Eggs: in the fridge or outside?
Question of conscience: should you keep eggs in the fridge, or preferably outside? Eggs aren’t kept refrigerated in the supermarket, but most fridges have an egg rack in the door, and that can’t be there for no reason either. What’s the sensible thing to do?
When you think of eggs, you think of salmonella. And that’s why the Netherlands Nutrition Centre advises keeping eggs in the fridge. Outside the fridge, at room temperature, salmonella bacteria can multiply much faster, and an infection like that is no joke. According to the Netherlands Nutrition Centre, that wobbly rack in the fridge door isn’t the right place for eggs either, because the temperature is slightly higher there. Their advice: keep eggs, box and all, on a high shelf in your fridge, where it’s 4 degrees Celsius.
Protecting the shell
Clear enough: eggs should be kept cool. So why aren’t they kept in the refrigerated section of the supermarket? That has to do with the shell of the chicken egg. It provides good protection against dirt and moisture. But when an eggshell gets wet, it loses some of its protective effect. And if you take a box of eggs out of the fridge and put it in your shopping bag, some condensation will inevitably form on it. To protect them from that moisture, supermarkets keep eggs unrefrigerated.
At room temperature
Eggs aren’t kept refrigerated in most restaurant kitchens either. That’s because ice-cold eggs can completely ruin your cake or pie. If you’re going to bake something, take the eggs out of the fridge a few hours beforehand so they can come to room temperature. Cooks don’t have that patience, so they always keep eggs outside the fridge. Besides, they use so many eggs that they know for sure their supply will be used up within a week, whereas in the average household, you’ll probably take a little longer to get through your box of twelve.
