Chicken and Egg Talk

Chicken or Eggs Debate

The famous "chicken or egg comes first" debate is here again. This news is really about chicken or egg. The issue here is to wash the eggs or to treat the chicken. Only a small minority, which includes America, believes in washing the eggs and heavy energy consumption for refrigeration is the price they paid.

Washing Eggs

Americans, Japanese, Australians and Scandinavians bathe their eggs and refrigerate them. In contrast other countries will just leave them on a shelf or out in the open air. About a hundred years ago, many people around the world washed their eggs. That changed when a batch of rotten eggs, which had been washed in Australia, contaminated the rest of the eggs that were being washed. This left a bad impression on its British importers.

Eggs Washing History

By 1970, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had perfected the art of the wash eggs. After the eggs were laid they are placed on fancy machines to be showered with soap and hot water. This comprehensive cleaning also removed a thin layer that protects the eggs. Refrigeration was used as a substitute for the loss of natural protection. This method imposed on all egg producers by the USDA. Meanwhile, many European countries were prohibiting washing to maintain the egg’s natural protection. The debate was not an issue with Asian countries but Japan joined the egg-washers after a bad spate of salmonella in the 1990s.

Egg’s Natural Protection

Eggs are created with a safety net that comes in an invisible thin layer around it. This protective coating keeps water and oxygen in and bad bacteria out. Washing can damage that layer and "increase the chances for bacterial invasion" into pores or hairline cracks in the shell, according to Yi Chen, a food scientist at Purdue University. So we spray eggs with oil to prevent bacteria from getting in, and refrigerate them to keep, she added.

Fear of Salmonella

Egg-washers justify their egg washing ritual with the fear of salmonella. According to the Food and Drug Administration, eggs contaminated with salmonella are responsible for about 142,000 illnesses a year in America. Salmonella enteritidis is a bacteria than infect a chicken's ovaries. It contaminates the yolk before the shell firms. Cooking usually kills the bacteria before they can harm you. In some European countries, egg-laying hens are vaccinated against salmonella. Vaccination is not required in America, but eggs must be washed and refrigerated from farm to store, and producers must follow a host of other safety measures. "They're different approaches to basically achieve the same result," says Vincent Guyonnet, a poultry veterinarian and scientific adviser to the International Egg Commission. "We don't have massive [food safety] issues on either side of the Atlantic. Both methods seem to work." The important thing, he says, is to be consistent.

Source : nrp.org, 11 Sep2014.