Egg Facts

Freshness

Here are a few egg facts that I hope you will find really useful.

Want to know how fresh your eggs are? Simply put an egg in a glass of water. Is it lying at the bottom of the glass horizontally? Well that means you have a fresh egg.

If it stands upright though, that means the egg is old. And a stale egg will actually rise in the glass! Don't eat it.

Another way to tell how fresh your eggs are is to break one open on a plate. A really fresh one will have its white nice and tight around a plump round yolk. The runnier the whites are, the older the eggs are.

A stale or bad egg will literally just spill out of the shell as soon as you crack it. It will be runny like water.

Brown or White?

I always like the look of brown eggs, but are they more nutritious than white ones? Nope!

It's simple, the color of eggshells is simply determined by the breed of chicken that laid the eggs. Most often dark hens produce brown eggs and white hens produce white eggs...generally speaking.

So the eggs’ nutritional value is no better or worse. Even though the brown ones cost more in the supermarkets. What determines the nutritional value of an egg is what the hens were fed.

I like to buy from a local couple whose hennies (as they're affectionately known) produce the best eggs I have ever tasted.

The shells are tough as nails, the yolks a deep, dark yellow and firm and the whites seem reluctant to leave the yolk’s sides! And the shells are interestingly colored brown with some white markings! These free-range hens lay great-tasting eggs. Way better than commercial ones.

The color of the yolks is determined by what the hens eat. A natural diet for a hen is vary varied. They eat seeds, insects, small snakes (I didn't know that!) and all manner of organic matter. The darker the yolk the more varied the diet.

When I make mayonnaise, mine is more yellow than white!

Commercial eggs have yellow yolks because of an additive in their food that artificially makes their yolks yellow.

Storing Eggs

Yes, you can keep eggs at room temperature as long as the shells are perfectly intact. BUT, eggs will last longer if refrigerated.

Either way you need to store them with the pointed end down. By keeping the air cell up at the large rounded part it slows down the rate of deterioration. I had no idea until just recently!

When you cook with eggs, it’s better to bring them out of the fridge about an hour ahead of time. These are just egg facts that I know.

Cracked eggs should be stored in the fridge. If you separate the whites from the yolks, cover the whites tightly or else they’ll dry out. Yolks need to be covered with a layer of water to keep the air out.