How long to you have to cook an egg to kill salmanella? I like to make sunny-side eggs with perfectly runny yolks, but I’m always worried that I may not have cooked them long enough.
Basically, the more you cook them, the less likely you are to get salmonella. It really depends on the egg and your immune system. I’ve eaten plenty of runny yolks and never got salmonella.
If you’re concerned, you can get pasteurized eggs, which don’t have that problem.
The Master speaks! Well, in this case, the master being Alton Brown:
This must have been before he discovered Pasteurized eggs, because in practically every other episode involving uncooked or undercooked eggs he mentions them.
Also, keep in mind that salmonella typically causes serious problems only for the old and infirm, the very young, and people with compromised immune systems. Most other people, it will give you some degree of food poisoning (or nothing at all), uncomfortable but not life threatening.
I eat raw eggs with shabu shabu and am pretty sloppy with chicken, but I’ve never gotten any food poisoning that I can associate with salmonella.
I haven’t seen pasteurized eggs at my grocery store, nor warehouse club store. I’m not overly concerned, but just curious. Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough.
Could we eradicate salmonella? Drastic, but suppose we could test 20,000 chickens. Assuming a perfect distribution, we should have 19,998.5 or so chickens confirmed to be salmonella free. If we were to somehow kill off all other chickens and start anew with our confirmed-safe chickens, would that work?
Or is it that salmonella got crafty and could simply be re-introduced?
Do various state laws throughout the U.S. affect the availability of pasteurized eggs from state to state?
When I was living in Mississippi, I seem to remember that all the eggs were pasteurized. I am not sure that’s true here in Louisiana, but I will remember to check when I get home.
From safeeggs.com (PDF):
Not sure if that affects the availability of pasteurized eggs at the local level or not, though.
EDIT: Googling pasteurized eggs, “state law” turned up a lot of useful links.
Interesting link: pasteurizing your own eggs at home with a microwave.
You’re not pasteurizing them in the shells that way, so it’s a little bit of a PITA, but not too bad. It makes homemade raw-egg products safe for the elderly, small children, etc.
As I research this more, I realize that I have to be wrong about this. Pasteurized eggs were available – that much I remember – but they weren’t the only kind of eggs available.
My understanding is that other countries have, in fact, done so.
It would be extremely difficult. It’s present in the environment and has a nasty habit of living intracellularly. We’ve only managed to eradicate one disease so far (smallpox) and that was because it didn’t have any environmental reservoir.
I think that salmonella and other foodborne illnesses are a serious problem that goes overlooked. There are many organizations out there like STOP, Safe Tables Our Priority, who lobby for more government regulations and government aid for helping make our foods safe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that “While the food supply in the United States is one of the safest in the world, CDC estimates that each year 76 million cases of foodborne illness occur and more than 300,000 persons are hospitalized and 5,000 die from foodborne illness.” I tend to think of myself as “healthy” eater and I take time to investigate the foods I eat. A friend of mine introduced my to a product called Davidson’s Safest Choice eggs. There eggs are 99.9% germ-free, because they are pasteurized. They taste good and are healthy. I recommend them, I rather be safe then sorry.
Salmonella has been found in the ovaries of chickens and therefore inside the egg, only about 30 years ago. Prior to that, it was mainly found in horses and rabbits. Part of nature, species jump…
Salmonella is carried by flies and rodents. Chicken feed is stored outside in silos, and rats and skunks and other furry things are the norm. Salmonella is also found in the intestinal tract, so it’s in poop too. If the hens are roaming free, they do tend to peck in the poop (dirty birds!). So there really isn’t any way of being sure your hens don’t carry it.
Vaccinating the hens does not guarantee safe eggs either. Bacteria mutates, the vaccines wear off. The vaccines are given by vapor and it is not possible to make sure that all the hens get a proper dose. One hen in a house can then infect the other hens.
The only way to be sure your egg is safe (short of testing it) is to use an egg that has been pasteurized in the shell. It’s a warm water bath that destroys the bacteria 100,000 fold (5-log reduction). That’s the reduction offered by one company (National Pasteurized Eggs). Other processes in other countries don’t claim this much reduction. Some are only 3-log.
You need to cook your egg to 145 degrees for 15 sec., or to 160 degrees (no time requirement then). You’ll find that when you do this, you no longer have a runny yolk.
If you use the in-shell pasteurized egg, you don’t even have to cook it. To me, it’s a no-brainer – I get to serve eggs any way that my clients want without concern.
I’ll have to look for pasteurized eggs… I love homemade ice cream and I know I’ll crave it once my fiancee and I start having kids, but I was afraid to eat it while pregnant. Now I can!