A spoiled egg can spoil the party with food poisoning that can cause fever, chills, and a simple stomach upset, as well as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. To avoid all this, there is nothing better than knowing how to determine its freshness, distinguish danger signs, and finally, store them at home correctly.
How to know if an egg is fresh and good: tricks
Anatomy, weight and the condition of the shell are among the simplest characteristics that can be used to check, without opening it and very quickly, that an egg will not cause health problems after being cooked and eaten. How can we be sure?
If an egg is well past its best-before date, it is not considered to be in good condition at all. You can also check to see if it floats, look at the shell or shake it to hear what’s inside. We’ll show you all the tricks to check if an egg is fresh and suitable for consumption.
Check the expiration date
It seems obvious, but there are some oversights: the best-before date, which is printed on the box, is an indicator of the state of the eggs. They can be eaten up to four weeks after they are laid; and if they are kept refrigerated and with a clean shell (without washing it), they do not have to be bad, even if a few days have passed since the date.
Dip the egg into a glass of water
The floatability test is very useful, and it is as simple as placing the eggs in question in a glass of water and observing whether they suspiciously float or sink. As we have already seen, an egg contains less air inside it the fresher it is. If it floats easily, it may not be suitable for consumption. On the other hand, density is indicative of freshness, so it will sink easily.
Examine the egg and check the shell
Keeping an eye on the shell can also warn us that it would be appropriate to throw the eggs in the trash. It is not a foolproof system either: it could be immaculate and its interior full of salmonella. However, if there are obvious cracks (through which bacteria could have entered), or if it is thin, fragile or warped, it would be a good idea to check if it floats.
Shake the egg near your ear
If there’s one sound that any foodie would normally hear when making a Spanish omelette or something similar, it’s the very specific one they hear when shaking an egg next to their ear: if the yolk splashes against the shell, using it in the preparation will probably guarantee that diners will spend at least one day visiting the toilet frequently.
How do you know if an egg is bad when you open it?
Not convinced by the first round? Despite all of the above, you may still have doubts about the safety of the mystery eggs. If so, there are three other ways to clear them up if you open them.
Pay attention to the smells
This, scientific reasons aside, is just common sense. You wouldn’t want to eat any food that you put your nose close to and then wrinkle up at the unpleasant smell it gives off. And the same goes for eggs: if they crack and the stuff that comes out stinks, you can say goodbye without regret. In general, rotten egg smells are caused by sulfur-containing elements and the decomposition of protein due to infection by potentially dangerous microorganisms. Beware! Salmonella, like other microorganisms, doesn’t smell, so that might not be enough of a warning.
The color of the yolk
The colour of the yolk tells you how the hen from which a particular egg came was fed; depending on the pigments of the food it was fed, it can vary from pale yellow to dark orange. There is no need to be afraid if the colour is very bright yellow or red, these colours are provided by different antioxidant pigments. On the other hand, a very faded, whitish or cloudy colour could indicate that the egg has been overcooked.
The adhesion of the yolk and the white
Examining the separation of the yolk and the white of the egg is also advisable in these investigations. If the latter can be separated from the former without too much effort, thumbs up. If not, it is best to handle it with care. And, in addition, we should point out that if the yolk moves when shaken a little, great. But if it remains stiff, bad business.
The consistency of the egg white
The consistency of the egg white is also important because the degree of freshness of an egg affects this quality. If it feels firm and has a gelatinous texture, it has not been long since the hen laid it and can be cooked with it. And the more liquid it looks, the worse.
Can you tell if an egg has salmonella?
Salmonella sp. is the bacteria that causes salmonellosis, which can be infected by eating meat, fruit, vegetables, and eggs. Salmonella is a common bacteria that lives in the cloaca of birds (the last part of their excretory system). When eggs are laid, this microorganism stays on the surface of the shell, which has very small pores. Sometimes, the bacteria can get inside the eggs, reproduce, and contaminate the egg.
In other cases, cross-contamination can cause this bacteria to reach a food and proliferate. There is no way to know if an egg is contaminated or not since this bacteria does not produce odors or secretions that distinguish it. In fact, it goes quite unnoticed. The only way to keep ourselves safe is to maintain good practices with eggs: check that their packaging is well sealed and that we always keep them in good condition, cold; never wash eggs, but wash kitchen utensils and our own hands; and do not eat eggs without having cooked them at more than 80 °C for at least one minute.
In the case of preparations with raw eggs, we must take special care not to contaminate the food and, again, store it in the cold as soon as possible to slow down the growth of the microorganism.
What is the correct way to store eggs?
It cannot be repeated enough: storage is a vital point in the conservation of eggs. Eggs are a very nutritious and delicate food in terms of preserving their freshness, and they cannot be stored in just any way. We must follow three simple guidelines.
Do not wash them
Eggs are like the mogwais and gremlins in the two films directed by Joe Dante: washing them has catastrophic consequences. Germs can get into them this way because water destroys the protective layer of their permeable shell. And what would happen if we used cleaning products is that their toxic elements would go the same way.
Maintain your temperature
They should be stored in a dry, cool, and dark place, but what is truly essential is that the temperature around the eggs does not vary at any time of day and never to the temperature reached in the summer of the Iberian Peninsula. Otherwise, they could change to a state incompatible with safe consumption, as we have seen.
Is it better to store them in the refrigerator or outside?
The only place in the home where eggs can be kept under the conditions mentioned above is the refrigerator. And they are not exposed to sunlight, whose radiation can decompose the shell, raise the temperature of their contents, and turn it into an unpredictable bacterial party. But they must be protected from humidity and possible contamination from other foods.