because I'm from the UK, and most people I know here store boxes of eggs in the fridge. That's how we've done it for decades, and that seems to be the 'norm' where I live. Certainly never seen any eggs laid out in a bowl on a table or worktop.<p>Maybe it's a regional thing here?<p>Edit: Just checked online a bit. Seems like it's a matter of individual opinion here, based on this Guardian thread:<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-26086,00.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-26...</a><p>The Daily Mail run a 'study' about it:<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2421530/So-eggs-fridge-Scientists-crack-age-old-argument-chilled-room-temperature-best.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2421530/So-eggs-frid...</a><p>And there's a Yahoo News UK article saying not to:<p><a href="https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/never-put-eggs-in-the-fridge--a-dozen-food-myths-that-could-cost-you.html" rel="nofollow">https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/never-put-eggs-in-the-frid...</a><p>Certainly doesn't seem like a unanimous difference between countries.
I live in Sweden and we've kept our eggs unrefrigerated in our home. However, we recently sponsored a chicken and now get to buy more ethically obtained (in my opinion) eggs from a small local farm in batches that might last a month or so. The farm owner recommended that we refrigerate the eggs, I suspect because we are not using them as quickly as you would otherwise go through a carton of eggs from the supermarket. I'm also not sure what period of time the eggs are collected over, so they could very well already be a week old by the time we receive them. So now we refrigerate to be safe.
There's a similar thread (for a different article) with 78 comments here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029882" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8029882</a>
Raised chickens for some time. Noticed my eggs would "sweat" when I'd take them out of the refrigerator vs store bought which do nothing at all; after a time at room temperature they'd reabsorb. I'd imagine that's pretty dangerous if you're running a cesspool operation - pulling in liquid contaminated by whatever is on the shell.
French here : eggs are usually sold refrigerated (Leclerc, Auchan - but not my SuperU for instance) and I keep them in the fridge, like everyone I know (and have seen manipulating eggs)
Interesting; explains why my Chinese friend has a habit of leaving the eggs out on the counter after taking them out of the fridge. Thought she was just absent-minded.<p>Seems like it would be fine for them to blow them off with air, and irradiate them. Then if there's some crap stuck to them you at least won't be getting salmonella.
In Austria (AUSTRIA -> EUROPE, NOT AUSTRALIA ;-] ) most of the eggs are chilled and people chill them also. I see very rarely some eggs not in the supermarket fridge and asked myself at this moment: how they prevent the eggs from decay
SciShow did a great little video on this.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/LJwO5SdGcLk" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/LJwO5SdGcLk</a>
america here, we used to own chickens -- the rule my wife told me is if it's fresh--it can sit for 1-2 months without putting in fridge, if it's store bought it must be refrigerated because of the cuticle. -- Though not sure on store-bought but un-washed eggs, since there's obviously handling and processing between farm and home it could obviously shorten the life span.
We get our eggs from local farmers who raise chickens in old fashioned coops. In addition to tasting much richer without having to pay for "organic" eggs (because they get to run around and eat bugs), they keep longer as well. We don't bother refrigerating them either.
I love how, once again, the states are clueless, forcing companies to wash the eggs on one continent, and forcing them not to on the other continent. Another useless law, hampering the production of vital goods.