DailyDirt: Raw Eggs Are Healthy..?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fri, Apr 4th 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Maybe you like Caesar salads or the supposed health benefits of drinking raw eggs (a la Rocky Balboa), and you already know about the risks of Salmonella. Well, there's some good news for you: you might be able to get some pasteurized eggs that are virtually indistinguishable from conventional raw eggs. While previous pasteurization methods made eggs a bit thicker in texture, food scientists have been working on fixing that. Here are just a few links on eating raw eggs, if that's your thing.

About one out of every 20,000 chicken eggs commercially produced in the US is at risk for spreading Salmonella. Fortunately, a new radio-frequency (RF) heating technique could be used to pasteurize eggs more quickly without affecting the taste or texture. [url]
Not surprisingly, the CDC recommends that eggs be kept refrigerated and cooked fully before eating. Erring on the side of caution, no one should eat raw or undercooked eggs -- unless the eggs have been gone through a pasteurization process. [url]
If you love raw eggs, you can test your luck and immune system -- and hope that egg industry standards for cleaning eggs have sufficiently improved to reduce the risks of contracting Salmonella. Plenty of people consume raw eggs and are fine, but thousands of Americans are sickened from egg-borne Salmonella each year. [url]

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Filed Under: cdc, eggs, food, health, pasteurization, raw, salmonella

7 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 4 Apr 2014 @ 5:19pm

European Eggs not refrigerated
In Europe they do not wash the protective cuticle coating that is naturally present when an egg is laid. Once you remove this cover the egg shell is now more vulnerable to bacteria. Even this wouldn't be too bad, but they then get refrigerated in the US. This means that when the cold eggs are exposed to the warmer, more moist air at room temperature, moisture can form on the shell due to condensation. This moisture would allow bacteria to cling right to the shell and potentially contaminate the egg.

Basically once it gets cold, it has to stay that way. If you prefer your eggs room temp, buy from a local farmer.
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mariush (profile), 4 Apr 2014 @ 5:20pm

Actually, you guys in US have to keep the eggs refrigerated because the regulations require producers to clean the eggs and destroy a natural layer of protection of the eggs in process.

In Europe, washing eggs isn't common, and also most eggs can be kept without refrigeration for a few days without any problems.

There's a very good article on Forbes about these differences between US and Europe : http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/25/why-american-eggs-would-be-illegal-in-a-british -supermarket-and-vice-versa/3/
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McCrea (profile), 4 Apr 2014 @ 10:17pm

Because millennium egg.
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Ole Juul (profile), 5 Apr 2014 @ 2:09am

Re: European Eggs not refrigerated
I only get local (so called "farm") eggs. They're not remotely like city eggs. The yokes are yellow and they're fresh. I still can't get used to eating them raw though. When I was a kid and for many years thereafter I used to love raw eggs, but all the advertising about salmonella has spoiled my appetite.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Apr 2014 @ 5:24am

Greed. That's why hens are cramped in small cages in megafactories, or in "coops" 5000 at once with half a square foot for each. Then, there is an issue of hens' fast breathing (+lack of ventilation) and standing in poop whole day. Disaster by greedy design.

Of course, it is possible to do it free range with minimally increased costs, but that cuts into profits. They don't care: you pay the price of poisoning.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Apr 2014 @ 12:49pm

There is no salmonella in Swedish eggs
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Fred17, 6 Apr 2014 @ 2:08pm

Eggs
Eggs are making a comeback now that Kellogs hasn't funded any more "scientific" studies.
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