How To Store Fresh Eggs
(Page 3 of 4)
November/December 1977
By the Mother Earth News editors
By June (120 days after the experiment was begun) all the supermarket and all the homestead control eggs had gone completely rotten. The dry sand groups (both fertile and unfertile) were also terminated at that time ... as were the store-boughts that had been coated with vaseline (the vaseline-coated homestead eggs were only marginally better). The fertile and unfertile eggs packed in lard were getting pretty "iffy", the ones coated with lard were doing a lot better, the lime water groups were still edible (although, in the case of the supermarket eggs, barely edible), the refrigerated eggs seemed to have firmed up and were nearly as good as fresh, and-while the waterglassed groups were, in general, doing far better than average-one of the fertile eggs covered with waterglass was very definitely bad.
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The ranks of the still-good eggs began to thin considerably 150 days into our test. By July, the supermarket eggs packed in lard weren't making it anymore (while the fertile eggs packed in lard were runny but edible). Likewise the waterglassed eggs. The lime water store-boughts, on the other hand, were still "good" (except for the one we didn't even open, since it floated), while the lime water homestead hen fruit was only "edible". Both the agribiz and the down-home eggs coated with lard were "good enough to eat for breakfast". While-maybe just by contrast-the store-bought refrigerated cackleberries were "good, like fresh" and the homestead refrigerated hen fruit was "excellent".
August, of course, was more of the same. The lard-packed fertile eggs were still "OK", the waterglassed fertiles were still "OK", the lime water homestead eggs were barely edible and the lime water store-boughts were rotten. The lard-coated hen fruit (both fertile and unfertile) all looked weird ... but could be eaten. Which really only left the refrigerated supermarket and refrigerated homestead eggs as "good" and "looks almost fresh".
The fertile eggs packed in lard, coated with lard, preserved in waterglass, and covered by lime water were still all "OK" in September. The store-boughts coated with lard were not. Leaving, again, as the Big Winners the refrigerated fertile eggs ("good") and the refrigerated unfertile eggs ("good, almost fresh").
CONCLUSIONS
At the end of seven months (all of our experiment that was finished and processed at the time this issue went to press), then, we had drawn these conclusions about our egg preservation experiment:
[1] Unwashed, fertile homestead eggs seem to store much better than washed, unfertile agribiz eggs. Why? Probably for the simple reason that they're unwashed ... and not because they're fertile. Hen fruit, as it comes from the chicken, is coated with a light layer of a natural sealing agent called "bloom". And, while a good wash may make a batch of eggs look more attractive, it also removes this natural protective coating ... leaving the eggs more subject to aging and attack by the air and bacteria in the air.
