As an American, I cannot legally touch any egg that hasn't been ultra-pasteurized followed by continuous cold chain refrigeration and served in either a Styrofoam or pulped paper cardboard egg carton.
I think you have been misinformed. As an American, I can harvest eggs just like the pictured ones from my own backyard on a regular basis.
They don't even cost any money, they come out of chicken asses for free.
You must have weird chickens. My lay eggs out if their cloaca.
Isn’t their asshole like inside the cloaca?
Their colon is. The coloaca is their asshole, and pee hole, and egg hole.
What a noob. Ours come from shops. That way, our entire fuckin garden doesn't smell like a crashed ammonia tanker
As a side note, if your chicken coop smells like a crashed ammonia tanker you need to add more carbon in the coop. Dead leaves, cardboard, shredded wood or wood chips are working well.
Sorry your yard is so small. Mine is large enough that the chicken coop is far away from the house and is usually not a bother. Summertime when the wind is just wrong can be an annoying stench, but it's almost nothing compared to the smell of dumpsters in a big city during summer heat.
We call our yards "metres" and they're a little bit bigger than yours
Let’s not pretend the acquisition and upkeep of chickens is free… if you eat a lot of eggs it is absolutely worth it, but there is some cost in setting up a coop, getting chickens, keeping chickens fed and safe from predators, disease, etc.
Plus you have to have property to keep them on and be allowed to have them on your property. For most Americans that isn’t possible due to lack of home ownership or HOA restrictions on what animals you can have on “your” property. (HOAs are bullshit)
Here's a pic of some washed eggs in a refrigerator to scare the Europeans.
Bonus:
Microwaved water for tea.
What kind of monster stores bananas in the fridge?
Bananas in the US get washed and lose their protective coating so it's fairly normal to see them in the fridge in US homes.
I’ve never put mine in the fridge in all my decades as an American lol
Way to humble brag about your imported European bananas that don't require refrigeration.
(It was a joke btw lol)
That's news to me
And tomatoes!!! Might as well eat ice cubes at that point
refrigerators keep things chilled, not frozen. you're thinking of a freezer.
Europeans don't have freezers, they store their perishables in Angela Merkel's minge.
OH MINGEY
I kinda prefer cold tomatoes on my tacos than room temp ones, and I mostly use it for pico de Gallo, which is kept in the fridge anyway, so those I do store in the fridge.
Yeah, and I feel like someone's gonna slam that door one day and get egg all over their bananas.
If "get egg all over their bananas" wasn't an euphemism before, I'm starting it now.
Once they've reached your desired ripeness you can slow down them getting overripe in the fridge.
IKR? They go in the freezer so they can be dipped in chocolate. 😋
There's always money in the banana stand
Bruh I'm not even European but that measuring cup got me shook.
I also just grabbed a random ass image off a search; it might be AI generated for all I know!
can you imagine searching for something on google and it just ai generates images on the fly
Yo why are you keeping bananas in the fridge?
I'm pretty sure that's a stock image so I don't think that's a pic of anyone's legit fridge.
But to answer your question, you can keep bananas on the counter until they reach your preferred level of ripeness and then put them in the fridge to slow down the ripening process so you have a few more days to eat them before they turn to complete mush. I do it all time to ensure I always have bananas around at my preferred level of ripeness.
They brown more in the fridge. If anything cold speeds up the banana going gross.
Avocados work the way you say. I wouldn’t do it to a banana
They brown more in the fridge. If anything cold speeds up the banana going gross.
You mean it speeds up the time until they're ready to be banana bread? 😋
agree 😁
Yes the outside goes brown, but the inside slows down it's ripening process. Eventually they will all go to mush, but you can keep them at peak ripeness for a few days longer by putting them in the fridge.
Then again most people won't eat a banana if it has a single brown spot on it, so I'm probably wasting my breath by telling people they can prevent food waste by eating discolored but perfectly ripe food.
As an American I don't condone this practice of microwaving the water, except in extreme circumstances.
Edit: as a typical American, I've realized that I implicitly assumed OP is American, d'oh.
In the US, there's a concern for salmonella or other bacteria and viruses. Factory egg farming is a horror show in regards to overcrowding and hygiene. Sick birds are crammed in with healthy laying birds, and washing the eggs is one of the safest ways to prevent contamination.
It does increase the permeability of the shell, decreasing shelf life and requiring refrigeration.
If your eggs looked like this in the USA, there's a small but non-zero chance that you'll shit yourself to death. Probably not, but it's scary enough.
We could improve factory farming regulations so it's not a like a Cronenberg movie, but then eggs would be more expensive. And even if we did, and stopped washing our eggs, Americans would still want them to look clean and would still keep them in the fridge because we've been conditioned to expect to die on the toilet covered in wet feces if we see bird poop on the eggs.
Fwiw, the eggs wouldn't have to be more expensive, the eggs cost what the market will pay.
The only change is that the people profiting from your poor food conditions will profit slightly less.
They won't profit less, line must go up. They'd charge double the difference and blame immigrants and Obama.
sure they could charge more, but the market wouldn't swallow it so they would sell less. if they could charge more for eggs, they would be doing so right now, for extra profit.
They would collude. All eggs would go up just like during covid, and they wouldn't lose any sales.
If they could do that, they would do that right now. If they could charge more there's nothing stopping them from doing that today. We are already at the maximum price they can charge.
Keeping unwashed eggs in the fridge at home helps them last longer, as long as you don't leave them out to sweat.
But yeah here in Sweden, we rarely ever get salmonella recalls since the chickens aren't strapped to a box here.
If your eggs looked like this in the USA, there’s a small but non-zero chance that you’ll shit yourself to death. Probably not, but it’s scary enough.
Unless you got it from your own chicken coop
Right, but if you keep chickens for eggs, you already know all of this.
Chickens are vaccinated against salmonella (and a bunch of other things) when they are chicks in Europe. It means you don't need to worry about shitting yourself to death, the chickens are slightly happier by not being sick, and your eggs stay fresher for longer.
It would probably add $0.005 per egg, so US producers will claim it's communism if a regulation is brought in to vaccinate chicken, but it would be worth doing.
You mean you put 5G tracking devices in your chickens?
Really, though, getting poultry farmers to spend a penny per dozen eggs is like trying to squeeze water from a rock.
Yeah, it helps one find them if they run away
They've made a documentary about it back in the day:
They recently made a new one with up-to-date info on the security of those chickens
Fuckin finally. The tryna high road the Europe and shit like they don't have poor chicken treatment situations too. Its all down to vaccination requirements. They the treatment of chickens cause both places have issues lol
Refrigerating the eggs end to end costs money too, possibly more. I don't think it's about ongoing cost but rather upfront cost to switching.
At what point do people not just think that maybe going vegan isn't that bad of an alternative
Store bought anything is pretty bad nowadays, at least speaking as an American.
Produce often has listeria, ecoli, salmonella, etc outbreaks, it’s ridiculous. Extends to eggs, spinach, lettuce, radishes…anything. Going vegan doesn’t solve this problem unless you’re only eating what you grow at home.
But eggs are yummy. Baked goods, thickened sauces, omelettes and deviled eggs and egg salad, you can't really replace them with vegan alternatives. Aquafaba is pretty close for some of it, but people like their eggs and don't care about how much their food suffers before we eat it.
Right around lunch time it starts looking less appealing
It is way too challenging in my mind at least. I do one meat meal a week and veg the rest. All the fun stuff has milk and eggs in it.
But hey you do it if it makes you happy.
can confirm, am shook
I have a picture of my receipt for an incredibly reasonably-priced ECG scan I had the other day if you like? I think it was €9
DOES NOT COMPUTE
I know right?
I thought it'd be free fucksake
You pay for your ECGs?
drops monocle
The biggest reason eggs are refrigerated in the US is because they're not vaccinated for salmonella, so refrigeration is needed to inhibit growth. The US was able to do that since they have the infrastructure for end to end refrigeration. It's not necessarily wrong, it's just another way to do it. Since salmonella can also be on the outside of the egg they need to be washed, and since they're refrigerated the loss of the protective layer doesn't matter. I guess in Europe with the vaccination it also lowers the chance of salmonella on the outside of the egg allowing the outside to remain unwashed and protective of the inside making refrigeration unnecessary. There's just not enough of a reason to change things in the us now since the refrigeration method is already in place and switching would cost more up front. The main downside is that you can't eat raw eggs in the US which means some dishes can't be made, but the vast majority of the US isn't interested in raw egg dishes anyways.
People in the US eat raw eggs all the time. Salmonella outbreaks from eggs are almost unheard of.
Also, washed or unwashed, eggs will keep longer in the fridge. And it makes for a less cluttered pantry. There's really zero reason for Europeans to be smug about this.
There's really zero reason for Europeans to be smug about this.
So I can see that you don't really understand the European mindset
Yeah Ive lived in Europe and the US and raised chickens and have done it both ways. It's kinda nice having eggs that aren't covered in bird shit though.
By that reasoning, washed or unwashed everything keeps longer in the freezer. And it makes for a less cluttered pantry AND fridge.
Except for the part where freezing food effects flavor and texture.
There’s just not enough of a reason to change things in the us now since the refrigeration method is already in place and switching would cost more up front.
Cutting on electricity and washing costs?
The main downside is that you can’t eat raw eggs in the US
You can buy pasteurized eggs, though they can be hard to find. You can also DIY them with a sous vide cooker.
DIY as in like cook them?
Sous vide is just accurately holding a water bath at a given temperature. You put your food in (in a baggie if necessary) at a specific temperature and time to achieve a consistent "doneness".
130-140 farenheit for an hour is enough to kill pathogens in eggs, but low enough it doesn't cook them.
Likely not. There's some weird agricultural laws because of the great depression. You can mail raw vegetables through the USPS as long as they are addressed and have correct postage, for example.
If you sharpie an address on a coconut and put a stamp on it, the USPS will deliver it. They'd rather you didn't make a habit of it but they'll do it.
Yeah it’s a surprisingly big trend here. And the people I know with chickens are suburban families. They are not on farms and they do not have a ton of other pets. Just a dog or cat.
People should realise they are at risk of exposure to higher levels of lead than recommended.
This is because lead in fuel was legal until just a few decades ago. This means that for 70+ years, any houses near roads will have lead contamination in the soil.
We just moved out of the burbs and have ducks ordered for spring, mostly as pets, but also to eat their children.
Not Americans that are used to eating farm fresh eggs from the local farmers market. I lived in downtown Austin until recently and getting freshly picked produce from local and urban farms every Saturday was one of my favorite parts of my week.
Hello I'm from the FBI and I'm on my way to disappear your local farmers thank you
Pwease mista FBI guy, weave my farmews awone UwU
Hello I’m from the FBI and I’m on my way to disappear your local farmers thank you
::: spoiler For those wondering wtf OP is talking about
Houston here, and same. There's a bunch of smaller ones. Some get invaded by folks selling store bought things but I dig heading to the farmer's market on weekends. All the meat I get is from small local farms as well.
Not everyone has that luxury due to cost and location. I know exactly how lucky I am to have so many options nearby, to be able to afford the slightly higher prices, and to have the time to go when they're open.
My guy, I grew up on a chicken farm. This does not scare me.
Well obviously if you're an actual chicken, it won't. How was your cage growing up?
I grew up raising chickens among other animals. Poop and feathers on eggs was the norm. This ‘50s processed white bread, white sugar, clean eggs, etc. that was the sign of “progress” I guess IMO has done more harm than good in some ways.
But my fridge has a little spot just for the eggs. They look so cozy there. I actually don’t know where I’d keep something as fragile as eggs outside my fridge in the kitchen. Genuine question where do you keep your eggs safe? Do they often break?
We don't need an eggs safe, fuck me they're not that valuable
Well no. I’m Canada we keep the anlpha egg of the dozen in the egg safe. It’s not large enough for a full carton of eggs.
C'mon, you're making Canada sound backwards like that. We have banks and they have safety deposit boxes large enough for several cartons of eggs.
I also keep eggs hidden around the house in case I get a midnight craving for an omelette and don't feel like doing a midnight heist on my own eggs. Though I do regret the ones I hid under the couch cushions.
It's not that those are valuable, it's that those are dangerous. Have you ever tried throwing one after getting it out of an egg safe where it was safely tucked away for the last decade?
In the cardboard carton they come in.
In a cupboard in their container? They don't spontaneously combust, as long as they're in the cardboard it's pretty hard to accidentally break them.
I drop so much out of my cupboards resching for something else. I've dropped eggs before, and i would rather clean up a full sack of flour than half a dozen eggs.
Sounds like you might need to go through your things and ask if each brings you joy and get rid of whatever doesn't.
Does this egg bring me joy? Throws egg on floor, giggles yes it does. Makes note to replace egg
Am American living in the city with 8 chickens. The only scary thing is seeing eggs in the market go for $10/dozen
I'd love to see this city that only has 8 chickens in it
10$/dozen? Where?
Only 10? They're $13 where i live
And here I thought $2 was a bit too much.
Wow, that's crazy. It's €4.49/10 here tax included for the fancy free range, low volume farm ones from a not-cheap supermarket.
3.2USD here for a dozen cage-free brown eggs!
My folks’ chickens’ eggs have orange-r yolks tho.
Huh, they're like $2.19 a dozen for me.
Farm fresh eggs here in Amish country go for $2/doz.
Miss living near the Amish. They have these cute big families with so many children and agricultural stuff for low prices. I would love to convince them to somehow some way homestead in my city.
Funny, as someone who works intimately with them I find myself distrusting them. They are great at putting on the "old timey, super genuine sweet Christian folk" persona but don't get it wrong. Their ideology spreads like a cancer around here. They breed like crazy, buy up all the private land, displace other locals with their farms, eschew environmentally friendly agricultural practice to save money, their buggies destroy the roads and cause terrible fatal accidents. It's not to say they're all bad but they're absolutely a highly insular cult and they have no problem turning on outsiders to further their society.
buggies destroy the roads
How? I'd always heard that heavier vehicles do more damage to roads, so I'd expect buggies to be on par with bicycles or maybe motorcycles.
cause fatal accidents
I'm curious about this one, too. Do they tend to drive erratically? I'd think their slower top speeds would make it easier to avoid accidents.
Many Amish churches ban rubber tires and the buggies will at best use hardwood wheels, and otherwise they'll be steel. Weight is of some minor concern but more principally the hard materials as well as the shoed horses wear away at the road. In high density Amish areas it's common to see two deep grooves in the road from buggies.
Buggies are not designed for modern roads. They have very little safety features (in fact they only begrudgingly even put reflectors on them, and maybe occasionally flashers for at night), and their bulky, dense bodies and slow movement make them pretty devastating targets to hit. They don't crumple like a modern car. They explode. Car-on-buggy accidents are very frequently fatal. I know plenty of Amish who have lost family to accidents at relatively slow speeds.
Am american and this:
is what I have in my fridge right now. Rural living win.
Would definitely lick those clean, 10/10
Are you my dog?
I can be if you want me to.
Down boy, or you'll get locked in the basement again
Wait, why fridge? I thought they last at room temp if they still have the chicken butt juice. Do they last longer cold?
I still put farm fresh eggs in my fridge because it's just a lot more convenient to store eggs in the fridge than on my counter where I have more limited space
I don't get this at all. Isn't your fridge much smaller than your counter space?
My fridge is designed to store food and has multiple shelves and drawers. My counters are a flat surface area and I'd rather keep them clear for active uses like cutting, prepping, etc.
There are also appliances competing for space on the counter like coffee machines
I guess there's the pantry but it's also just that I'm used to keeping them in the fridge and it's not like it hurts them to go in the fridge.
Anyway, point is it's really not that weird to keep them in the fridge
If its anything like my counter then kinda, honestly ive knocked enough shit off the counter that its just easier to keep em in the fridge.
Yeah I suppose I could store them at room temp, but I figure they last longer in the fridge and I'm not really hurting for space.
Unless I've been horribly misinformed, so does honey
It's actually coming out of the cloaca. No idea about the chicken tho
You're both misinformed. Honey doesn't come either out of a bee's anus nor out of a bee's cloaca. It comes out of the mouth. Bees don't even have a cloaca. Chickens though do have a cloaca and that's where the eggs come out.
So where do the chickens produce honey from then, smartypants?
They get it from Aldi.
No way a chicken would fit
The chicken comes out of the egg, the egg comes out of the cloaca
So I’ve thought about the chicken and the egg issue. Wouldn’t it be the egg first since it contained an evolved spices that we currently call the chicken? The one that produced it doesn’t have to be a chicken, only that it produced a mutated offspring whose egg contained the chicken.
It's more like the egg contained something slightly different from the mother, and that trend continues for thousands and thousands of "iterations" until eventually it's completely distinct from that "first" one. There shouldn't be any species that gives birth to something completely different where it's protochicken straight to chicken.
That’s kinda what I’m getting at, in that at some point you draw the line on what is a “chicken” vs what isn’t a chicken.
Is the egg named after what laid it, or what it contains?
(That’s why I love that thought experiment)
Cloaca is its ass, just a multifunctional one
Is "Multifunctional Ass" the sequel to "Detachable Penis"?
That's ridiculous, chickens don't have asses. When's the last time you went to KFC and ordered a bucket of wings, breasts, and asses?
Sidenote: my phone thnks the word breasts must be changed to breaststroke every time.
Silly every tgingat kfc is chicken asses.
The asses are like the sub-dogfood grade meat at taco bell. You don't explicitly ask for it, but everyone just knows that's what they are getting.
It is, but is not competitive yet. We are hoping to form a league.
Can confirm. We (in US) have chickens and whenever we gift eggs to people they're astounded that they don't need to be refrigerated but also sometimes horrified that they aren't washed.
Granted, I keep the eggs that get poopy for myself so they don't get tossed out by an overly cautious person. I just rinse them immediately before use if they're very dirty. Occasionally one of the hens will have an "accident" and lay an egg in the dirt outside or on the coop floor. Otherwise they look generally like the pic above.
I've yet to have a rotten egg and at times we've gotten behind by over a month... Still good, sitting on the counter for a month.
Fun info, I'm currently eating through some "water glassed" eggs that I stored in May of 2023. Still good.
I have looked up "water glassed eggs" and while it does look interesting as a scientific experiment, I'm reasonably certain that you're a psychopath
Hahah yeah water glassing is kind of a throwback that helps keep them even through temp variations. We did an experiment back when we had a homestead a few years ago, where we cleaned any nasties if there were any and then dipped the eggs in oil and kept them in a cool room.
We came back every three months to try an egg. We ended the experiment at 2 years after which 25% of them began to float. The rest were still edible but the yolk wouldn't stay together when cracked.
Ah I see
Psychopath it is then
rofl fair enough
Yeah, at ~8 months these are about 50/50 on whether the yolks hold together. Still taste fine though.
I decided to give it a try since in the spring/summer they were laying way more than we could keep up with ... But mostly because I thought it was interesting and wanted to try it :D
They use metric egg cartons, we use freedom cartons.
7/13th of an ounce of eggs pls
It's comfortable for Americans but unheard of in many European countries. The point of this post is to make them uncomfortable.
I live in Europe and I've seen packs of 4, 6 (most common), 8, 10, 12. It's not unheard of at all.
Well, I never bought eggs outside the Czech Republic, Germany and Romania, and they were only available in multiples of 10.
In Norway I've only seen eggs sold in packs of 6, 12, 18, or 24. As far as I can remember, anyway.
wow 24 is huge!
Where I used to live there were 6, 10, 15, and huge packs of 25 30. Recently 9 eggs packs started appearing (I could almost bet the price is the same as 10)
Edit: I somehow decided that 5 times 6 is 25
15? Are those arranged 3x5? Is the 25 package square? I've only seen packages arranged as 2xN.
15 is 3×5, as for 25 I stand corrected, those are 30 arranged 5×6 (I counted several times and then wrote an incorrect number 😕)
who needs that many eggs lol, and why wouldn't they simply buy 3 packs of 10
I know hardy har har such banter, but for real we also have unwashed eggs, and plenty of Americans have chicken's, I currently have 80 in my backyard and am overflowing with eggs on my countertops.
Your jokes will hit harder if they come from a place of reality and not only information gained from reddit and social media posts.
There are Americans who own chickens and Americans who've never touched one. It's a big country. This post applies mostly to city folk.
I live in a major American city maybe 4 miles from downtown and I have a farm with fresh eggs and produce a block from my house.
I think that's a fair point. However in this case, as an American I personally know people here who are like this.
A friend of mine will go to the store and buy more eggs because he refuses to eat the fresh eggs I keep on my counter.
Edit: He also keeps an ice chest in his trunk to keep them in during the 20 minute drive from the store...
Well, if you're buying them at a store in the US and storing at room temperature, your friend has a point. In Europe, they don't wash the eggs at the processing plant. This leaves a film of sorts on the egg that prevents bacteria from entering the egg. In the US, we wash the eggs in processing to get bacteria off the eggs. Both methods are done to prevent E-coli, but the caveat is the washed eggs need refrigeration because there is no film on the eggs.
Also-- if the eggs are unwashed and then refrigerated they are now not shelf stable, the condensation that will occur going from fridge to room temp will disturb the cuticle enough to make them unsafe.
This is something I never knew, thanks
I will add to this... obviously, if you have chickens, farm fresh eggs can be stored at room temperature in the US.
What, a shitpost didn't take every singe person who exists in America into consideration??!?!?!?? No way, that's awful, I can't believe OP would try and hurt you like that, wild they posted a public meme that didn't apply to you personally
Also I believe you by your use of "chicken's". I grew up rural and many did not know how to pluralize things.
I don't really know if there are laws about not selling eggs like this. Are there? I understood the practice of washing and sterilizing eggs came about as a marketting thing, b/c Americans tend to buy based on superficial appearance, and washed eggs sold better.
Is egg-washing mandated?
About 60 percent of the eggs sold in the United States come from processors who participate in USDA’s grading service, voluntarily paying to have their eggs graded so the eggs can display a “USDA Grade A” or “AA” shield on their cartons. The grade is based on qualities that can be observed in the shell, yolk, and egg white when the egg is inspected with lights and other specialized equipment. Specifics on egg-grading criteria can be found here.
Egg processors who participate are required to spray-wash their eggs with warm water and use a sanitizing rinse and air-drying techniques specified by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).
FYI multiple studies have found that there is no safety benefit to washing. It just looks nicer, and people think it's safer.
Thanks, that confirms my understanding, although I'm surprised the participation rate is as low as it is. That's really interesting, thanks!
Yeah, as an American I'm surprised it's only 60 percent. Pretty much anything I've ever seen available to me has been washed/graded/refrigerated. Maybe farmer's markets? But no way do they have 40 percent market share. I've occasionally had friends with coops so I'm not unfamiliar with having shelf stable eggs, though.
At this point I think the thing that'd freak out Americans the most is the whole thing about not needing to refrigerate. It's ingrained now.
One of the funniest food things I've seen was an interview with a French chef, who was talking about cheeses. I wish I could remembeg it well enough to quote him, but he was basically saying, in Europe, you don't refrigerate cheese. Cheese has cultures, it is a living thing. Conversely, in America, cheese is dead, and we put it in the morgue, in little body bags.
Edit I found it! It was Clotaire Rapaille, and he's a market researcher, not a chef. The quote came from a 2003 Frontline episode on advertising and marketing:
For example, if I know that in America the cheese is dead, which means is pasteurized, which means legally dead and scientifically dead, and we don't want any cheese that is alive, then I have to put that up front. I have to say this cheese is safe, is pasteurized, is wrapped up in plastic. I know that plastic is a body bag. You can put it in the fridge. I know the fridge is the morgue; that's where you put the dead bodies. And so once you know that, this is the way you market cheese in America.
I started working with a French company in America, and they were trying to sell French cheese to the Americans. And they didn't understand, because in France the cheese is alive, which means that you can buy it young, mature or old, and that's why you have to read the age of the cheese when you go to buy the cheese. So you smell, you touch, you poke. If you need cheese for today, you want to buy a mature cheese. If you want cheese for next week, you buy a young cheese. And when you buy young cheese for next week, you go home, [but] you never put the cheese in the refrigerator, because you don't put your cat in the refrigerator. It's the same; it's alive. We are very afraid of getting sick with cheese. By the way, more French people die eating cheese than Americans die. But the priority is different; the logic of emotion is different. The French like the taste before safety. Americans want safety before the taste.
Hmm, this has me curious, I am in Australia at the moment, and the eggs here are unwashed and are kept outside of the fridge. However, they look as if they have been washed. Is there a special kind of rinse eggs go through here that doesn't remove the protective layer? Or are they doing something insane to the poor chooks to get eggs this clean? I rarely see any feathers, bits of muck, etc.
Googling around it seems that they are heat treated for salmonella before delivery but it is still technically recommended to keep them in the fridge longer term in Australia. Just doesn't matter if you use them in a week or so.
Just out of curiosity, taking into account feed and care for the chickens, how much would you say each egg costs?
we raisekeep chickens. did the calculation a couple years ago (eggs/week / feed/week) and it was essentially break even, but I think the eggs are better (store bought eggs have super pale yolks). We feed them a mix of feed and kitchen scraps (trimmings of produce etc). Now its a good price from what I read in the news, but if you include labor, its probably not worth it or you would pay yourself next to nothing.
And plus you've got fair-trade ethically-sourced cruelty-free local eggs. Those aren't cheap.
But you get chickems! They are their own reward.
Oh yeah, I consider myself unpaid labor so that's ok. XD Do you mean that you also sell the chickens? Or just that you raise them from chicks?
sorry, misspoke. we keep chickens for eggs.
It doesn't scare us, we want this. I'd love to see you win vs the chicken industry. They would stomp your ass to the ground like they do to all the chickens!
We don't eat the donkey eggs
You're missing out. Donkey eggs are very high in vitamin A and D.
You knows those are good because of the way that they are.
Left there so long it's growing into a chicken
Very common in more rural areas, I do this with my chickens' eggs too
Or local coops. I get them like this (though with more shit) from friends' backyard chickens
Trust me bro, we dont care
Am American. Used to have to get those eggs out from under the chickens who wanted to sit on them and get the shit pecked out of me before school everyday.
Am American
You could've shot the chickens first then, duh
They're chicken, not fish. They obviously weren't in a school.
Or a barrel
Why would this scare Americans? We can get farm fresh unwashed eggs here too.
Most of us don’t and many of us are skeeved out by this. I recognize that it’s stupid and these eggs are fine, but it still makes me feel gaggy looking at them.
Eggs are shelf stable? How long do they last on the counter?
Unwashed eggs are shelf stable, they last for a few weeks at room temp. Washed eggs, like you'd get at an American grocery store, absolutely need to be refrigerated.
What if you do the bad/good test with water in a bowl? Do you have to refrigerate them after? Or is that not "washing"?
By washing they mean chemically. Usually involving bleach
I still don’t get why you wouldn't still put those eggs on the refrigerator. They will stay fresher longer!
Fresh eggs at room temp will stay good for 2 - 4 weeks at room temperature, 3-6 months refrigerated. If you need to refrigerate fresh eggs, you have too many chickens
Eggs don’t instantly degrade from good to bad overnight. They slowly degrade with weakening membranes and what not. As I said, they stay freshER.
I get unwashed eggs from a farm whenever I can. I still put my eggs in the fridge. And the yolks stay nice and unbroken when making eggs over easy, as I like them.
And here I am, with my fridge-kept unwashed eggs, destroying each and every yolk with the spatula before flipping them over.
I don't have chickens I buy them unwashed at the store, use a certain amount of them in the next two or three days because I planned for them, and then all bets are off for the left-over eggs.
I'll get around to them eventually, never yet had to throw one away, but they keep longer in the fridge and they need a place to stay anyway so why not there.
Oh and once they near their expiry date hard-boil them, that easily adds another month.
They really don't. I've tried both ways.
I don’t see how. In any case, I see zero advantage to NOT storing them in the fridge.
No matter how hard you try.
Bits of that unwashed shell are getting in your food.
That's ok. Our chickens aren't half-dead, disease-ridden skeletons rotting in battery cages.
You say that like crispy shites are a bad thing
I want my eggs washed because I deal with enough shit, literal and metaphorical, in my every day life, that I dont want to start my day off with it during breakfast.
You don't have to eat the shit, you know
I cant help it, reminds me so much of your mothers cooking.
My mother died of cancer while I watched. I was 13.
It was a relief, because her cooking was shit
Call crap on this as all eggs look to be same size.
Plenty of Americans have chickens in their backyard. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As an American, I cannot legally touch any egg that hasn't been ultra-pasteurized followed by continuous cold chain refrigeration and served in either a Styrofoam or pulped paper cardboard egg carton.
I think you have been misinformed. As an American, I can harvest eggs just like the pictured ones from my own backyard on a regular basis.
They don't even cost any money, they come out of chicken asses for free.
You must have weird chickens. My lay eggs out if their cloaca.
Isn’t their asshole like inside the cloaca?
Their colon is. The coloaca is their asshole, and pee hole, and egg hole.
What a noob. Ours come from shops. That way, our entire fuckin garden doesn't smell like a crashed ammonia tanker
As a side note, if your chicken coop smells like a crashed ammonia tanker you need to add more carbon in the coop. Dead leaves, cardboard, shredded wood or wood chips are working well.
Sorry your yard is so small. Mine is large enough that the chicken coop is far away from the house and is usually not a bother. Summertime when the wind is just wrong can be an annoying stench, but it's almost nothing compared to the smell of dumpsters in a big city during summer heat.
We call our yards "metres" and they're a little bit bigger than yours
This instantly reminded me of an old Mitchell and Webb sketch lol
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Let’s not pretend the acquisition and upkeep of chickens is free… if you eat a lot of eggs it is absolutely worth it, but there is some cost in setting up a coop, getting chickens, keeping chickens fed and safe from predators, disease, etc.
Plus you have to have property to keep them on and be allowed to have them on your property. For most Americans that isn’t possible due to lack of home ownership or HOA restrictions on what animals you can have on “your” property. (HOAs are bullshit)
This is pulped paper cardboard, is it not?
Your pulped paper cardboard.
It's so nice of you to gift it to them!
I just noticed the mistake and I knew one of you smart asses was going to call me out before I message to fix it :(
You message to fix it? What, you have staff to do it for you?
I don't even know how the fuck that happened. I give up.
It's ok. We still like you.
Thanks bb <3
Y'all are ruthless.
Except the ones with girlfriends called Ruth, obv
Hah, jokes on you. I'm a DUMBass. :p
“Y’all’s eggs AREN'T chlorine washed? Ewww unsanitary”
Here's a pic of some washed eggs in a refrigerator to scare the Europeans.
Bonus:
Microwaved water for tea.
What kind of monster stores bananas in the fridge?
Bananas in the US get washed and lose their protective coating so it's fairly normal to see them in the fridge in US homes.
I’ve never put mine in the fridge in all my decades as an American lol
Way to humble brag about your imported European bananas that don't require refrigeration.
(It was a joke btw lol)
That's news to me
And tomatoes!!! Might as well eat ice cubes at that point
refrigerators keep things chilled, not frozen. you're thinking of a freezer.
Europeans don't have freezers, they store their perishables in Angela Merkel's minge.
OH MINGEY
I kinda prefer cold tomatoes on my tacos than room temp ones, and I mostly use it for pico de Gallo, which is kept in the fridge anyway, so those I do store in the fridge.
Yeah, and I feel like someone's gonna slam that door one day and get egg all over their bananas.
If "get egg all over their bananas" wasn't an euphemism before, I'm starting it now.
Once they've reached your desired ripeness you can slow down them getting overripe in the fridge.
IKR? They go in the freezer so they can be dipped in chocolate. 😋
There's always money in the banana stand
Bruh I'm not even European but that measuring cup got me shook.
Those eggs look almost artificial. Bleugh.
They might be, food photography is weird
I also just grabbed a random ass image off a search; it might be AI generated for all I know!
can you imagine searching for something on google and it just ai generates images on the fly
Yo why are you keeping bananas in the fridge?
I'm pretty sure that's a stock image so I don't think that's a pic of anyone's legit fridge.
But to answer your question, you can keep bananas on the counter until they reach your preferred level of ripeness and then put them in the fridge to slow down the ripening process so you have a few more days to eat them before they turn to complete mush. I do it all time to ensure I always have bananas around at my preferred level of ripeness.
They brown more in the fridge. If anything cold speeds up the banana going gross.
Avocados work the way you say. I wouldn’t do it to a banana
You mean it speeds up the time until they're ready to be banana bread? 😋
agree 😁
Yes the outside goes brown, but the inside slows down it's ripening process. Eventually they will all go to mush, but you can keep them at peak ripeness for a few days longer by putting them in the fridge.
Then again most people won't eat a banana if it has a single brown spot on it, so I'm probably wasting my breath by telling people they can prevent food waste by eating discolored but perfectly ripe food.
As an American I don't condone this practice of microwaving the water, except in extreme circumstances.
Edit: as a typical American, I've realized that I implicitly assumed OP is American, d'oh.
Oh. I thought you were deodorizing the microwave
In the US, there's a concern for salmonella or other bacteria and viruses. Factory egg farming is a horror show in regards to overcrowding and hygiene. Sick birds are crammed in with healthy laying birds, and washing the eggs is one of the safest ways to prevent contamination.
It does increase the permeability of the shell, decreasing shelf life and requiring refrigeration.
If your eggs looked like this in the USA, there's a small but non-zero chance that you'll shit yourself to death. Probably not, but it's scary enough.
We could improve factory farming regulations so it's not a like a Cronenberg movie, but then eggs would be more expensive. And even if we did, and stopped washing our eggs, Americans would still want them to look clean and would still keep them in the fridge because we've been conditioned to expect to die on the toilet covered in wet feces if we see bird poop on the eggs.
Fwiw, the eggs wouldn't have to be more expensive, the eggs cost what the market will pay.
The only change is that the people profiting from your poor food conditions will profit slightly less.
This is a common lie they tell everyone.
Just looked it up. Six shite-covered-but-perfectly-safe eggs
€1.55
They won't profit less, line must go up. They'd charge double the difference and blame immigrants and Obama.
sure they could charge more, but the market wouldn't swallow it so they would sell less. if they could charge more for eggs, they would be doing so right now, for extra profit.
They would collude. All eggs would go up just like during covid, and they wouldn't lose any sales.
If they could do that, they would do that right now. If they could charge more there's nothing stopping them from doing that today. We are already at the maximum price they can charge.
Keeping unwashed eggs in the fridge at home helps them last longer, as long as you don't leave them out to sweat.
But yeah here in Sweden, we rarely ever get salmonella recalls since the chickens aren't strapped to a box here.
Unless you got it from your own chicken coop
Right, but if you keep chickens for eggs, you already know all of this.
Chickens are vaccinated against salmonella (and a bunch of other things) when they are chicks in Europe. It means you don't need to worry about shitting yourself to death, the chickens are slightly happier by not being sick, and your eggs stay fresher for longer.
It would probably add $0.005 per egg, so US producers will claim it's communism if a regulation is brought in to vaccinate chicken, but it would be worth doing.
You mean you put 5G tracking devices in your chickens?
Really, though, getting poultry farmers to spend a penny per dozen eggs is like trying to squeeze water from a rock.
Yeah, it helps one find them if they run away
They've made a documentary about it back in the day:
They recently made a new one with up-to-date info on the security of those chickens
Fuckin finally. The tryna high road the Europe and shit like they don't have poor chicken treatment situations too. Its all down to vaccination requirements. They the treatment of chickens cause both places have issues lol
Refrigerating the eggs end to end costs money too, possibly more. I don't think it's about ongoing cost but rather upfront cost to switching.
At what point do people not just think that maybe going vegan isn't that bad of an alternative
Store bought anything is pretty bad nowadays, at least speaking as an American.
Produce often has listeria, ecoli, salmonella, etc outbreaks, it’s ridiculous. Extends to eggs, spinach, lettuce, radishes…anything. Going vegan doesn’t solve this problem unless you’re only eating what you grow at home.
But eggs are yummy. Baked goods, thickened sauces, omelettes and deviled eggs and egg salad, you can't really replace them with vegan alternatives. Aquafaba is pretty close for some of it, but people like their eggs and don't care about how much their food suffers before we eat it.
Right around lunch time it starts looking less appealing
It is way too challenging in my mind at least. I do one meat meal a week and veg the rest. All the fun stuff has milk and eggs in it.
But hey you do it if it makes you happy.
can confirm, am shook
I have a picture of my receipt for an incredibly reasonably-priced ECG scan I had the other day if you like? I think it was €9
DOES NOT COMPUTE
I know right?
I thought it'd be free fucksake
You pay for your ECGs?
drops monocle
The biggest reason eggs are refrigerated in the US is because they're not vaccinated for salmonella, so refrigeration is needed to inhibit growth. The US was able to do that since they have the infrastructure for end to end refrigeration. It's not necessarily wrong, it's just another way to do it. Since salmonella can also be on the outside of the egg they need to be washed, and since they're refrigerated the loss of the protective layer doesn't matter. I guess in Europe with the vaccination it also lowers the chance of salmonella on the outside of the egg allowing the outside to remain unwashed and protective of the inside making refrigeration unnecessary. There's just not enough of a reason to change things in the us now since the refrigeration method is already in place and switching would cost more up front. The main downside is that you can't eat raw eggs in the US which means some dishes can't be made, but the vast majority of the US isn't interested in raw egg dishes anyways.
People in the US eat raw eggs all the time. Salmonella outbreaks from eggs are almost unheard of.
Also, washed or unwashed, eggs will keep longer in the fridge. And it makes for a less cluttered pantry. There's really zero reason for Europeans to be smug about this.
So I can see that you don't really understand the European mindset
Yeah Ive lived in Europe and the US and raised chickens and have done it both ways. It's kinda nice having eggs that aren't covered in bird shit though.
By that reasoning, washed or unwashed everything keeps longer in the freezer. And it makes for a less cluttered pantry AND fridge.
Except for the part where freezing food effects flavor and texture.
Cutting on electricity and washing costs?
You can buy pasteurized eggs, though they can be hard to find. You can also DIY them with a sous vide cooker.
DIY as in like cook them?
Sous vide is just accurately holding a water bath at a given temperature. You put your food in (in a baggie if necessary) at a specific temperature and time to achieve a consistent "doneness".
130-140 farenheit for an hour is enough to kill pathogens in eggs, but low enough it doesn't cook them.
There are tons of back yard chickens in the USA, even in many cities.
I always wondered if selling eggs to your neighbors violates some us laws
Why sell? Just give them free eggs!
Likely not. There's some weird agricultural laws because of the great depression. You can mail raw vegetables through the USPS as long as they are addressed and have correct postage, for example.
If you sharpie an address on a coconut and put a stamp on it, the USPS will deliver it. They'd rather you didn't make a habit of it but they'll do it.
Yeah it’s a surprisingly big trend here. And the people I know with chickens are suburban families. They are not on farms and they do not have a ton of other pets. Just a dog or cat.
People should realise they are at risk of exposure to higher levels of lead than recommended.
This is because lead in fuel was legal until just a few decades ago. This means that for 70+ years, any houses near roads will have lead contamination in the soil.
We just moved out of the burbs and have ducks ordered for spring, mostly as pets, but also to eat their children.
Not Americans that are used to eating farm fresh eggs from the local farmers market. I lived in downtown Austin until recently and getting freshly picked produce from local and urban farms every Saturday was one of my favorite parts of my week.
Hello I'm from the FBI and I'm on my way to disappear your local farmers thank you
Pwease mista FBI guy, weave my farmews awone UwU
::: spoiler For those wondering wtf OP is talking about
Houston here, and same. There's a bunch of smaller ones. Some get invaded by folks selling store bought things but I dig heading to the farmer's market on weekends. All the meat I get is from small local farms as well.
Not everyone has that luxury due to cost and location. I know exactly how lucky I am to have so many options nearby, to be able to afford the slightly higher prices, and to have the time to go when they're open.
My guy, I grew up on a chicken farm. This does not scare me.
Well obviously if you're an actual chicken, it won't. How was your cage growing up?
🤣
I grew up raising chickens among other animals. Poop and feathers on eggs was the norm. This ‘50s processed white bread, white sugar, clean eggs, etc. that was the sign of “progress” I guess IMO has done more harm than good in some ways.
But my fridge has a little spot just for the eggs. They look so cozy there. I actually don’t know where I’d keep something as fragile as eggs outside my fridge in the kitchen. Genuine question where do you keep your eggs safe? Do they often break?
We don't need an eggs safe, fuck me they're not that valuable
Well no. I’m Canada we keep the anlpha egg of the dozen in the egg safe. It’s not large enough for a full carton of eggs.
C'mon, you're making Canada sound backwards like that. We have banks and they have safety deposit boxes large enough for several cartons of eggs.
I also keep eggs hidden around the house in case I get a midnight craving for an omelette and don't feel like doing a midnight heist on my own eggs. Though I do regret the ones I hid under the couch cushions.
It's not that those are valuable, it's that those are dangerous. Have you ever tried throwing one after getting it out of an egg safe where it was safely tucked away for the last decade?
In the cardboard carton they come in.
In a cupboard in their container? They don't spontaneously combust, as long as they're in the cardboard it's pretty hard to accidentally break them.
I drop so much out of my cupboards resching for something else. I've dropped eggs before, and i would rather clean up a full sack of flour than half a dozen eggs.
Sounds like you might need to go through your things and ask if each brings you joy and get rid of whatever doesn't.
Does this egg bring me joy? Throws egg on floor, giggles yes it does. Makes note to replace egg
Am American living in the city with 8 chickens. The only scary thing is seeing eggs in the market go for $10/dozen
I'd love to see this city that only has 8 chickens in it
10$/dozen? Where?
Only 10? They're $13 where i live
And here I thought $2 was a bit too much.
Wow, that's crazy. It's €4.49/10 here tax included for the fancy free range, low volume farm ones from a not-cheap supermarket.
3.2USD here for a dozen cage-free brown eggs!
My folks’ chickens’ eggs have orange-r yolks tho.
Huh, they're like $2.19 a dozen for me.
Farm fresh eggs here in Amish country go for $2/doz.
Miss living near the Amish. They have these cute big families with so many children and agricultural stuff for low prices. I would love to convince them to somehow some way homestead in my city.
Funny, as someone who works intimately with them I find myself distrusting them. They are great at putting on the "old timey, super genuine sweet Christian folk" persona but don't get it wrong. Their ideology spreads like a cancer around here. They breed like crazy, buy up all the private land, displace other locals with their farms, eschew environmentally friendly agricultural practice to save money, their buggies destroy the roads and cause terrible fatal accidents. It's not to say they're all bad but they're absolutely a highly insular cult and they have no problem turning on outsiders to further their society.
How? I'd always heard that heavier vehicles do more damage to roads, so I'd expect buggies to be on par with bicycles or maybe motorcycles.
I'm curious about this one, too. Do they tend to drive erratically? I'd think their slower top speeds would make it easier to avoid accidents.
Many Amish churches ban rubber tires and the buggies will at best use hardwood wheels, and otherwise they'll be steel. Weight is of some minor concern but more principally the hard materials as well as the shoed horses wear away at the road. In high density Amish areas it's common to see two deep grooves in the road from buggies.
Buggies are not designed for modern roads. They have very little safety features (in fact they only begrudgingly even put reflectors on them, and maybe occasionally flashers for at night), and their bulky, dense bodies and slow movement make them pretty devastating targets to hit. They don't crumple like a modern car. They explode. Car-on-buggy accidents are very frequently fatal. I know plenty of Amish who have lost family to accidents at relatively slow speeds.
Am american and this:
is what I have in my fridge right now. Rural living win.
Would definitely lick those clean, 10/10
Are you my dog?
I can be if you want me to.
Down boy, or you'll get locked in the basement again
Wait, why fridge? I thought they last at room temp if they still have the chicken butt juice. Do they last longer cold?
I still put farm fresh eggs in my fridge because it's just a lot more convenient to store eggs in the fridge than on my counter where I have more limited space
I don't get this at all. Isn't your fridge much smaller than your counter space?
My fridge is designed to store food and has multiple shelves and drawers. My counters are a flat surface area and I'd rather keep them clear for active uses like cutting, prepping, etc.
There are also appliances competing for space on the counter like coffee machines
I guess there's the pantry but it's also just that I'm used to keeping them in the fridge and it's not like it hurts them to go in the fridge.
Anyway, point is it's really not that weird to keep them in the fridge
If its anything like my counter then kinda, honestly ive knocked enough shit off the counter that its just easier to keep em in the fridge.
Yeah I suppose I could store them at room temp, but I figure they last longer in the fridge and I'm not really hurting for space.
Ugh it came out the ass
Unless I've been horribly misinformed, so does honey
It's actually coming out of the cloaca. No idea about the chicken tho
You're both misinformed. Honey doesn't come either out of a bee's anus nor out of a bee's cloaca. It comes out of the mouth. Bees don't even have a cloaca. Chickens though do have a cloaca and that's where the eggs come out.
So where do the chickens produce honey from then, smartypants?
They get it from Aldi.
No way a chicken would fit
The chicken comes out of the egg, the egg comes out of the cloaca
So I’ve thought about the chicken and the egg issue. Wouldn’t it be the egg first since it contained an evolved spices that we currently call the chicken? The one that produced it doesn’t have to be a chicken, only that it produced a mutated offspring whose egg contained the chicken.
It's more like the egg contained something slightly different from the mother, and that trend continues for thousands and thousands of "iterations" until eventually it's completely distinct from that "first" one. There shouldn't be any species that gives birth to something completely different where it's protochicken straight to chicken.
That’s kinda what I’m getting at, in that at some point you draw the line on what is a “chicken” vs what isn’t a chicken.
Is the egg named after what laid it, or what it contains?
(That’s why I love that thought experiment)
Cloaca is its ass, just a multifunctional one
Is "Multifunctional Ass" the sequel to "Detachable Penis"?
That's ridiculous, chickens don't have asses. When's the last time you went to KFC and ordered a bucket of wings, breasts, and asses?
Sidenote: my phone thnks the word breasts must be changed to breaststroke every time.
Silly every tgingat kfc is chicken asses.
The asses are like the sub-dogfood grade meat at taco bell. You don't explicitly ask for it, but everyone just knows that's what they are getting.
https://youtu.be/vgNS0dIbPUE?t=318
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But I eat ass for sport
If eating ass was a sport I’d know about it.
It is, but is not competitive yet. We are hoping to form a league.
Can confirm. We (in US) have chickens and whenever we gift eggs to people they're astounded that they don't need to be refrigerated but also sometimes horrified that they aren't washed.
Granted, I keep the eggs that get poopy for myself so they don't get tossed out by an overly cautious person. I just rinse them immediately before use if they're very dirty. Occasionally one of the hens will have an "accident" and lay an egg in the dirt outside or on the coop floor. Otherwise they look generally like the pic above.
I've yet to have a rotten egg and at times we've gotten behind by over a month... Still good, sitting on the counter for a month.
Fun info, I'm currently eating through some "water glassed" eggs that I stored in May of 2023. Still good.
I have looked up "water glassed eggs" and while it does look interesting as a scientific experiment, I'm reasonably certain that you're a psychopath
Hahah yeah water glassing is kind of a throwback that helps keep them even through temp variations. We did an experiment back when we had a homestead a few years ago, where we cleaned any nasties if there were any and then dipped the eggs in oil and kept them in a cool room.
We came back every three months to try an egg. We ended the experiment at 2 years after which 25% of them began to float. The rest were still edible but the yolk wouldn't stay together when cracked.
Ah I see
Psychopath it is then
rofl fair enough
Yeah, at ~8 months these are about 50/50 on whether the yolks hold together. Still taste fine though.
I decided to give it a try since in the spring/summer they were laying way more than we could keep up with ... But mostly because I thought it was interesting and wanted to try it :D
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century\_egg
You'll hear no arguments from me : D
More like curious psychopath, maybe
And a pack of 10, not 12.
In Spain it is also a dozen (12).
what's wrong with a pack of 12?
They use metric egg cartons, we use freedom cartons.
7/13th of an ounce of eggs pls
It's comfortable for Americans but unheard of in many European countries. The point of this post is to make them uncomfortable.
I live in Europe and I've seen packs of 4, 6 (most common), 8, 10, 12. It's not unheard of at all.
Well, I never bought eggs outside the Czech Republic, Germany and Romania, and they were only available in multiples of 10.
In Norway I've only seen eggs sold in packs of 6, 12, 18, or 24. As far as I can remember, anyway.
wow 24 is huge!
Where I used to live there were 6, 10, 15, and huge packs of
2530. Recently 9 eggs packs started appearing (I could almost bet the price is the same as 10)Edit: I somehow decided that 5 times 6 is 25
15? Are those arranged 3x5? Is the 25 package square? I've only seen packages arranged as 2xN.
15 is 3×5, as for 25 I stand corrected, those are 30 arranged 5×6 (I counted several times and then wrote an incorrect number 😕)
who needs that many eggs lol, and why wouldn't they simply buy 3 packs of 10
I know hardy har har such banter, but for real we also have unwashed eggs, and plenty of Americans have chicken's, I currently have 80 in my backyard and am overflowing with eggs on my countertops.
Your jokes will hit harder if they come from a place of reality and not only information gained from reddit and social media posts.
There are Americans who own chickens and Americans who've never touched one. It's a big country. This post applies mostly to city folk.
I live in a major American city maybe 4 miles from downtown and I have a farm with fresh eggs and produce a block from my house.
I think that's a fair point. However in this case, as an American I personally know people here who are like this.
A friend of mine will go to the store and buy more eggs because he refuses to eat the fresh eggs I keep on my counter.
Edit: He also keeps an ice chest in his trunk to keep them in during the 20 minute drive from the store...
Well, if you're buying them at a store in the US and storing at room temperature, your friend has a point. In Europe, they don't wash the eggs at the processing plant. This leaves a film of sorts on the egg that prevents bacteria from entering the egg. In the US, we wash the eggs in processing to get bacteria off the eggs. Both methods are done to prevent E-coli, but the caveat is the washed eggs need refrigeration because there is no film on the eggs.
https://www.ksat.com/features/2024/01/24/why-eggs-need-to-be-refrigerated-in-us-but-not-europe/#:~:text=Processing%20eggs%20in%20Europe&text=One%2C%20various%20countries%20in%20Europe,of%20needing%20to%20be%20refrigerated.
Also-- if the eggs are unwashed and then refrigerated they are now not shelf stable, the condensation that will occur going from fridge to room temp will disturb the cuticle enough to make them unsafe.
This is something I never knew, thanks
I will add to this... obviously, if you have chickens, farm fresh eggs can be stored at room temperature in the US.
What, a shitpost didn't take every singe person who exists in America into consideration??!?!?!?? No way, that's awful, I can't believe OP would try and hurt you like that, wild they posted a public meme that didn't apply to you personally
Also I believe you by your use of "chicken's". I grew up rural and many did not know how to pluralize things.
I don't really know if there are laws about not selling eggs like this. Are there? I understood the practice of washing and sterilizing eggs came about as a marketting thing, b/c Americans tend to buy based on superficial appearance, and washed eggs sold better.
Is egg-washing mandated?
https://tellus.ars.usda.gov/stories/articles/how-we-store-our-eggs-and-why
FYI multiple studies have found that there is no safety benefit to washing. It just looks nicer, and people think it's safer.
Thanks, that confirms my understanding, although I'm surprised the participation rate is as low as it is. That's really interesting, thanks!
Yeah, as an American I'm surprised it's only 60 percent. Pretty much anything I've ever seen available to me has been washed/graded/refrigerated. Maybe farmer's markets? But no way do they have 40 percent market share. I've occasionally had friends with coops so I'm not unfamiliar with having shelf stable eggs, though.
At this point I think the thing that'd freak out Americans the most is the whole thing about not needing to refrigerate. It's ingrained now.
One of the funniest food things I've seen was an interview with a French chef, who was talking about cheeses. I wish I could remembeg it well enough to quote him, but he was basically saying, in Europe, you don't refrigerate cheese. Cheese has cultures, it is a living thing. Conversely, in America, cheese is dead, and we put it in the morgue, in little body bags.
Edit I found it! It was Clotaire Rapaille, and he's a market researcher, not a chef. The quote came from a 2003 Frontline episode on advertising and marketing:
Hmm, this has me curious, I am in Australia at the moment, and the eggs here are unwashed and are kept outside of the fridge. However, they look as if they have been washed. Is there a special kind of rinse eggs go through here that doesn't remove the protective layer? Or are they doing something insane to the poor chooks to get eggs this clean? I rarely see any feathers, bits of muck, etc.
Googling around it seems that they are heat treated for salmonella before delivery but it is still technically recommended to keep them in the fridge longer term in Australia. Just doesn't matter if you use them in a week or so.
Just out of curiosity, taking into account feed and care for the chickens, how much would you say each egg costs?
we
raisekeep chickens. did the calculation a couple years ago (eggs/week / feed/week) and it was essentially break even, but I think the eggs are better (store bought eggs have super pale yolks). We feed them a mix of feed and kitchen scraps (trimmings of produce etc). Now its a good price from what I read in the news, but if you include labor, its probably not worth it or you would pay yourself next to nothing.And plus you've got fair-trade ethically-sourced cruelty-free local eggs. Those aren't cheap.
But you get chickems! They are their own reward.
Oh yeah, I consider myself unpaid labor so that's ok. XD Do you mean that you also sell the chickens? Or just that you raise them from chicks?
sorry, misspoke. we keep chickens for eggs.
It doesn't scare us, we want this. I'd love to see you win vs the chicken industry. They would stomp your ass to the ground like they do to all the chickens!
We don't eat the donkey eggs
You're missing out. Donkey eggs are very high in vitamin A and D.
You knows those are good because of the way that they are.
Left there so long it's growing into a chicken
Very common in more rural areas, I do this with my chickens' eggs too
Or local coops. I get them like this (though with more shit) from friends' backyard chickens
Trust me bro, we dont care
Am American. Used to have to get those eggs out from under the chickens who wanted to sit on them and get the shit pecked out of me before school everyday.
You could've shot the chickens first then, duh
They're chicken, not fish. They obviously weren't in a school.
Or a barrel
Why would this scare Americans? We can get farm fresh unwashed eggs here too.
Most of us don’t and many of us are skeeved out by this. I recognize that it’s stupid and these eggs are fine, but it still makes me feel gaggy looking at them.
Eggs are shelf stable? How long do they last on the counter?
Unwashed eggs are shelf stable, they last for a few weeks at room temp. Washed eggs, like you'd get at an American grocery store, absolutely need to be refrigerated.
What if you do the bad/good test with water in a bowl? Do you have to refrigerate them after? Or is that not "washing"?
By washing they mean chemically. Usually involving bleach
Two hundred and fifty years, give or take
I still don’t get why you wouldn't still put those eggs on the refrigerator. They will stay fresher longer!
Fresh eggs at room temp will stay good for 2 - 4 weeks at room temperature, 3-6 months refrigerated. If you need to refrigerate fresh eggs, you have too many chickens
Eggs don’t instantly degrade from good to bad overnight. They slowly degrade with weakening membranes and what not. As I said, they stay freshER.
I get unwashed eggs from a farm whenever I can. I still put my eggs in the fridge. And the yolks stay nice and unbroken when making eggs over easy, as I like them.
And here I am, with my fridge-kept unwashed eggs, destroying each and every yolk with the spatula before flipping them over.
I love the juicy yolk exploding on the plate (or in my mouth). My other secret, besides fresh eggs, is to flip them without tools. https://youtu.be/OTlr2Y-nbc4?si=1uPHNAwHkV_HxV7T
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/OTlr2Y-nbc4?si=1uPHNAwHkV_HxV7T
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I don't have chickens I buy them unwashed at the store, use a certain amount of them in the next two or three days because I planned for them, and then all bets are off for the left-over eggs.
I'll get around to them eventually, never yet had to throw one away, but they keep longer in the fridge and they need a place to stay anyway so why not there.
Oh and once they near their expiry date hard-boil them, that easily adds another month.
They really don't. I've tried both ways.
I don’t see how. In any case, I see zero advantage to NOT storing them in the fridge.
No matter how hard you try.
Bits of that unwashed shell are getting in your food.
That's ok. Our chickens aren't half-dead, disease-ridden skeletons rotting in battery cages.
You say that like crispy shites are a bad thing
I want my eggs washed because I deal with enough shit, literal and metaphorical, in my every day life, that I dont want to start my day off with it during breakfast.
You don't have to eat the shit, you know
I cant help it, reminds me so much of your mothers cooking.
My mother died of cancer while I watched. I was 13.
It was a relief, because her cooking was shit
Call crap on this as all eggs look to be same size.
Plenty of Americans have chickens in their backyard. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I thought this was what unpasteurized meant