Guest Columnist
Commercial egg producers must wash eggs in at least 90° water with a special soap that won’t pick up odors. The heated water prevents some of the water colder than the egg contents from being sucked into the egg with contaminants.
Then, eggs are rinsed with a sanitizing solution and dried. Drying is crucial, because bacteria cannot penetrate a dry shell. All this before they can be sold.
Foremost for these requirements are that nobody wants to buy dirty eggs. Dirty is usually meant to be coated with chicken manure or other soil organisms. In either case, hands cracking a contaminated egg shell pose a human safety or health problem.
For anyone raising chickens for eggs, washing the eggs is needed for several reasons. First, it cleans the eggs. Second, any egg that releases a stream of tiny bubbles when immersed is a bad egg. Third, any egg that floats has gas and is bad.
Somewhat surprising, USDA grade A eggs are illegal to sell anywhere in the European Union (EU). Under their laws, grade A eggs must not be washed or otherwise cleaned.
Their reasoning, which most of us would reject, is that non-washing puts an onus on growers to produce the cleanest eggs possible, because as already stated, nobody wants to buy a dirty egg. Also, and this is a guess, they’re concerned that the eggs might be washed in cold water, the water might not be changed frequently enough, or the eggs might be left in water long enough to allow contaminants (any micro-organism) to penetrate the egg shell’s thousands and thousands of pores. They’re also concerned that washing would remove the protective coating applied just before the egg is laid.
Finally, we refrigerate our eggs for a longer shelf life and less chance of salmonella contamination.
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