Do eggs last longer if refrigerated?

Factual Questions
1

I have some eggs in the fridge past their use by date by about 3 weeks, should I be alright if I eat them?

2

Gently place the eggs in water deep enough to cover them and then some. If they float, or “stand on end” in the water, don’t eat them.

If they sink and lie quietly on their sites, they are Good Eggs.

3

Sounds good.

Can someone verify this for me please :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Do people ever not refrigerate eggs? I assumed the use-by date took into account them being refrigerated.

5

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=129089&highlight=Rotten+and+float

will that do?

6

An eggshell is slightly porous and air can pass through it. I think that what Hello Again means, is that an “old” egg will have taken in so much air (because water in the egg has evaporated) that it will float. This will at least tell you whether your eggs are old or not.

I wouldn’t worry too much though. Eggs can keep well quite long. Crack the eggs into a seperate bowl one at a time, and if it’s gone bad you can smell it immediately!!
Just to be on the safe side, I wouldn’t use it for anything that were not cooked thoroughly, i.e. a soft-boiled egg.

7

Ok, sounds good.

Thanks guys.

8

I usually don’t worry too much about unrefrigerated eggs, at least for a while, and if they’re uncooked and uncracked.

Don’t they have a working immune system? I mean it’s a living cell, right?

9

So, I have a couple of chooks in the backyard who make me fresh eggs every morning; some old wives tale floats in the back of my head saying that if they’ve never been refrigerated, they’ll keep fine out of the fridge for at least a while, but if they have ever been in a fridge, ie come from the supermarket, that they’d go back within a day of hitting the kitchen counter-- can anyone confirm or deny? i assume it’s still a good idea to move them right to the fridge from the chickenbutt? how long can they sit, say, in the coop, before they simply must be put in the fridge?

And yeah, store-bought eggs seem to peel a lot easier when hard-boiled than fresh still-warm-and-gooey-from-the-bird eggs.

10

Yep. Too-fresh eggs don’t peel well as HB; I always buy my easter dozens at least a week ahead of time.

11

As someone mentioned in the linked post, people in Europe seem to sell them sitting out on the shelf at r.t.