Kevin's Watch

It's funny. I never thought this was really a debatable subject, but a recent article on The Consumerist made me decide to ask: Is It Okay To Switch Out Eggs At The Supermarket?

Personally, I switch them out.

I always grab another carton. Who knows how long those broken eggs have sat there.

Y'know, I'm thinking about it, and I can't remember where I'd put the broken eggs. Wouldn't make sense unless another carton also has broken ones. I guess I probably do just grab another carton. Strange.

Swapping out takes too much time.
I just grab another carton.
"illegal" Good lord. shopping nazis exist too?


Always check the dates on the items in the back if you want to get the freshest stuff too.
Stores rotate product and put the oldest stuff in the front.
(makes sense for them but let others that don't care buy them, imo)

And for gods sake always wash the vegetables and fruits when you get home before you eat them!
Also tops of cans to before you open them.

I just grab another carton, too. Can't be bothered to switch them out. Was amazed by the amount of user comment this stirred up, but then, that site is for consumer issues like this. A lot of good points made there. I tend to agree that constantly swapping out eggs could mess up their shelf-life, though comments from users that have worked in grocery stores seem to think that is not a big issue.

High Lord Tolkien wrote:
And for gods sake always wash the vegetables and fruits when you get home before you eat them!
Also tops of cans to before you open them.

Fruits and vegetables, sure, but the tops of cans? I mean, it makes sense, it's just never occurred to me before.

rdhopeca wrote:I always grab another carton. Who knows how long those broken eggs have sat there.

I do the same thing.

I'd heard about the tops of cans, but unless it looks bad, I don't wash them.

Orlion wrote:

High Lord Tolkien wrote:
And for gods sake always wash the vegetables and fruits when you get home before you eat them!
Also tops of cans to before you open them.

Fruits and vegetables, sure, but the tops of cans? I mean, it makes sense, it's just never occurred to me before.

Yep.
The can opener will push the dust into the can as you're opening it and usually when you're done it falls into the can.
That "dust" on the top of cans?
Could be dust.
Could be "droppings"..

My brother-in-law is a warehouse manager of a large grocery chain.
"rinse everything!" is all he says.

You guys are cooking the food you get out of cans, right? I never rinse a can. Sometimes I might open it from the bottom, but it's got to be really dirty to do that. Usually from me spilling something on it at home. If it's filthy at the store, why would you buy it? And considering that a certain amount of rat droppings are allowed in the food to begin with, I'm not too concerned about the can.

I don't worry too much about fruit/veggies, either. Running tap water over something is going to do virtually nothing to kill any bacteria. If there's something nasty stuck in my broccoli, water ain't getting it out. That's why we have immune systems. I do, however, give them a quick rinse to knock off any grit. And I suppose this might do something for residual pesticides. But probably not.

Taking broken eggs out won't work most of the time anyway since the egg white glues the egg shell to the carton.

I am always über-careful if it comes to eggs and stuff. I had salmonella infection once and subsequently fun for almost 4 weeks. Don't need that again.

Your chances of getting salmonella from raw eggs is like 1/10,000, I believe. It's the raw meat you have to worry about. But still, broken egg doesn't mean you don't cook it. So I don't see the issue.

I don't buy cracked eggs mainly because of the inconvenience Vader mentioned. A sticky, yucky mess.

Zarathustra wrote:You guys are cooking the food you get out of cans, right? I never rinse a can. Sometimes I might open it from the bottom, but it's got to be really dirty to do that. Usually from me spilling something on it at home. If it's filthy at the store, why would you buy it? And considering that a certain amount of rat droppings are allowed in the food to begin with, I'm not too concerned about the can.

I don't worry too much about fruit/veggies, either. Running tap water over something is going to do virtually nothing to kill any bacteria. If there's something nasty stuck in my broccoli, water ain't getting it out. That's why we have immune systems. I do, however, give them a quick rinse to knock off any grit. And I suppose this might do something for residual pesticides. But probably not.

I've always felt the same way about soda cans. If there's dust on it, I'll use the edge of my shirt to wipe it off. I guess if I got it out of a machine (crazy how most vending machines are cheaper than single cans or bottles at grocery stores) and it was gunky I'd rinse it off.

Vegetables just need to be rinsed off. I usually just throw away the outer layer of anything like lettuce, never buy husked corn, peel cucumbers, and so forth. You could buy Fit, but it seems like a waste of money. Won't protect you from E. coli. Steaming and boiling should take care of all that. I hear red wine vinegar works just as well for the pesticides. Or you could just buy organic.

Syl wrote:Or you could just buy organic.

Food that's grown in poop? No thanks.

Just kidding. I eat a few organic things. But I do worry about washing it a lot more than food grown with pesticides.

Okay, now I see where the organic poll came from.

As for the egg issue: I have been known to switch a *slightly* cracked egg from one carton with an undamaged egg from another. Often I will use a "new" carton that also has a cracked egg in it. Sort of quarantining the cracked eggs to one carton, I guess.

If the cracked egg is a hopeless mess, then I take another carton. And if an egg cracks on the way home -- scrambled eggs for dinner!

Can we talk about egg carton materials? I'm sure styrofoam cushions eggs best, but it makes me crazy to buy styrofoam egg cartons because you can't recycle them. I'd rather buy paperboard cartons and risk the breakage. And I've seen broken eggs in styrofoam cartons, too.

Oh yeah, and I don't wash veggies or fruits, either. Or cans. There was a study awhile back that compared disease levels between city kids and country kids, and the upshot was that country kids are exposed to microbes in dirt and whatnot that the city kids don't get exposed to, so they get sick less. Granted there are a lot of other things that could account for that. But it makes sense to me that exposure builds up our immunity to certain illnesses -- so if you're nuts about insulating yourself against everything that could possibly cause you to get sick, well, you might end up sick more often.

Zarathustra wrote:Your chances of getting salmonella from raw eggs is like 1/10,000, I believe. It's the raw meat you have to worry about. But still, broken egg doesn't mean you don't cook it. So I don't see the issue.

I don't buy cracked eggs mainly because of the inconvenience Vader mentioned. A sticky, yucky mess.

You can get salmonella from old eggs. But you can also get it if you open the egg and don't keep it cool - the moment it cracks bacteria will develop if the temperature is high enough (room temperature). That's why I'd never buy a cracked egg since I don't know for how long it has been exposed to air.

Zarathustra wrote: That's why we have immune systems.

If you use that reasoning, remind me never to shake your hand after you come out of the bathroom.

I never think about salmonella in regard to eggs, as it really *is* rare. I posted something about that in here awhile back, with a link, but can't find it now. Drat.

Anyway. My reason for not buying a cracked egg is purely pragmatic -- I don't want it to crack the rest of the way on the way home and coat everything in the bag with ick.

Eggs scare me. So I don't buy them or cook them. I definitely don't go round supermarkets opening the cartons!

Stonemaybe wrote:Eggs scare me. So I don't buy them or cook them. I definitely don't go round supermarkets opening the cartons!

Well, that's certainly a different perspective!

I'm just sitting here in shock and bemused by Stone's response. How do you make all of those wonderful meals without using eggs at all, Stone???