Two of the top stories in today's news really stretch the limits of credibility.
1. The Last Patrol. The headline is the withdrawal of the last combat troops from Iraq. We are leaving 50,000 behind to train the Iraqis in everything from paper shuffling to fighting terrorists.
Question: Why are 50,000 troops needed to train the Iraqis? How long will it be before we hear of some of the 50,000 getting killed or wounded on their bases, in the Green Zone, or on so-called "training exercises"?
2. There was a recall of 380,000,000 eggs because of a salmonella threat. The recall is for eggs packaged between May 16 and August 13 by a company in Iowa.
Question: Don't know anything about egg packaging/consumption cycle but who still has eggs in their refrigerator from mid-May?
Sadly, the shelf life of soldiers may be less than that of eggs. I buy eggs locally, from a farmer I know. It poses a problem when making deviled eggs, because fresh eggs are hard to peel. It takes a while on the shelf for some evaporation to occur so that an air pocket develops beneath the membrane, which makes peeling boiled eggs easy. Even when I keep the farm-fresh eggs in the refrigerator for two weeks before cooking them, they are hard to peel, thus still very fresh. Eggs from the supermarket can be already a month old before you buy them.
ReplyDeleteWiki Answers (not Leaks) provides this information:
The shelf life of eggs depends on proper handling and storage. If eggs are clean and kept refrigerated, they can last as long as 6 months. Many eggs in the store are at least a month old while sitting on the shelf. My experience shows that 6 and 7 month old eggs are still good when kept refrigerated.
If you find an air pocket inside the shell that is the size of a dime, then the egg is likely one month old. When it becomes the size of a teaspoon, the egg is likely 4 to 6 months old.
If you're going to store eggs for a long period, use foam egg cartons as the cardboard egg cartons tend to wick away moisture from the egg and this creates a large air pocket inside the shell.
The encyclopedia information is interesting but the average person buying eggs looks at the date on the carton and interprets it to mean use by that date. When buying eggs, he or she has no way of knowing where in the life cycle of the eggs they are at time of purchase--just been layed, or how long they may have been in refrigeratiion with a processor, wholesaler, or the retailer. If I reached into the back of the shelf and saw eggs with a mid-May date, it would be telling me to throw them away.
ReplyDeleteCharley
Time to buy stock in Egg Beaters
ReplyDeleteDesertGirl--
ReplyDeleteWhich, I believe, include some part of the whole egg.