This is inspired by an earlier thread about refridgerating mayo. Someone in that thread said that it was not necessary to refridgerate eggs. In other countries, eggs are stored and sold unrefridgerated.
When discussing this with my wife, she informed me that eggs in North America have salmonella inside them and that’s why they need to be refridgerated. Eggs in Australia (for example) do not have salmonella and therefore do need to be refridgerated. She says this is a product of the way chickens are raised in North America. Can anyone verify this as correct?
Kinda.
The USDA requires that eggs sold in supermarkets in here be refrigerated because the USDA tends to have stricter regulations than many other countries. The USDA has these stricter regulations on eggs because refrigeration helps to prevent the growth of salmonella. Although salmonella cannot reproduce at temperatures below about 40°F, it merely becomes dormant - not dead. To kill it, you gotta cook the egg at 160°F, or higher.
This does not mean that eggs in the U.S. are more contaminated with salmonella than eggs in other countries. Only that the USDA has stricter guidelines for storage and handling of eggs. The USDA approach is dual-pronged: to retard the initial growth of the bacteria, and to kill it by thorough cooking. Other countries rely on only cooking the egg eliminate salmonella contamination.
Or vaccination. In the UK chickens are vaccinated against Salmonella enteridis. About 85% of the UK’s eggstock is certified free from the bacteria, and you can tell by the ‘Lionmark’ stamp on the eggshells of eggs from vaccinated birds.
Interesting - are these eggs safe to eat raw then? (Not that I would want to, except in cookie dough form.)
Eggs in Australia are generally refrigerated, or at least kept in the freezer section of the supermarket, where the ambient temperature is cooler than the rest of the store.
I don’t know whether it’s required, but it’s certainly a general habit for most people to put their eggs in the refrigerator over here.
At my local supermarket the eggs are not refrigerated. They’re stored on normal shelves, at room temperature.
Fair enough. I am basing my information on the supermarkets (coles, woolworths, Bi-Lo) I’ve been to in Adelaide, where they’re all kept in the same area, next to or in the fridges.
Yeah, if as you say, you’d want to.
What, you’ve never enjoyed a good hollandaise sauce? Homemade mayonnaise? Real aioli? Lots of stuff has raw eggs in it besides Rocky’s breakfast, you know.
I would eat a raw egg for breakfast every morning, if the FDA would approve doing so. I loooooooove raw things.
According to Alton Brown, the number of U.S. eggs actually infected with salmonella is vanishingly small. Not sure I trust him 100% on that, and I really really don’t want to get salmonella.
When I was a kid eggs were kept out on the kitchen counter. Of course these were fresh eggs and they would be used in a week or less. I’d guess that eggs you get in the supermarket are several days to a week, or more, old before you buy them.
As an aside, I used to love eating raw hamburger that my Mom bought, freshly ground, from the butcher. Just sprinkle a little salt on it, yum.
Why? Isn’t it just a typical bout of diarrhoea? I mean, sure that’s something you want to avoid, but iisn’t the worst thing in the world. I’ve eaten lots of things that I knew were likely to give me some kind of gut trouble just because they taste really good. And like Alton says, the odds are slim anyway.
I thought it was more like the worst stomach flu in the world–several days of being knocked flat on your back, projectile-expelling from both ends.
[old geezer mode] When I was young you could get an an egg wizzed up in your Orange Julius . Made it extra foamy, and good. 
[/OGM]
When was the last time you had an eggnog made with cooked eggs?
Besides the sheer misery of salmonella infection, there can be surprisingly serious consequences. One syndrome that sometimes follows a bad salmonella infection is HUS, more frequently seen after E coli infections. HUS or hemolytic-uremic syndrome means clots form and disappear all over your body as you overreact to the bacteria. Many people lose kidney function and the mortality of a bout is about 10 to 15%. If you develop HUS twice, the mortality the second time is 30%.
http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic238.htm
I recall memorizing in med school that salmonella is the second commonest cause of infected bones (osteomyelitis) in people with sickle cell disease.
I’ve posed this same question before. My local Safeway keeps eggs in a separate area that’s kind of like a cooler, but when I reach my hand in, it’s not cool. Maybe I’m just not registering the difference in temperature, but it seems that they’re not refrigerated until I bring them home.
Eggs can also be pasteurized without actually cooking them. I think that’s done at about 140°F.
Make sure the eggnog has lots of alcohol in it to kill any nasty stuff!
When I was at school one of my classmates (a fairly seroius bodybuilder) caught salmonella - he lost 21lbs in a week. Salmonella is a potentially life-threatening illness even for healthy teenagers. If I remember correctly the last big salmonella scare in the UK (cf Eggwina Currie) was particularly around the impact on elderly people of catching it with usually fatal consequences.