I LOVE EGGS.

I know this might be considered controversial with the emphasis on plant-based diets these days. Still I love eggs. There are so versatile and have so many different roles in cooking and food processing. The American Egg Board lists over 20 different key roles or functionalities that eggs have in food. 

Due to my concerns over the health and welfare of laying hens, I stopped eating eggs for ages and I never really found a decent replacement for many of the functions of eggs. Soy flour, pea protein, tofu, apple sauce all cover one or two of the roles of egg. Not all twenty.

There is so much I could write about eggs, where do I start?

Eggs are pretty and you can get different colored shells depending on the breed of chicken. Most of our supermarket eggs are white or brown and the shell color does not affect on the nutritional content. In fact how the hens are raised seems to have no effect on the flavor of the egg or the nutrition.  Except I have noticed flavor differences with really really fresh-from-the-hen farm eggs.

There are some food safety concerns over eggs. The main one is that Salmonella is endemic in eggs and so we should not use fresh eggs for anything we eat without heating. Sigh, no more cleaning out the bowl after mixing a cake or eating raw cookie dough 🙁 

American eggs are washed which means that they have to be stored at refrigerated temperatures because washing eggs removes an antimicrobial protective layer, so washed eggs are more susceptible to microbial contamination.

Do you know that in Europe, eggs are stored at room temperature, not in a fridge? The reason for this is that In Europe commercial eggs are not washed and are stored at room temperature. I get very confused when I visit my family in England because the eggs are on a regular aisle shelf; not in the cold section. 

As food entrepreneurs we need to remember that eggs are one of the main eight allergens. We must list egg on our packaging.

Are you using eggs and not sure how to make your products safe? Book a call today.