In article ,
TheOldFellow wrote:

If you get your eggs from a farmer (laid in the last few days) then they
are of very variable size. If you get them from Tesco, you don't eat
eggs, you eat fossils (usually a few months old) - even sized fossils,
but fossils. Until you try fresh farm eggs you will never understand.

Although I'm a supporter of free-range eggs and keep my own chickens,
and generally hate supermarkets, you're a bit out about the supermarket
eggs...

Eggs have a "shelf life" (sell by) of 21 days from lay, and a "best
before" time of 28 days from lay. It is illegal to sell eggs that
are older than 21 days. So producers have to get their eggs to the
supermarkets and shops as soon as practically possible.

Remember that most production hens will lay one egg a day during
their laying life, so a farm with a few 1000 hens will not want to
stockpile eggs for any length of time at all, or they'll simply run
out of space. There will be a very frequent stream of eggs from the
production units to the packing units to the shops and to the consumer.

So next time you're in a shop, take the best before date and remove 4
weeks and that's the laying date.

Also note that eggs really don't have to be refridgerated - you can stick
them in the fridge, but it doesn't affect their shelt life by much. Just
keep them cool and out of direct sunlight.

You also won't find eggs for sale out of a fridge either - at least
not in this country. Take an egg out of the fridge into a warm place,
and condensation will form on the shell - and as egg shells are porous,
any bacteria, etc. on the outside may well get to the nurtient rich
interior...

Interstingly enough you can't make a good merangue out of new eggs -
they need to to be about 10 days old, and really fresh eggs (less than
a week or so) stick to the shells when you try to peel them after hard
boiling, so there is some advantage to eggs that are over a week old.

Can't beat home grown eggs for taste though (not to mention yolk density
and colour) - that's one place where there is no comparision!

Gordon