An easy way to check if your eggs are still safe to eat
With other types of food it is very easy to identify whether they’ve gone bad. Usually you can see it; and you can definitely smell it. But with eggs, it is way harder to tell if they’re still save to eat. And you don’t want to crack it open just to check. With these tips, you’ll be able to figure out if your egg has gone bad.
The packing date
If you want to check if your eggs are still fresh, you should pay attention to the date of packing. This is different from the expiration date or the ‘sell-by’ date that you can find on the packaging. The packing date is the date that indicates when your eggs were packaged. If your packing date is four or five weeks ago, you might be dealing with spoiled eggs. The packing date might be a little hard to find at first. That is because it is not a regular date like the expiration date. If you want to find it, you should check the packaging for a three digit code. It is usually close to the other dates on the pack. The date is indicated with the Julian date calendar. And that means that the three digit code stands for one day of the year (001-365). If you find the code and decipher the date, you’ll know whether that day is too far in the past to safely eat your eggs.
Float
If you don’t feel completely comfortable with the method mentioned above, there is another way to find out if your eggs are still fresh. Just grab a cup of water (one that can fit an egg in it) and put the egg inside the cup. Eggs are porous and that means that air can get inside of the egg. If your egg is older, more air will be inside of it. And if your egg has more air inside of it, it will float. If your egg floats, it is time to throw it out.
The safest (and best way) to tell if your eggs are still fresh, is to crack it open. Old eggs can still be safe to eat and the packing date is only an indication of how old the egg actually is. So, if you want to completely reduce food waste and only throw your egg out when it has really gone bad, then open it and smell. If your egg smells bad or looks bad, then you shouldn’t eat it.
Read more: Should eggs be in the refrigerator? Find out here!
Source: Eating Well | Image: Unsplash, Jakub Kapusnak