How to Determine Whether Eggs are Fresh or Not
Don’t wait until your eggs produce a strong pungent smell for you to tell that your eggs are bad. There are simple steps that you can use to determine whether the eggs are fresh or gone bad and throw it away. Let us not be throwing perfectly edible eggs together with one that when we broke it we were met with a bad smell.
Eggs don’t have an expiry date written on their shells or rather the crates. But don’t they expire? Yes they do. Science has proven that under normal weather conditions, an egg can last up to 45 days from the day they were laid. Few trays have indicated on them the dates of packing of the eggs but remember some of the trays may have been recycled.
Here are some tests that you can take your egg through to determine whether it is edible:
- Light test
Here you need a point source of light like a torch or a candle. Enter into a dark room and hold your egg against light. Turn the egg quickly. You’ll be able to see what is inside the egg. If the egg is bad, the air space will be larger. A normal egg has a small air space, and intact egg yolk.
- Crack-sniff test
A good egg has no smell. Here you just make crack on the shell of the egg then sniff and tell. If the result is not clear, crack it further onto a flat plate and observe the egg- for an aged egg, the yolk will flatten and the white will appear watery whereas for a good egg, the yolk will appear yellow or orange and the white much thick.
- Shake test
If you shake a fresh egg gently by your ear, you’ll hear no sound at all. A bad egg will make a splashing sound.
- Sinking and floating test.
Take a basin and fill it with water. Put you egg inside the basin and observe the position it takes. A fresh egg will sink and rest at the bottom whereas a bad egg will float. The large air space in a bad egg makes it to float on water. If your egg rests in between the waters, it has aged but still good to eat.
The above steps can be combined to give a more comprehensive result before you decide what do with your eggs.
Try also to keep your stock fresh by using the first-in-first-out method. Where you ensure whenever you add in new eggs to your kitchen, place them in a well demarcated place where you can tell the fresh from the aged ones so that when cooking, cook the old ones before the new ones.
Even if you correctly tell that your eggs are edible, make sure they cook well to avoid contracting harmful bacteria that exists in eggs and can cause illness.
Watch the video below for practical ways whether eggs are bad or good:
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