Kitchen

[house_cat]

I thought this was interesting; perhaps you will, too.

Here's why you have to refrigerate eggs in the U.S. but not in Europe.

[depglass]

Thanks for the link. My aunt had a chicken farm when I was a kid, in the 50's. She just kept all those eggs in a cool storage room, no frig. I always wondered about that now that we are all so frig crazy. But I won't chance salmonella, so I'll stay frig crazy.

[Silkeej]

Always refrigerate my eggs afraid of Salmonella. When I use eggs I always wash my hands after don't want any cross contamination. Love eggs but think they really require special handling to keep you and your family safe.

[stilltamn8r]

My dad swore you didn't have to! He grew up in rural Texas and raised chickens....my Momnever believed him and was always putting them in the fridge...

[Tissyanne]

Good information to know. Thanks for sharing.

[colliemom4]

It is interesting!

[Marienkaefer2]

That is interesting. I always remember my aunt in Italy storing her eggs in the basement. It was cool, but not refrigerated.

Now I know why it was ok to do that!

I also remember her buying Parmalat milk that didn't have to be refrigerated. (and I've seen the same milk here too, but not as common).

[Tigriss]

If you raise chickens in a small farm/yard, you don't have to refrigerate. You can inoculate your chickens yourself from the farm and seed store. We had old school, open chicken houses and didn't refrigerate the eggs. Half the time we just went and got them and cooked them. We washed in small batches in bleach water and put them in the cooler for the truck to come and pick up. I remember when the first automatic chicken house was installed in our town. My cousins put them in. I was amazed at the automatic nature of it and how cool it was in there. YOu only needed one or two people to man it, then again, we only had one or two people manning ours but you would pick up, clean, and store, break for lunch, and do it again. No big deal. In Asian chicken sashimi is popular since their chickens are kept in the backyards of these restaurants and killed fresh. No commercial contamination from those large chicken houses. That is where and why we get sick.....too much turn over from the commercial, money making process. The more small farmers we have the better!

I remember that egg scare from those large farms out west where they said all the contamination was in the egg and not on the shell. From experience in farming, you don't get large scale contamination like that without some help. They were trying to raise the prices of eggs, but causing a scare and pulling all their eggs off the market. Large corporate farmers can do this. Fortunately it backfired and didn't work. Others in the chicken industry have tried this including our local chicken butchers Pilgrim's Pride, now Pilgrim Pride after bankruptcy. The made the farmers do expensive updates to their chicken houses and then filed chapter 13 6 months later. They pulled out and tried to sell their 30 million facility for 80 without allowing buyers a look inside due to company secrets. It didn't sell and they sold out/restructured and reopened, but aren't back at full shifts. That darned near bankrupted our community. I do not buy my meats from large corporate farming industries. We either grow it ourselves or buy from farming friends. Many large scale farmers won't touch their own product due to how much it is handled. Corporate farming has ruined America!

[Sooner]

I will put eggs in the fridge no matter where they come from. Farm, store, or grandma's house. Back in the 50's they went right from the grandma's yard to the fridge.

[Tigriss]

All I can say is that it never killed our ancestors and won't kill us. I'm not a germ-a-phobe. The Amish and Mennonite still do this and often outlive most. They are generally very healthy and have less incidences of allergies because they are exposed to the naturally occurring things at greater rates than the rest of the US. This is still common in Europe and many other countries. I often think we live in a too clean environment, though our sterilization practices have caused us to become even more of a sterilizing group of people.