Egg Shelf Life?

i think not. eggs we buy( U.K.) have a sell by date on them and also a use by date.the ones i bought last night have a display until the 8th. and use by the 15th. dates on them and they are fresh free range eggs.April that is ,so you can say a couple of weeks. i have only used eggs about 2 to 3 days over the use by date in an emergency as i would hate to tempt fate and end up with salmonella. quite often i throw 3 or 4 eggs out if the date has been passed, they are not expensive so better to be safe than sorry.

When eggs are super cheap I buy up to 20 dozen. They keep for 90 days or more for me. I don't use them to eat, but I use them for baking. Stores generally have very cheap eggs right before Easter as a loss leader, so I anticipate stocking up this week. If not, I get eggs in the 7.5 dozen box at Costco.

Hi Paula. I'm in the UK too. The sell by and use by dates do not equate to what is safe here, by any means. Although the system was reasonably good in principle, in practice it

- takes no account of widely variable storage conditions

- takes no account of end use, eg raw eggs vs baked eggs, which are very diffrent safety wise

- is widely used to encourage throw and buy again

- is widely used to offload legal liability (especially with tinned food)

Thus sell by and use by dates are of debateable use for some types of goods. Many a time I have seen fresh prepared foods still in date but quite unfit to eat, and dried and tinned foods far out of date yet perfectly healthy.

I was looking for solid information on safety. I have old cookbooks that recommend almost unlimited storage of eggs followed by testing before use. I have seen 9 month old eggs pass these tests with ease, and am not aware of any great incidence of egg related food poisoning from those times. I end up with eggs months past use by dates at times, hence my interest as to what I should do with them.

I feel I am still in the dark on this.

Regards, NT

just remembered this whilst i was reading your reply. I remember mum saying that during and just after the war when items like eggs were still very scarce, people used to store eggs in a VERY large container and layer them with ising glass. Not sure exactly what it is or where it can be obtained from but someone reading may know.seem to recall ising glass and homebrew having a link( i think)

IIRC - ising glass is a name for the mineral Mica it was used for 'see thru' oven doors before high temp glass was practical

"paula" skrev i en meddelelse news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com...

I think you probably mean waterglass, wich is liquid sodium silicate. User correctly it will kill all microorganisms present on the shells of the eggs, and all the pores in the shell will be filled with silicate, and thus become completely air- and watertight. It can stil be bought for this and other uses ( such as making the childrens clay products, that hasn't been fired, watertight ).

I rarely if ever throw out eggs, and I don't go thru them very quickly. I would say mine are in the refrigerator up to 2-3 months, and I have never gotten sick.

It probably also depends on how cold you keep your refrigerator, y'know? That's not the same for everyone.

sl