Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to sign Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio, I'm
Speaker 1: Hoar hit Cham and today we're cracking open a question
Speaker 1: that humans have been asking for over a century. Do
Speaker 1: eggs need to be refrigerated? We're gonna unscramble this mystery
Speaker 1: by taking a deep dive into the signs of eggs,
Speaker 1: answering questions like what does it mean for an egg
Speaker 1: to be Grade A or B? How does salmonella get
Speaker 1: inside an egg? And is it okay to eat raw eggs?
Speaker 1: As we'll learn, the answer kind of depends on where
Speaker 1: you live, So get ready to whisk up some knowledge
Speaker 1: and become an expert as we tackle the question do
Speaker 1: eggs need to be refrigerated?
Speaker 2: Enjoy? Hey? Everyone?
Speaker 1: Okay, if you're someone who eats eggs every day or
Speaker 1: only occasionally, you're not alone. According to the US Department
Speaker 1: of Agriculture, the average American eats about two hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety eggs a year. The average European eats two hundred
Speaker 1: and seventeen eggs per year, although it varies by country.
Speaker 1: For example, in Greece, the average person eats one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty one eggs a year, but in Denmark they
Speaker 1: eat three hundred in Asia. The average person in Hong
Speaker 1: Kong is estimated to eat four hundred and fifty eggs
Speaker 1: per year. Scientists estimate that by twenty thirty, about ninety
Speaker 1: three million tons of eggs, that's about two trillion eggs
Speaker 1: will be produced and sold.
Speaker 2: Worldwide per year.
Speaker 1: Purely, eggs are a big part of our diet, and
Speaker 1: for good reason. Eggs are full of nutrients and they're
Speaker 1: relatively cheap. According to historians, humans have been farming eggs
Speaker 1: for thousands of years. The first chicken is said to
Speaker 1: have been domesticated around ten thousand years ago, and throughout
Speaker 1: all that time we didn't refrigerate the eggs. Refrigerators were
Speaker 1: invented in the eighteen hundreds, with the first home fridge
Speaker 1: being sold in the early nineteen hundreds. And yet, at
Speaker 1: least in the US, eggs are found in the refrigerated
Speaker 1: section of the supermarket, and the fridge is where most
Speaker 1: of us keep.
Speaker 2: Them when we bring them home.
Speaker 1: But if you talk to anyone with backguard chickens, or
Speaker 1: if you travel abroad a lot, you might have noticed
Speaker 1: some people just leave their eggs out, which also makes sense.
Speaker 1: Keeping eggs cool makes moving and storing eggs more complicated
Speaker 1: and expensive and they take up space in your fridge.
Speaker 1: So do we have to refrigerate eggs? To help answer
Speaker 1: this question, it reached out to a bonafide expert, Professor
Speaker 1: Kapil Cho Saltcar. Here's what he does. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: doctor Cho sal Car for today no problems a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Can you please tell us who you are and what
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 3: I teach at the University of athlet in Australia and
Speaker 3: I also practice of thetan Areas a Poultrybaateinaria. Microsearch group
Speaker 3: has been researching on eggs and Salmanala for the last
Speaker 3: several years.
Speaker 1: So he tell us what are the current laws or
Speaker 1: guidelines or customs about storing eggs in different regions of
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 3: Interestingly, the rules and the regulations around egg storage or
Speaker 3: refrigerations they do vary from country to country. The US,
Speaker 3: for example, stipulates the eggs they must be stored or
Speaker 3: held in transported at the temperature no greater than seven
Speaker 3: point two degrees that is not more than forty five
Speaker 3: degrees fahrenheit. In the UK, eggs must be held at
Speaker 3: the constant temperature that can range between five to twenty
Speaker 3: degrees celsius. There's a difference there. If you look at
Speaker 3: the European Union, for example, they dictate that eggs must
Speaker 3: not be refrigerated. So there's a variation from country to country.
Speaker 3: In Australia, very interesting. Every state has got a different
Speaker 3: recommendation around the transport. Many grocery shops they're still store
Speaker 3: eggs at room temperature.
Speaker 1: Do you know how what it is in other parts
Speaker 1: of the world like Asia, or.
Speaker 3: When I visit a number of farms in India, for example,
Speaker 3: those eggs are not stored at a refrigeration temperature on
Speaker 3: the farm or during transport. In a big supermarkets in
Speaker 3: India they are stored sometimes in the refrigerator, but not
Speaker 3: always so.
Speaker 1: Laws and regulations around refrigerating eggs are different depending on
Speaker 1: the country. For example, in Latin America, there are also
Speaker 1: no regulations about egg storage. In Brazil, which produces about
Speaker 1: ninety three billion eggs a year, it's only suggested that
Speaker 1: you put your eggs in the fridge after you buy them. Now,
Speaker 1: when I heard this, I thought it was odd that
Speaker 1: different parts of the world have different requirements by refrigerating eggs.
Speaker 2: Why is that?
Speaker 1: Is it optional? Does it depend on the egg or
Speaker 1: the culture of each region. Well, it turns out a
Speaker 1: big reason is a word that should be familiar to
Speaker 1: anyone who does any regular cooking with chicken products, and
Speaker 1: the word is salmonilla. But the main concern seems to
Speaker 1: be about bacteria.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 3: For eggs? Yes, so a name of vectory is called salmonella.
Speaker 3: Some of you may have heard about it in the audience,
Speaker 3: but that's a predominant concern across the world in terms
Speaker 3: of food safety.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what salmonilla is?
Speaker 3: It's a bacteria. People may have heard its name in
Speaker 3: two contexts. So when it's salmonala typhee, which is called
Speaker 3: a typhotole salmonella, it results because of the the hicle
Speaker 3: or contamination typically what we call human to human transmission
Speaker 3: when it comes to eggs and chicken may to some degree.
Speaker 3: We are talking about the salmonella which falls into a
Speaker 3: category of non typhoid or salmonella, so it does not
Speaker 3: cause typhoid, it causes food poisoning. So there are two
Speaker 3: main ones. But there are many, many types of salmonella,
Speaker 3: more than two thousand, five hundred different types what in
Speaker 3: the world, So there are many of them.
Speaker 1: Wow, there, but not all.
Speaker 3: Of them are as nasty as some of them, like
Speaker 3: Typhanirum and introduce, and there are some others as well.
Speaker 1: These are all bacterias. They're all called salmonilla, but they're
Speaker 1: just different kinds of species of bacteria.
Speaker 3: There are different kinds of species of bacteria within salmonilla.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The first thing to know about salmonilla is that there
Speaker 1: are many different kinds of salmonilla. As like your chul
Speaker 1: Salker says, there are over twenty five hundred different serophars
Speaker 1: or strains of salmonilla. Some cause typhoid fever and are
Speaker 1: transmitted from humans to humans by poop, and some cause
Speaker 1: food poisoning and are transmitted from animals to humans by
Speaker 1: eating contaminated foods. So a salmonilla, these are bacteria that
Speaker 1: are already in the chicken, so they just live in
Speaker 1: the gastrointestinal tract they do.
Speaker 3: Birds themselves do not show any clinical signs or symptoms.
Speaker 3: They don't get sick because of salmonilla. So as a veterinarian,
Speaker 3: there is no way to find out whether chickens are
Speaker 3: carrying salmonilla or not until we really test those samples,
Speaker 3: and it's expensive testing is not cheap. It's expensive to.
Speaker 1: Test the chicken to see if they have salmonilla.
Speaker 3: If they have.
Speaker 1: Salmonilla, Okay, here's the thing about salmonilla. It's kind of
Speaker 1: impossible to tell if a chicken has it or not.
Speaker 1: The bacteria can live happily inside the chicken's guts and
Speaker 1: you might never know. First of all, it doesn't affect
Speaker 1: the chickens. They don't get sick from it. And second,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really come out of their food unless the
Speaker 1: chicken is stressed.
Speaker 3: So they have to test their poop. And birds often
Speaker 3: don't shed that in their faces. It can become a
Speaker 3: normal part of their gastro in personal microflora and can
Speaker 3: live happily in the gut of the birds. So if
Speaker 3: you keep your birds happy and comfortable, they tend not
Speaker 3: to shed it. When birds are stressed, they tend to
Speaker 3: shed it. Then the bacteria tends to replicate in the
Speaker 3: higher number and contaminate the eggshell. Okay, So to recap
Speaker 3: many chickens may have some type of salmonella. Not all
Speaker 3: salmonillas can cause foodborne illness, and not all chickens may
Speaker 3: carry salmonilla. Some of them do, some of them don't
Speaker 3: so unless we do testing of their feces at the
Speaker 3: right time.
Speaker 1: But it's out there. Some chickens have it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes out some chickens have an unfortunately only way to
Speaker 3: find that out is when people get sick. Chickaus don't get.
Speaker 1: Sick, all right, So some chickens have salmonilla, and sometimes
Speaker 1: that salmonilla can be the kind that gives you food poisoning.
Speaker 1: Now the question is how does that bacteria get on
Speaker 1: the eggs. We're going to get into the nitty gritty
Speaker 1: of chicken anatomy and egg production after the break. Stay
Speaker 1: with us. You're listening to sign stuff and we're back.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: We're answering the question of whether eggs need to be refrigerated,
Speaker 1: and the answer seems to involve a bacteria called salmonilla.
Speaker 1: We learned some kinds of salmonilla can live inside the
Speaker 1: cuts of chickens, and some of those can give you
Speaker 1: food poisoning through the eggs. Now, the question is how
Speaker 1: does the bacteria get on the eggs. Here's what our expert,
Speaker 1: doctor Joe scar said. Now, how did they sell many
Speaker 1: like kid on the eggs?
Speaker 3: Not a lot of people who are not farm in
Speaker 3: background understands where egg comes from. It comes from a
Speaker 3: backside of a chicken. And the literally one hole there
Speaker 3: where the poop and the egg comes out from.
Speaker 1: It's the same hole.
Speaker 3: Egg comes from, the same hole where the poop comes from. Okay,
Speaker 3: he just.
Speaker 1: Give me the anatomy of a chicken. Like the egg
Speaker 1: forms in the same tract as the poop.
Speaker 3: So there is one part of chicken's body it's called
Speaker 3: as a reproductive tract. We call that oviduct. That's where
Speaker 3: the formation of egg takes place. There is a different
Speaker 3: part where which is a gastro intestinal tract. That's where
Speaker 3: the poop is formed. There is another part where it
Speaker 3: connected to kidneys. That's where the urine comes from. But
Speaker 3: all of those openings they open in the part called
Speaker 3: kloa and so that's the common opening. That's where the
Speaker 3: egg and fieces or urine also comes from. So going
Speaker 3: back to salmonella, what happens is it can come through
Speaker 3: feces of the birds on the eggshell.
Speaker 1: Hey guess what chicken butt is where both chicken poop
Speaker 1: and eggs come out of the chicken. This opening called
Speaker 1: the cloaca is how salmonilla can get on the egg,
Speaker 1: specifically the egg shell. But here's a shaker. There are
Speaker 1: also ways for salmonilla to get inside the egg.
Speaker 3: Some types of salmonella can contaminate egg from outside, and
Speaker 3: you can have some types of salmonella that can contaminate
Speaker 3: egg content from inside. The good example is Salmonella introdude
Speaker 3: to this that has a potential to multiply in the orbituct,
Speaker 3: which is an egg forming organ or the reproductive organ.
Speaker 3: So what happens is once the bacteria is lodged in
Speaker 3: the reproductive organ, it can contaminate the inside of an
Speaker 3: egg when egg is developing. One of the things that
Speaker 3: I would like to tell your audience that salmanala just
Speaker 3: love the egg yolk. It's the iron contained in the yolk.
Speaker 3: Bacteria loves iron. As soon as the bacteria goes near yolk,
Speaker 3: it replicates very fast and it becomes more virulent.
Speaker 1: WHOA Okay, how often does the bacteria get in the yolk?
Speaker 1: Is that common or rare?
Speaker 3: It's not very common, at least in Australia. It is
Speaker 3: not very common unless you really stuff up egg in
Speaker 3: the kitchen and store it. Barrio mishandling eggs. Most of
Speaker 3: the commercial eggs produced in the countries like the UK, Australia,
Speaker 3: also in the US. They are produced in a very
Speaker 3: highly regulated environment. They are vaccinated against salmonella, so the
Speaker 3: chances are low that you will get a type of
Speaker 3: some bacteria in yolk during the formation of egg.
Speaker 1: I see, But if they are Baccia.
Speaker 3: Chickens, it's very difficult to see how those eggs are collected,
Speaker 3: how they are kept, and how they're refrigerated, and how
Speaker 3: people handle them, so it's difficult to tell that I see.
Speaker 1: So salmonella can get inside the egg directly during the
Speaker 1: formation of the egg. Egg scientists called this vertical transmission
Speaker 1: of salmonilla, but it's very rare, at least for commercial
Speaker 1: eggs like the kind you get in stores. More concerning
Speaker 1: is what scientists called horizontal transmission of salmonilla.
Speaker 3: That means the bacteria is in the book or is
Speaker 3: on the shelf because of the contamination buffaces or the
Speaker 3: dust that can be in the shed and through the shell,
Speaker 3: the bacteria can migrate inside an egg.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're probably thinking, but forehead, the whole point of
Speaker 1: having a hard egg shell is to protect the egg.
Speaker 1: How does some manilla that might be in the chicken
Speaker 1: poop or dirt get inside the egg.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: One easy way is for there to be cracked in
Speaker 1: the egg shell. The egg gets bumped or dropped, there
Speaker 1: could be cracks for bacteria to come into the egg.
Speaker 1: So if you see a cracked egg, you may want
Speaker 1: to not eat that one or all. The other way
Speaker 1: bacteria can go in is by getting sucked in. How
Speaker 1: does it get through the egg shell?
Speaker 3: If you look at the body temperature of birds are
Speaker 3: hotter than humans. Their body temperature is around thirty nine
Speaker 3: degrees to forty one degrees, so around three to four
Speaker 3: degrees higher than us.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Because they are fully feathered, birds don't have sweat lands,
Speaker 3: so they can't release sweat. So one of their thermoregulatory
Speaker 3: mechanism that is patting, and so in the shed there
Speaker 3: has to be an air movement. So these birds, they
Speaker 3: are kept in a farm environment where temperature is set
Speaker 3: at twenty one to twenty three degrees, So hot birds
Speaker 3: in a cool farm. And that's why those temperatures in
Speaker 3: the shed are set at that temperature to keep chickens
Speaker 3: happy and cool. So imagine a chicken is laying an
Speaker 3: egg and the temperature of egg is around thirty nine
Speaker 3: to forty one degrees, and then egg is laid in
Speaker 3: a room where temperature is set at twenty one to
Speaker 3: twenty three degrees. Okay, so this is going to cause
Speaker 3: a temperature great and difference.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So now egg is cooling down from third thirty nine
Speaker 3: to twenty three degrees and during that cooling down period,
Speaker 3: there can be a negative pressure that can be developed
Speaker 3: inside and egg which can suck bacteria from the shell.
Speaker 3: Wa and so those bacterias get sucked into the pores.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, let me see. The egg comes out hot,
Speaker 1: but it comes out into cool a shed and as
Speaker 1: it cools, I guess the inside shrinks because it's cooling,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: That tends to suck things from the outside of the egg.
Speaker 3: That's right. So to give you quite an example, if
Speaker 3: you have a kind of a warm or hot water
Speaker 3: in the water plastic water bottle, it kill cools down,
Speaker 3: it shrinks, the bottle shrinks, right, right. The same thing
Speaker 3: would happen with an egg. But because egg shell is porous,
Speaker 3: then that bacteria can get sucked in inside the shell pores.
Speaker 3: So that's the starting point. That's how bacteria gets in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, eggs can suck bacteria in if they come out
Speaker 1: warm out of the chicken into a cool chicken coop
Speaker 1: or cage. The shrinking egg white and yolk can pull
Speaker 1: bacteria in. And this is something I did in know
Speaker 1: before egg shells have pores. I see, I guess I
Speaker 1: didn't know that egg shells had pores, Like, why doesn't
Speaker 1: the stuff come out then? If it has holes in it?
Speaker 3: Hual is very porous. And going back to the structure
Speaker 3: of an egg, the moder nature has designed that egg
Speaker 3: for development of chicken embryo. So when embryo develops, it
Speaker 3: also needs to undergo a process we called as embryo metabolism.
Speaker 3: So it breathes and it also excretes the waste material
Speaker 3: and so for excretion of that waste material, it has
Speaker 3: to come out through pores. And that's why it has
Speaker 3: actual pores.
Speaker 1: What even as the embryo grows inside, it's breathing through
Speaker 1: the egg shell and it's excreting through the axel too.
Speaker 3: So embryo takes twenty one days to hatch. And as
Speaker 3: embryo grows, it produces lot of heat. So those shell
Speaker 3: pores actually help to remove that heat from the egg,
Speaker 3: so you can say embryo is breathing, although technically it's
Speaker 3: not breathing through just through egg shell, but it helps
Speaker 3: to remove all the heat and the metabolized water through
Speaker 3: shell shell portes.
Speaker 1: Oh fascinating is that how eggs also get fertilized through
Speaker 1: the pores?
Speaker 3: No, so it's the egg gets fertilized in the part
Speaker 3: of oviduct or birds called as infundibulum. So that's a
Speaker 3: funnel shaped structure which is right next to the ovary
Speaker 3: of birds.
Speaker 1: I guess I had another birds in the bees of chickens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that would be another session to talk about
Speaker 3: how our domating and our fertilusion takes place. Quite a
Speaker 3: lot of interesting science behind that as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's not get into how baby chickens are made.
Speaker 1: But the point is that egg shells have tiny little
Speaker 1: holes or pores because eggs are made to grow embryos inside,
Speaker 1: and as embryos grow, they need those pores to pass
Speaker 1: oxygen in CO two and water vapor to support their metabolism.
Speaker 1: According to reports, a typical egg has thousands of pores
Speaker 1: on their egg shell and up to twenty liters of
Speaker 1: gases can pass through these pores throughout the life of
Speaker 1: the egg up until the baby chick is born. Okay,
Speaker 1: So to quickly recap salmonilla, the kind that can give
Speaker 1: you food poisoning, can go from the chicken poop to
Speaker 1: the outside of eggs because they both come out the
Speaker 1: same hole. And from there the salmonilla can go inside
Speaker 1: the egg through cracks or the egg shell pores, or
Speaker 1: it can contaminate other foods. If you handle eggs and
Speaker 1: then say stick your finger in a potato salad, that
Speaker 1: can add salmonilla to your potato salad. Well, now the
Speaker 1: obvious question here is why don't we just wash the
Speaker 1: egg just get rid of the salmonilla on the egg shell.
Speaker 2: It's not that easy. When we come.
Speaker 1: Back, we'll find out why washing your eggs is not
Speaker 1: such an egg sele the idea stick around.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: Okay, we floored that big motivation for refrigerating eggs is salmonilla,
Speaker 1: which mostly ends up on the outside of the egg
Speaker 1: on the shell. So now the question here is I
Speaker 1: guess a naive question would be why don't we just
Speaker 1: wash the eggs when they come out of the chicken?
Speaker 3: Egg Washing is a whole lot lot of science. So
Speaker 3: again if you look at different laws of regulation in
Speaker 3: different countries and the US, egg washing is mandatory for
Speaker 3: all eggs that are commercially produced and sold. In Europe,
Speaker 3: egg washing is not allowed. And in Australia are the
Speaker 3: large proportion of eggs sold commercially are washed. Not all
Speaker 3: of them are washed, large proportion of them are washed.
Speaker 1: When you say washed, what does that mean like rinse
Speaker 1: with water or actual soilp and chemicals or disinfectant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that are.
Speaker 3: Different and different different ways people do it. Some people
Speaker 3: they wash and sanitize, other people just wash. So it
Speaker 3: depends on what procedures or the farms are following. So
Speaker 3: egg washing machine, egg goes into a washer so where
Speaker 3: the brushes are set to remove the visible fickle material
Speaker 3: from the eggshell. Then they are sanitized with flordinated water
Speaker 3: or food grade sanitizer and then they're dried. So that's step.
Speaker 3: But again there's a whole lot of signs behind how
Speaker 3: that washing is done. But I do not recommend people
Speaker 3: who have got back at chickens to wash egg at
Speaker 3: home because you need right temperature of the water while
Speaker 3: washing an egg. If eggs are being laid and you're
Speaker 3: collecting fresh eggs, which are warm, and if you're putting
Speaker 3: that in a very cold water under the tap, you're
Speaker 3: likely crack the egg because the difference in temperature radio
Speaker 3: On the other hand, if you're collecting egg it has
Speaker 3: cooled down because you just don't know what time of
Speaker 3: the day you're collecting eggs, water temperature outside in the
Speaker 3: chicken cook you just don't know what temperature that egg is.
Speaker 3: If you are washing it with other very hot or
Speaker 3: very cold water, you're likely to crack those eggs. So
Speaker 3: don't wash eggs at home. You might splash contaminated water
Speaker 3: everywhere as well, so definitely wash your hands after handling egg.
Speaker 3: Don't wash egg but when you are handling eggs, wash
Speaker 3: your hands because there's likely to be a bacteria on
Speaker 3: the shell.
Speaker 1: I think I read some ra that washing can also
Speaker 1: damage either the lining or the inside of the egg.
Speaker 1: Is that true. Yes.
Speaker 3: When you talked about protective mechanism, it's called as cuticle,
Speaker 3: also referred as bloom on the eggs shell. That's another
Speaker 3: barrier or defense mechanism of an eggshell which prohibits or
Speaker 3: which stops bacteria from migration into shell. But one of
Speaker 3: the limitations of the cuticle is that it is not
Speaker 3: uniformly distributed around the shell. And when we looked at
Speaker 3: the cutical deposition on the egg coming from a particular flock,
Speaker 3: there can be a lot of variation and how cuticle
Speaker 3: is deposited, but it definitely has a capacity to protect
Speaker 3: this egg from bacteri little penetration and during washing, the
Speaker 3: washing can actually damage that cuticle during the washing process.
Speaker 1: Which makes the egg more vulnerable to bacteria getting in
Speaker 1: that can.
Speaker 3: But after washing and after drying, those eggs are oiled
Speaker 3: to see the pores so the bacteria doesn't get in
Speaker 3: when the posts are sealed, and that is done to
Speaker 3: replace the job of cuticle because critical is damaged during washing.
Speaker 1: Oh, fascinating. So when you say they're washed commercially, they're
Speaker 1: usually washed and sealed, washed and oiled and oil the
Speaker 1: porste Yeah, so that's fascinating. So if I go to
Speaker 1: Europe and I'm in Europe, then I'm not allowed to
Speaker 1: wash eggs. But if I cross over to the US.
Speaker 3: In the US, yes, in Australia, majority of them are washed.
Speaker 1: All right, you can wash eggs, but it's best to
Speaker 1: leave it to the professionals. Okay, I decided to ask
Speaker 1: that thertial saltcar directly whether eggs should be refrigerated. Here's
Speaker 1: what he said. Okay, so something that I can get
Speaker 1: into the egg vertically horizontally, is that then the reason
Speaker 1: to refrigerate eggs?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, the migration of bacteria across the shell or
Speaker 3: through horizontal way of transmission is also driven by temperature.
Speaker 3: When eggs are stored at a room temperature, when they
Speaker 3: are not a refrigerator or not cooled, then the rate
Speaker 3: of penetration could be higher across the eggshell.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 3: Because that temperature is helpful for bacteria to survive and
Speaker 3: also penetrate across the shell. That a number of different
Speaker 3: organs or bacteria that get switched on at that temperature.
Speaker 3: That a lot of the bacterial genome. People have looked
Speaker 3: at how the gene expressions of the bacteria look like
Speaker 3: at that temperature when they migrate or when they penetrate
Speaker 3: across the shell.
Speaker 1: WHOA, So, then refrigeration, how does that help prevents the
Speaker 1: bacteria from going inside?
Speaker 3: Look, it slows down the activity of bacteria overall. As
Speaker 3: soon as you lower the temperature. It does not kill
Speaker 3: the bacteria, so it just slows down the growth and
Speaker 3: it can slow down the multiplication of the bacteria as well.
Speaker 3: If the egg internal contents are contaminated, that's the important
Speaker 3: thing to remember. And also remember that if eggs are
Speaker 3: stored inside the cool temperature refrigerator temperature, that lowers the
Speaker 3: risk of the footbone illness overall.
Speaker 1: So then do eggs need to be refrigerated.
Speaker 3: I would recommend yes, refrigeration of egg that if you
Speaker 3: have eggs at home, I'll definitely recommend to keep them
Speaker 3: in the fridge. Don't leave them on the bench because
Speaker 3: if you leave eggs on the bench, the egg white,
Speaker 3: which is inside an egg, it tends to deteriorate. That
Speaker 3: means it tends to go more runny. So you might
Speaker 3: remember the old method of testing if eggs are fresh
Speaker 3: or stale, because the fresh eggs would sink, can stale
Speaker 3: eggs would float. That is because of the egg white
Speaker 3: and the apace, So airspace is more in older eggs
Speaker 3: and stale eggs. So I would recommend to refrigerateates.
Speaker 1: Interesting what your Chou Socar is saying here is that
Speaker 1: refrigerating eggs also helps keep eggs fresh studies have found
Speaker 1: that the quality of the egg goes down over time.
Speaker 1: Egg whites get runnier and less acidic, and they also
Speaker 1: lose weight over time. If you crack an egg on
Speaker 1: a plate and measure the height of the blob of
Speaker 1: egg white, that height, also called the hot unit, is
Speaker 1: a measure of the quality or grade.
Speaker 2: Of an egg.
Speaker 1: Great AA is the tallest, followed by A, B, and C.
Speaker 1: That height also decreases with time. But if you refrigerate
Speaker 1: the egg, all these processes slow down, so the eggs
Speaker 1: need to be refrigerated.
Speaker 2: The answer is.
Speaker 1: Really an egg can last just fine if you leave
Speaker 1: it on the counter for days, but putting it under
Speaker 1: fridge does lower the risk of salmonilla getting in the egg,
Speaker 1: and it keeps the egg fresher. This explains why different
Speaker 1: countries and regions have such different rules and regulations. And
Speaker 1: what does that depend on what a country decides to do.
Speaker 3: I think it depends on the risk and the prevalence
Speaker 3: means to the extent to which the bacteria are present
Speaker 3: in the population on the flock. Also depends on the
Speaker 3: type of bacteria that is in the country. For example,
Speaker 3: for many many years, salmonella in treated was not endemic
Speaker 3: in Australia. It is considered exotic and notifiable. What it
Speaker 3: means is it is not as common to see salmonella
Speaker 3: in treatedis in Australia compared to the UK or the US,
Speaker 3: and that's why most of the laws were developed, which
Speaker 3: has pit pour purpose for that respect to country and
Speaker 3: the industry. But it is quite prevalent in Europe, in
Speaker 3: the UK and the US as well.
Speaker 1: I see, so then it makes more sense for them
Speaker 1: to be more careful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in general, industry has always been quite careful because
Speaker 3: it affects the business. Food safety is an important element
Speaker 3: for egg business. Egg farmers, they do lots of good
Speaker 3: things to produce a very safe product for humans, and
Speaker 3: so it all boils down to how that egg is
Speaker 3: handled in the kitchen environment. So we just had to
Speaker 3: be very careful on how we prepare dishes metal from eggs.
Speaker 3: People don't always wash their hands in the kitchen after
Speaker 3: handling eggs. After breaking an egg in a pan, they
Speaker 3: quickly wipe their hands against the apron if they're wearing apron,
Speaker 3: or they just wipe their hand with the kitchen towel.
Speaker 3: They could break egg with the knife, which is also
Speaker 3: used for cutting vegetables. People can do weird and wonderful
Speaker 3: things in the kitchen and wroment and they well, they cook.
Speaker 1: What happens?
Speaker 3: Since you are essentially cross contaminating things in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: The saveest thing is to assume that the outside of
Speaker 1: the egg probably has some manilla on it, and that
Speaker 1: the inside could also have some manilla inside of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there is a possibility of bacteria being there
Speaker 3: on the shell. There is a low possibility of bacteria
Speaker 3: being in satin egg. It's not zero, it's low. So
Speaker 3: just wash your hands after you are handling eggs and
Speaker 3: cook eggs properly.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks for joining us. We hope you had
Speaker 1: a shell over time. And if you don't like egg puns,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for all the bad yolks. See you next time.
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