Signs your egg carton is bad

• About 75 billion eggs are produced in the United States each year, according to the American Egg Board.
• According to Kevin Murphy, an expert in food safety and remediation, professor and chair of hospitality services at Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida, a box of Well stocked eggs can last from 45 to 90 days.
• Discoloration and a smell of sulfur are two ways to tell if your eggs are no longer good, according to Murphy.

The egg industry is a booming business. Every year, in the United States, hens lay about 75 billion eggs, according to the American Egg Board. That's about 10% of the world's egg supply, and consumers are responsible for buying about 60% of those 75 billion eggs.

Eggs are a staple of many meals and recipes. It is very likely that you already have an egg box in your fridge, but do you know how to tell if the eggs are still fresh or not? Kevin Murphy, an expert in food safety and remediation, professor and chair of hospitality services at Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida, explains that the view, the Smell and a flutter test of the egg are the three main elements to take into account when it comes to the freshness of your eggs. Here's how to find out if your egg carton is bad.

The expiry date is long

This may seem like an obvious thing to do, but Murphy points out that the date printed on the package is not always an expiration date. A box of eggs may not always be thrown as soon as the date pbades. The date is usually only an indicator of the freshness of the egg.

"The expiry dates are not expiry dates, sometimes it is, but most of the time, the printed date is the expiry date or the expiry date," he said. Murphy told INSIDER. "So that does not always mean that the eggs have gone bad, the food may be bad before the date, eggs and other dairy products are temperature sensitive, if you left your egg carton on the counter for an extended period, the eggs would really go bad before the date. "

According to Per Murphy, "bad" means however that you should not eat egg because it could make you sick. However, eggs can still be fresh, even if they have exceeded their date of sale or consumption.

"The cooler an egg is, the more it tastes, the more it tastes, and in terms of freshness, a company can indicate on the carton a date of sale or an expiry date. in this respect, the date is a good indicator of freshness, "said Murphy. "The closer we get to the date, the less fresh the eggs will be, but it's not because you've reached that date or more than it's already happened that the eggs are necessarily bad."

He fails the "flotation test"

The easiest way to find out if an egg box has malfunctioned is to do the flotation test. To perform the flotation test, take an egg and place it in a bowl of water at room temperature, according to Murphy. If the egg falls to the bottom and stays flat, it is still fresh. If the egg rises to its end as it was standing, then the egg went bad.

"When an egg is laid for the first time and it is really fresh, it is completely full and there is very little air in. But the eggshells They are porous, so as time pbades, the interior starts to evaporate and is replaced by air, "Murphy said. "The amount of air in the egg depends on what happens to the egg when it falls into the water." Generally, if an egg actually floats, it's not the case. is the moment when an egg has gone wrong. "

It smells weird when sniffed

You may know the phrase "it smells like rotten eggs". When an egg bags, it can emit a strong smell of sulfur. The odor can be detected before you open the egg.

"Before breaking the egg, if you can smell sulfur through its shell, it's a sign that the egg has gone bad," Murphy said.

Its interior strongly smells of sulfur

If you think your egg box is going bad, but you do not smell sulfur, you may need to open the egg and take a whiff of oxygen.

"If you crack and smell sulfur, the egg is definitely bad," Murphy said. "A fresh egg should not have a bad smell."

It's faded

When you are going to cook with the egg, it should have a yellow center and cloudy egg whites. This means that the egg is fresh. If you open the egg and notice something different, your egg may not be good anymore.

A fresh egg will have a yellow yolk. According to the Egg Safety Center, the exact shade of yellow may vary depending on the type of food the hens eat. A lighter colored yellow comes from hens eating foods containing wheat and barley, while the darker yellows are the result of a hen that eats foods like plants and corn.

"If you crack and look at it and it's fading, like the egg whites are stained or the yolk is stained, then it went awry," Murphy said.

Sometimes blood spots can appear after opening an egg. There is nothing to fear, however. The egg is still healthy to eat, according to the Egg Safety Center. A small blood stain means that a small blood vessel may have broken in the yolk during ovulation or form a "tissue deposition during egg formation", depending on the Egg Safety Center.

It has a flat, shapeless yellow

A fresh egg will have a bulbous and curved appearance. Over time, the yellow will flatten and have a less round shape. This may be another sign that your eggs are bad.

"If you break the egg and put it in a saucepan for cooking or on a platter, the yolk should appear round and bubbly," Murphy said. "If it's flat and it's the same height as the rest of the egg whites, it's getting worse. The older the egg gets, the more its quality starts to deteriorate." It's just not as obvious as a lettuce head. "

It was not stored at the correct temperature

According to Murphy, an egg box usually lasts 45 days. If the eggs are properly refrigerated, they could be good for 90 days.

"You have to look cool from the moment the egg was laid, processed, made," he said. "You can not stress enough that the temperature is really important to tell the difference between an egg that goes wrong or not.Freshness is a matter of time.It is far from the time when the egg was laid when it is laid and harvested, it is cooler. "

He fails the flashlight test

This technique is known as mirage and goes back to ancient times, according to Murphy. The method can be used to determine if a box of eggs is bad.

To do this, take the egg in a dark room. Hold a flashlight to the egg to see how much air is in the egg. Remember, eggshells are porous. A fresh egg will not contain much air, but an egg that has been sitting for a while will contain remarkable amounts of air.

"You have to go into a dark room, light a flashlight and move it to see how much air there is," Murphy said. "It's a lot easier to fill a bowl with water at room temperature, but it's a fun science experiment. A long time ago, when people were holding a candle close to the egg to check the amount of air that it contained. "

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