Left Eggs On Kitchen Counter For 16 Hours-Safe To Eat?

Almost all countries in Europe immunize their hens, not only the UK

Some countries use to put eggs in the refrigerator, others don't.

Tests show that there's practically no difference in bacteria population between eggs refrigerated and those kept at room temperature after a few weeks.

I would not hesitate to let the eggs at room temperature for a few days.

Info

Eggs don't really need to be refrigerated. We haven't put them in the fridge for years. They're apparently safe for quite a long time kept on the counter (way longer than the two weeks it usually takes us to get through a dozen eggs).

Many a time when weve left home on a Thursday and been away for a long weekend in hot summer, we will collect the eggs on a Tuesday when we return. Never had a bad egg. As ehbeth says, it takes almost 2 weeks for them to start to turn bad in the nest

You know the test for whether an egg is bad or not?

Much thanks for the link. However, the gist of the article linked made it clear that there is a wide gulf in safety between warm American eggs which are not lain by immunized hens and UK hens which are lain by immunized hens, by law. So I feel I'm back to square one.

Quote farmerman:

No, and my next meal depends on this. So please make haste and tell me the answer.

PS: Do you vaccinate your hens against salmonella? Apparently that makes a big difference in egg refrigeration issues.

I've had food poisoning a couple of times (Guadalajara & Puerto Vallarta, cities I still like anyway), but never from eggs. I refrigerate them since I'm the undependable one - I might not use eggs for a week or longer, or may use a dozen in a few days. Interesting to learn from Timur's post that said there was little difference re bacti, refrigerated or not, and that makes perfect sense.

Thanks, farmer, for your timing info re your own chickens and eggs.

I'm generally not a food scaredy cat, in the US or Italy (I'd say Europe, but I've only been to one country there). I'm a bit chary now re me and new bacterial flora or bacti like shigella, in Mexico, but I've fond memories from many trips, would gladly go there again. No similar problems in Guatamala.

Something to do with putting it in water? I think I've read that, but forget...

Quote osso:


It should be pointed out that Timur's link is from a UK newspaper, and the test which showed no difference in salmonella between refrigerated eggs and nonrefrigerated eggs was also conducted in the UK where by law hens are required to be vaccinated against salmonella. No such law exists in the US, and only one third of the hens in the US are so vaccinated. Which means that unless you specifically know different about the particular eggs you are buying, you should assume your eggs are from unvaccinated hens. Apparently it's not much of an issue if the eggs stay refrigerated.

Mine went unrefrigerated for 16 hours.

I did an internet lookup on Canadian eggs, (after reading an internet post which says that Canadian eggs are much less likely to carry salmonella than US eggs), and it seems that while the Canadians don't require vaccination for hens, they do have an anti-salmonella program in place which seems quite rigorous. So I suspect that eating an unrefrigerated Canadian egg from an unvaccinated hen is a safer proposition than eating an unrefrigerated US egg from an unvaccinated hen.

Here, in Germany (and I suppose in other EU-countries as well) eggs can be kept for 18 days outside the fridge (you see the date when they were laid either on the egg or package [or have to rely on what the farmer says]). (That has to do with the natural protection namely the cuticle)

I know.

I've only known one person who's had salmonella poisoning, and that was my m.d. boss back in the seventies. Well, two, there was also our lab helper that went with him to the deli for sandwiches one sunny day. The deli must have made their own mayonaise - he pinned it on that. They both got violently sick late that night. (No, not together, what a thought.)

Our lab was an immunology/rheumatology/hematology research lab, not specializing in bacteriology, but the boss knew his beeswax. I have a degree in bacteriology, but that was a near lifetime ago.

Of course, they're safe to eat... if you're planning on cooking them thoroughly. Oh, and not eating the uncleaned shells.

I can bet if you boil the eggs, even the shells would also make the shells edible as well. Not sure why you'd eat them. But....

Quote tsarstepan:

Eggshell calcium draws a nice price at the health food shop.

Oh for heavens sake. They're fine.

Between this, your worrying about broth temperature and concern about ingesting a bit of ground bone, I guessing you're a bit of a hypochondriac.

People have been eating all manner of things forever. You'll be fine.

they're not going to go bad in a few days or a week

the issue re salmonella is something entirely different

if you're concerned, pull the eggs out of the fridge now and boil the heck out of them. put the hard-boiled eggs in the fridge and eat them/use them in recipes. or peel the hard-boiled eggs, grate them and freeze the grated egg to be used in recipes later.

A "bad egg" will stand upright when immersed in water, because of methanogenic bacteria.

Non immunized chickens are only an issue if theyve GOT salmonella . The symptoms are easily noticeable and involve some pretty gross symptoms. A farmer can see if a chicken comes down with salmonella and its unusual because big farm FOOD is medicated for the chicks and young pullets. They dont immunize or treat them after about 19 weeks because its a rare condition that, like bird flu, is a mess in the flock.

All my hens are "TOTAL FREE RANGE". They live among the sheep and will , like tick birds, remove bot-fly and larvae on sheep that are less thrifty.

Chickens that are immunized (And this is mostly marketing secrets) can still give a dose of salmonella because the Brits an French dont , for some damned reason, WASH their eggs.
American farmers have egg washers that use cold water and fine soft brushs, and the eggs are usually harder shell .
We feed our chickens a major meal of shell building calcium/magnesium carbonate crushed oyster shell, and they seek it out like salt.

Salmonella can occur iin or outside the eggs shell and what everyone worries about is the "inside the shell" pathogen. (This can be avoided by the feed meds in early months of life and keeping the chickens on qatch so they can be assessed daily for their health. Its usually done by color scan cameras nowadays. (The chickens with salmonella develop blue wattles and feet and the scanning cameras use color comparitors tuned to the specific light frequency of salmonella wattles, and then there are very frequent bact samples taken)

The Commercial houses will hold over 200K chickens so its poor business to dismiss the potential for salmonella . If a bunch of chickens in a house maybe developing salmonella, their initial egg production goes down(normal optimum is 5 eggs perweek per bird) and the egg counters on each cage will signal to a puter that somthing's wrong. Then the sampling and isolation of potentially sick birds goes into high gear.

We only have like 25 +/- chickens now . So we must hunt up the eggs (chickens , not in tight cages, dont lay their eggs in the same spot no matter what anybody sez). Therefore we keep an eye on the girls health and , like I said, we dont worry about the salmonells issue because we

1dont keep any cracked eggs

2we wash the eggs in cold water

3we let em cool on the sinkboard

4we will let eggs in the fridge for weeks and even then they are too fresh to hardboil.


Lots of Americns like eggs and, as far as I know, we dont have a pndemic or even a statitically significant breakout of egg salmonella any more than any other developed country. Where most of our salmonella omes from is infected vegetbles sprouts , live poultry killed for restaurants and pet reptiles

Much thanks for the info, farmerman.

After checking online for how to tell bad eggs, I went ahead and ate two a few hours ago.

If you don't hear from me tomorrow, I would hope one of you would be so kind as to start a eulogy thread.

can I have your mini cooper?

We could start a chop shop farmer, getting people to eat the salmon mousse and such, leaving us their vehicles.