My friend Mamaku posted a haiku yesterday about her chickens (and their cannibalistic habits, yikes!), so I’ve had eggs on the brain. With all these eggy thoughts, I decided I HAD to tell you a tip my friend Autumn shared with me last week about eggs: how do you tell if an egg is fresh or not (without looking at the expiration date on the carton)?
Submerge your questionable egg in water. If it is fresh, it will lay on the bottom; if it’s a week or so it will lay on the bottom but bob a bit; if it’s a few weeks old, it will balance on it’s end. But if it’s a BAD EGG, it will float!
Why does this work? Well, there is a small air pocket in the large end of an egg. As an egg ages, it looses moisture and carbon dioxide shrinking the eggy insides and increasing the size of the air space. Of course, the more air there is, the more it floats! Pretty neat, eh?
So just remember: never eat a floating egg!
wow! wish i’d known this a few weeks ago. i had two partial cartons of eggs that surely had been in the fridge for most of the summer… it was right after the samonella news broke, so i was kind of creeped out anyway. so i just tossed ‘em all!
Eggs from locally raised, free-range hens fed on organic scratch and leftovers will never give you salmonella AND it’s pretty sure bet they won’t get old ’cause they’re way too tasty not to eat. Having said that, if you have some eggs on the older side, hard boil them! 2-3 month eggs actually boil better than really fresh ones.