The Meat You Eat by Ken Midkiff

Author:Ken Midkiff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-10-12T16:00:00+00:00

THE INCREDIBLE, INEDIBLE EGG

MOARK’s McDonald County site also contains egg-washing facilities. In the process of being laid, then rolling down the cage and getting transported along the conveyor belt, the eggs pick up litter, debris, albumin, and excrement. Before eggs are packaged and crated, the material sticking to their shells must be removed. In the first quarter of 2003, MOARK/Land O’ Lakes sold 202 million dozen eggs; that’s 2.4 billion eggs requiring a lot of washing and resulting in a lot of stuff going down the drain. In the washing process, a few eggs get broken, and even a few out of 2.4 billion adds up rather quickly, and MOARK/Land O’ Lakes is just one company of many. Buckeye Egg in Ohio, which was operating under an appeal of a closure order, confined 15 million laying hens, each producing at least one egg per day. The operation has since been sold.

So, other than polluting, stink, dead hens, debeaking, forced molting, broken eggs, and contaminated washwater to annoy the neighbors (and those downwind and downstream), what’s the problem? There is, in fact, an enormous consumer problem. While egg producers like to brag about the “incredible, edible egg,” the facts are likewise incredible: The CDC estimate that 1 out of every 10,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella. Given the number of eggs sold and consumed in this country (in 2002 that number was 86.7 billion), the odds that contaminated eggs will end up in the grocery store are quite high. And the odds that someone will have a gastrointestinal upset or worse from Salmonella enteriditis is likewise high. Any cracking or breaking of the eggshell will add to the likelihood of contamination. When 86.7 billion eggs are processed (washed, candled, packaged) each year, if only 1 percent have cracked shells, over 8 million eggs are subject to contamination resulting from fecal matter coming into contact with the contents of the egg through the crack(s).

In response to the threats of a Salmonella enteriditis outbreak and in general response to scandals involving the health and safety of eggs, the Food and Drug Administration, along with industry groups, is, as it phrases it, “fighting back” by attempting to place the responsibility for safe consumption of eggs on the consumer. The FDA is advising consumers:

1. Don’t eat raw eggs.

2. Buy eggs only sold in the grocer’s refrigerated case.

3. Open the carton and check that the eggs are clean and uncracked.

4. Store eggs in the coldest part of the refrigerator (at forty degrees centigrade or below)

5. Keep hard-cooked eggs (such as Easter eggs) in the refrigerator and use within one week.

6. Don’t freeze eggs in their shells.

7. Wash hands, utensils, equipment, and work areas with warm soapy water before and after contact with eggs and egg-rich foods.

8. Don’t leave cooked eggs out of the refrigerator for more than two hours.

9. Cook eggs until the yolks are firm.

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