Comment by philliphaydon
7 years ago
I left Australia 8 years ago but the 5 years living there, they were never refrigerated... never seen eggs in fridges :S
7 years ago
I left Australia 8 years ago but the 5 years living there, they were never refrigerated... never seen eggs in fridges :S
This is interesting. Scandinavia is mentioned as another refrigerating part of the world, yet as a Swede, I don't think I've ever seen cold eggs in stores. On the other hand, virtually everyone I know buys room-temperature eggs, get home, and promptly put them in the fridge.
The theory goes - and it may be part urban myth - is that you should not refrigerate eggs if the shops in your country don't. There'll have been no refrigeration at any point in the supply chain. Frost free fridges are extremely dry and will shorten the fresh lifespan of the eggs as the shell isn't perfectly air tight, and supposedly - this may be the part that's urban myth - can also damage the natural protective coating.
Certainly we've never had problems with eggs staying fresh in the cupboard for months, and would never put them in the fridge. Course it's not common to get that old, but we often go past the 2 weeks best before date. First thing to do with a new fridge is throw away the pointless egg tray. :)
At least in Italy it is stamped on the package to refrigerate after purchase.
Ditto in Finland. Eggs are stored on shelves, unrefrigerated.
The eggs from the chickens my wife and I raise on the farm can be stored for about 4 weeks at room temperatures. Probably more, but we usually use the eggs or trade them away long before that.
Putting a six-pack of eggs in the refrigerator is one thing though. If you have larger quantities than that, it's rather unpractical (and unnecessary) to store them in a refrigerator.
Off topic: I think the OTOH idiom is for weighing opposing facts. You aren't doing that here: the lack of store refrigeration and the room temp purchase are equivalent. Being mentioned is the opposite, but that was in a distant clause.
I won't say the usage is definitely wrong (being English, after all), but it struck me as interesting.
I put the blame squarely on my lack of patience for editing on the phone. You're right, of course. I started writing one thing and then changed my mind partway through the sentence.
I'm in Norway: All of the eggs are refrigerated in the stores around here. Oddly enough, I asked my soon-to-be Norwegian spouse about this before I moved here from the US just because I read a similar article.
In Denmark eggs in supermarkets are in fridges with the milk etc., and people usually keep eggs in their fridges at home as well.
Danish supermarkets refrigerate eggs, but the eggs are also unwashed. It's probably the same in Sweden :)
That sounds unusual, unwashed refrigerated eggs collect moisture in the trip form the shop to home that allows some of the pathogens to pass through the shell