Do eggs really expire?!
Do eggs really expire?
I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous but I didn't realize that eggs have an expiration date. I am over 25 years old and have not noticed this up to this point in my life which means that at some point (or several points) I have eaten expired eggs. How long can you go past the posted expiration date and still be ok to eat the eggs?
Answers:
For lots more info on 'sell by dates' read this:
The Dating Game
Freshness labels are a manufacturers' free-for-all
- Kim Severson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 10, 2001
Like most people, you probably reach around to the back of the market's dairy case for the freshest milk, and sort through the meat packages to pick the pork chops with the latest date.
At home, you might even toss out the yogurt or eggs if the date on the carton has passed.
The problem is, those dates don't mean what you think they do. What they do mean may be the best kept secret in the supermarket.
With just a couple of exceptions, no laws regulate package dates -- variously referred to as sell-by dates, pull dates, expiration dates or quality dates. That most dates appear at all is entirely up to the manufacturer or the grocer. The federal government only requires expiration dates on infant formula and some baby food.
It is perfectly legal, for example, for a supermarket worker to take a steak that is older than the date stamped on the package and relabel it with a new date. The milk with next month's date may not be fresher than the carton with next week's date. And if you decide what to eat based strictly on the package dates, you probably waste a lot of money.
"People throw out a lot of good food because they simply don't understand those dates," says Mary Wenberg, a registered dietitian and food safety specialist. She has worked the meat and poultry hotline for the United States Department of Agriculture for 11 years. She fields questions from the public about what expiration dates mean almost daily.
Even Californians, who tend to be well educated about food, are confused about what the dates actually mean.
"We continuously receive questions about what food is required to have expiration dates," says Mary Wang, a state food and drug scientist who advises health inspectors. "We explain that it's all about the company trying to maintain freshness and quality. It is strictly industry practices."
Many perishable products such as milk have conservative dates, which means that they are expected to stay fresh for at least a week after the imprinted date. And shelf-stable products like cereal or pasta that bear "best if used by" dates will stay edible for months beyond the date.
But people believe the dates mean something more.
"In the United States, we're just very comfortable with numbers," says Carl Winter, food toxicologist at the University of California at Davis. "If we have dates on our food, there is not a lot of ambiguity. It's either good or it's bad. We tend to take a green light-red light approach to food, and we do the same with sell-by dates and use-by dates."
QUALITY OR SAFETY?
Since package dates are not designed to protect the public from foodborne illness, relying on them can lead to false assumptions about food safety. Food safety is much more dependent on temperature than age. That's why government agencies focus on the conditions under which a product was prepared and handled rather than on when it was made.
Take eggs, for example. The date on egg cartons is the last day a store can sell the eggs as fresh. Eggs which have a federal grade mark, such as Grade AA, bear a date that cannot be more than 30 days from the day the eggs were packed into the carton. Provided the eggs are stored according to the new regulations requiring constant refrigeration, they should be good for three to five weeks after that date.
"Salmonella won't grow in the refrigerator, whether the egg is old or not," Wenberg says. "The air sac in the egg will get larger and the egg might not taste as fresh, but the date does not indicate whether the egg is safe to eat. It's a way to keep track of inventory."
HANDLING AND STORAGE IS KEY
Packaged meat like cold cuts or hot dogs can be well within their expiration dates but, if they haven't been packaged and stored properly, they can still be riddled with the potentially fatal bacterium Listeria monocytogenes, says food scientist Wang. Listeria can even grow under refrigeration. Plus, pathogens of all sorts can be there even when the food smells just fine.
Food safety experts, grocers and manufacturers agree that a national program regulating pull dates would be impossible. They argue that no rule or regulation could be designed to account for fluctuations in storage, manufacturing or the food itself.
However, last year state Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, introduced a bill to establish rules for dating meat after Los Angeles television news cameras showed workers rewrapping and redating meat and fish carrying expired dates, and dipping discolored ribs and other meat into marinade to hide it. Hayden's bill would have required a standard date coding system and would have prohibited using marinades or coloring agents to conceal meat deterioration.
The grocery lobby rallied against it and the bill died, largely because the issue of dating food is enormously complex. "It is not the sort of thing where you can say, 'Hamburger can be on the shelf for X number of days and that's it, ' " says Jim Waddell, acting chief of the food safety section of the state Department of Health and Human Services.
The vagaries of storage and shipping stand in the way of a uniform coding system. Once food is packed, it is shipped to regional distribution centers. From there it is sold to brokers or supermarket buyers, and the shipping and storage conditions can vary widely. After purchase in the supermarket, the consumer takes control, bringing the product home.
Anywhere along the line, the food's temperature can rise above 40 degrees, which is generally considered the highest temperature under which perishables can stay fresh. Cans can be dented and leak. Packages of cookies or other shelf-stable food may be exposed to extreme heat or cold.
GOVERNMENT DILEMMA
"Can you imagine the government trying to deal with every product on the market? There are so many different ones that are prepared and shipped in so many different ways," says Allen Matthys, vice president of regulatory affairs for the National Food Processors Association, which counts giant corporations like Del Monte and Kraft as members.
Matthys, who says the association adopted a voluntary dating system for canned goods in the 1980s, points out that food manufacturers have significant financial motivation to sell quality products. Thus, they spend millions of dollars testing food to determine which dates should be stamped onto packages.
Even well after the date, many shelf-stable products are safe to eat even though quality might suffer. "You may lose some flavor or consistency or the vitamins will drop below the stated levels. The product may thicken or not flow. If it is a baking product like yeast, rolls might not rise," he says. "But that is why we put the dates on the packages -- so the product can be used when it is at its best."
Other sorts of oversight help keep unspoiled food on the shelves. The federal government doesn't allow food manufacturers to make false or misleading claims on packaging, and freshness dates can come under that umbrella, says a Federal Drug Administration spokesperson.
California keeps an eye on the freshness of the food supply by making it illegal to sell a product that is not wholesome, as defined by state law, says Waddell, the acting chief of the state's food safety section.
"The bottom line," he says, "is you can't sell a food that is spoiled."
But if that unspoiled product you take home goes bad before the date expires, consumers don't have legal recourse. The best bet is to tell the grocery store and hope the manager will replace the product and look into why it is spoiling early.
THE MEAT COUNTER
When Hayden took the meat dating issue to the California legislature, it became clear that many consumers were surprised meat can be repackaged, redated and sold if the original date has expired. The exception is food packed in a USDA-approved facility, like hot dogs, that come directly to the store already packaged. Those products can be sold after the date on the package, but the date cannot be altered.
Because supermarkets want to keep customers happy, many do not repackage and redate meat. The idea is to provide a steak or roast that will stay wholesome a few days after the consumer takes it home, says Marc Kane, Andronico's director of meat and seafood.
Andronico's puts a date four days out on meat it cuts in-house, a time frame similar to one used by Safeway and some other markets. At Andronico's, the meat is pulled on the third day and either sold at a reduced price or destroyed. Ground beef is the exception. If it isn't sold within 24 hours, it's gone. At Safeway, ground beef gets a day and a half.
At Andronico's, seafood is sold the same day it is packaged. At Safeway, it can remain in the case for three days.
Still, Kane says he doesn't use dates when he shops. "When I buy meat, I look at the product," he says. "I think that's how most of our customers shop - - they look at the product, then price and then date."
Still, he said, it is tough to sell a piece of meat if the pull date is a day or less away.
PRESSED TO STAY FRESH
In California, dairy products have more date regulations than any other food. State law requires stamping a freshness date on some products like milk and yogurt, but not on others, like butter.
Although the law requires a date, choosing it is up to the individual creamery. Milk packaged the same day at two different companies can have different freshness dates. The reason is equipment and the quality of the milk, says Rachel Kaldor, executive director of the Dairy Institute of California, which represents dairy processors.
"We don't have uniform equipment. Some plants are newer than others. And some products can have an extended date because of the pasteurization process, " she says.
Sometimes the milk itself helps determine the freshness date. Dairies test for naturally occuring bacteria, which is present in all milk. Lower levels means the milk will stay fresh longer. Safeway, for example, relies on technologically advanced equipment and generally uses a date 14 days past the day the milk was processed.
"Based on (creameries') tests, they can determine what the pull date should be," says Kaldor, who emphasizes that the dates are conservative. "You could use it usually for at least seven days afterward.''
That, of course, depends on how the product has been handled. If it was sitting on a warm dock somewhere, the product might not last as long as the date says. Also, if you open a carton of milk and introduce more organisms, the product won't stay as fresh as an unopened carton.
THE SHUFFLING GAME
For grocery stores, the key to profits is managing stock and reducing what is called "shrink" -- food that has to be tossed. And quality dates or pull-by dates are essential tools to minimize shrink.
Chris Chufo, manager of Whole Foods in San Francisco, says store managers and buyers have to keep an eye out for products that are "short dated" or have dates that will expire soon.
"You can buy potato chips from two different distributors that have vastly different dates," she says. The trick is to find distributors that handle the products correctly and rotate their stock.
"Part of working with a reliable vendor is having a trusting relationship and believing the date and that the product was handled correctly."
If stores are stuck with foods that are near expiration dates or have passed the quality dates, managers can either sell to salvagers who distribute to grocery outlets or overseas markets. Or, they can send products back to the processor, use items like bread or milk in deli food or prepared dishes or mark them down for quick sale. Sometimes, they donate products to food banks.
Alan Roth, a nutritionist with Second Harvest Food Bank in Santa Clara, says his organization will use milk four to seven days past the sell-by date, as long as it has been stored properly. Eggs are generally accepted two weeks after the date. Anything with an expiration date, such as baby formula, does not get used.
"The freshness date indicates you have a certain amount of time after that date to use it. But if it's questionable at all, we chuck it," he says.
Consumers would be wise to follow a similar approach:
-- Look at the product, not the date. Decide for yourself if the milk is spoiled or the meat is turning.
-- At home, when in doubt, throw it out.
-- Know the policy at your store. How long does meat stay in the case after being cut and packaged?
-- Treat every perishable as if it were ice cream. That means buy it at the end of your shopping trip, ask baggers to pack the frozen goods with the perishables (or even on ice, which some stores will do) and get the stuff home and into the refrigerator as soon as possible.
Even though store managers and manufacturers say food treated well by the consumer should stay fresh past the date, the temptation to grab the package with the latest date is strong -- even among people in the business.
"Personally, if I know I'm going to drink it tomorrow, I'll still get the farthest out pull-date I can on dairy," says Andronico's Kane. "It's human nature."
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THE LANGUAGE OF LABELS
-- Sell By: This voluntary mark indicates the last date perishables should be sold to ensure top quality. Manufacturers take into account that the product may be stored at home after the sell-by date. Dairy producers, for example, build seven to 10 days into their milk dates, so milk with a Jan. 10 date should be fresh through Jan. 17 or later if stored properly at home.
Most sell-by dates are found on perishables like meat, seafood, poultry and fluid milk.
-- Use By: Another voluntary phrase that indicates the last day a manufacturer believes a product will be at its peak of quality. The product may still be edible after that date.
-- Best If Used By: This date tells consumers how long the product will retain its best flavor or quality, as determined by the manufacturer. The phrase is generally found on shelf-stable products which pose no health risks if consumed well after the date.
A variation is, "Guaranteed fresh for seven days beyond date stamped on package."
-- Expires On: This is rarely found on food packages. It is found on infant formula and some baby foods, which are the only food products the federal government regulates with regard to dating.
An alternative phrase is, "Do not use after," followed by a date.
-- Pack Date: Manufacturers either stamp it on the package or emboss it on cans. Some bakery products and soups are examples of products that might have a pack date. This date helps stores rotate and market stock.
-- Code Date: Some manufacturers use a "closed code" on canned vegetables, frozen foods and other products to indicate the date the food was packed and which plant, line or shift packed it.
These codes and lot numbers are particularly important if a manufacturer recalls a product, but are generally impossible for the average consumer to decode. -- K. S.
Demand Leads to Labeling
Although it's hard to imagine buying milk, meat or cereal without some sort of a freshness date, the practice of putting a date on food products hasn't been around that long.
Dating packaged meat came into fashion in the early 1960s, when self- service meat counters in large supermarkets changed how Americans bought meat, says Marc Kane, who is in charge of Andronico's meat and seafood departments.
But dates on other food products were slower to appear. It wasn't until 1980 that the National Food Processors Association adopted a voluntary canned food dating program, with cans imprinted with dates that consumers could actually figure out. And although large grocery stores like Safeway have been dating products for years, it wasn't until 1998 that Safeway started to add phrases like "best before" to make it easier for consumers to understand what the dates actually meant.
The struggle between information-hungry consumers and food manufacturers dates to the late 1800s. The Gould Amendment in 1913 marked the first time the federal government required that packages be plainly marked to show contents and amounts. By 1924, the Food and Drug Administration no longer allowed misleading or exaggerated health claims and statements on food labels.
But for decades to follow, food producers didn't have to put ingredient labels on products if they followed standard industry recipes for common items like corned beef hash or mayonnaise. And no rules govern product dating. By the late 1960s and early '70s, freshness labels had become common on dairy and meat products but production or expiration dates weren't always stamped on other food products. And during the food label battles that consumer activists like Ralph Nader waged in the 1960s and '70s, the issue of regulating food dates remained in the shadow.
In the 1980s, the infant formula law forced the federal government to regulate formula dates as part of an effort to ensure necessary nutritional content and safety. It remains the only federally mandated food expiration date.
By 1994, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act was in effect and American shopper saw a major overhaul of food labels. Nutrition information was made more readable and displayed under the title "Nutrition Facts" and labels were rewritten to include cholesterol, fiber, sugar, calories from fat, and other information. Serving sizes began matching amounts people actually ate. Health claims had to be verified.
Still, no rules were drawn up regarding dates. And although some state legislators and consumer groups push for it, the food industry continues to argue against any sort of government-regulated dating standards. -- Kim Severson
HOW LONG CAN YOU KEEP IT?
When manufacturers assign sell-by dates to food, they build in additional time for storage at home. Generally, perishable products can be held in your refrigerator for seven days after purchase -- even if that's past the expiration date. Fresh meat is the exception. Don't keep beef or pork for longer than three to five days. And use poultry, seafood and ground or chopped meat within two days.
The following are guidelines for how long to store products once you take them home or if the sell-by date has expired. Maximum shelf life can be achieved by placing perishable food in a refrigerator at 32 to 40 degrees immediately after you get it home. Of course, you will need to look for spoilage regardless, and follow this adage: When in doubt, throw it out.
Roasts, steaks, chops 3-5 days (wrapped loosely)
Ground, chopped or stew meat 1-2 days (wrapped loosely)
Whole ham 7 days (wrapped tightly)
Cut ham 3-5 days (wrapped tightly)
Hot dogs 7 days after sell-by date
(in original wrapping)
Bacon 2 weeks, unopened,
7 days (opened and wrapped tightly)
Luncheon meats 7 days (in original package after sell-by
date;
3-5 days if opened and wrapped tightly)
Whole chicken, turkey, duck,
goose 3-5 days (wrapped loosely)
Cut-up poultry 3 days (wrapped loosely)
Fish 3 days (stored on ice and covered)
Fatty fish, like salmon 1-2 days (stored on ice and covered)
Shellfish 1-2 days (stored on ice and covered)
Milk 5-7 days after the sell-by date
Soft cheese and dairy products
like sour cream 3 days (covered tightly)
Eggs 3-5 weeks if purchased before the
date on the carton
Butter, margarine 2 weeks (covered)
Hard cheese 4-12 months (covered tightly)
.
-- Sources: United States Department of Agriculture; University of California
Cooperative Extension Service
Source(s):
Sources: United States Department of Agriculture; University of California
Cooperative Extension Service
yes. they have an expiratin date. you can go at least 2-4, days after the expiration date if they have been refigerated
the first link says almost a week
beleive me you would of known if u had eaten an expired egg !!
yes once i left an egg outside and a couple months later i found it i cracked it open and it had a horrid smell and it was GREEN!!!
Yeah, I think the only thing that never expires is honey...
They do last beyond the date. they float when bad, always check by cracking in a bowl. The clear (white) part will get watery as they age. But they are really bad when the clear is not clear any more. and putrid bad...your nose will tell you instantly (sulfer fart smell)
The expiration date on food is actually the 'must be sold by or removed from the shelf ' date. I have eaten food and drank milk up to five days after exp. date and it is fine, but I won't eat it any older than that.
Put it in water if you are not sure
Can you eat that egg?
By Scott Matthews
If not sure you ought-ter,
then place it in water.
If it lies on its side,
then it's fresh; eat with pride.
After three or four days,
at an angle it lays.
But, it still is a treat,
so go on and eat.
Ten days, stands on end,
in your baking 'twill blend.
'Cause it's definitely edible,
in your baking, incredible.
But, if it floats on the surface,
that egg serves no purpose.
'Cause a floater's a stinker!
Out the back door best fling 'er!
If you dont understand from that then here is this
Most everything has changed in the world of cooking in the past 250 years, but not the method for determining if you've got a bad egg.
There is a small air pocket in the large end of the egg. When the egg is fresh, the pocket is only about 1/8th of an inch deep and as large around as a dime. As the egg ages, however, it loses both moisture and carbon dioxide ― shrinking ― so that the size of the air space increases. And the size of the air space determines the buoyancy of the egg.
So if you submerge a very fresh egg in water, it will lie on the bottom. An egg that is a week or so old will lie on the bottom but bob slightly. An egg that is three weeks or so old will balance on its small end, with the large end reaching for the sky. And a bad egg will float.
The risk of getting a foodborne illness from eggs is very low. However, the nutrients that make eggs a high-quality food for humans are also a good growth medium for bacteria. In addition to food, bacteria also need moisture, a favorable temperature and TIME in order to multiply and increase the risk of illness.
Food safety = Health safety
Carton Dates
Egg cartons from USDA-inspected plants must display a Julian date--the date the eggs were packed. Although not required, they may also carry an expiration date beyond which the eggs should not be sold. In USDA-inspected plants, this date cannot exceed 30 days after the pack date. It may be less through choice of the packer or quantity purchaser such as your local supermarket chain. Plants not under USDA inspection are governed by laws of their states.
If you wanna find out if they expire, leave them in the fridge for two months and see what happens.
Ok, here's what you do: get a glass bowl deep enough to hold the egg and cover it with at least 3/4" water, it not more! Put the questionable egg in the bowl of cool water. If it floats, GET RID OF IT!!! It's a bad egg, and is floating because of bacteria growing inside of it. If it just sits there nicely in the bottom of the bowl, it's fine. I'm not sure about dates, go to the National Egg Council's website and see if they have more info for you. They also have recipes! And hey, I'm 25 and learning a lot on my own at this point in time too, so don't feel bad and have a great rest of the week!
I have seen black yolks , whites. Was too sissy to cook and eat them.
Eggs lose their freshness - you may crack an older egg and notice that it is drier inside or ahas reduced volume. It will affect cooking, and taste although how much you would notice would depend on how old the egg is. An expired egg may not necessarily be off or bad, and most probably wouldn't hurt you if you ate it. The expiration on the box is a guide, although best followed for the nicest tasting eggs.
You would know straight away if an egg was bad and I mean the second you crack that shell you would notice that repulsive sulfur-rotton-egg-fart-gas smell. It's undeniable and means bad eggs. Quite unfortunate if you have already cracked it into a cake as it means the whole mixture is spoiled.
Eggs are good
Eggs are great
Eat them up
Before it's to late
Eggs expire in 7-15 days according to the climate conditions. Always try to avoid eating an expired egg. If you want to test an egg... just keep in water... if it floats...its expired.