Fresh eggs for Easter?

Dr Kathy Martyn, Principle Lecturer in the School of Health Sciences, and our nutrition expert, appeared on BBC1’s The One Show on Monday night to explain how you can tell if an egg is fresh to eat.

Over 720 million eggs are being thrown away each year, most because they are close to their use-by date.  According to egg producers, eggs remain fresh for at least 28 days and are often safe to eat up to and just after their use-by date.

Dr Martyn, Principle Lecturer in the School of Health Sciences, gave tips on how to ensure an egg is fresh: “Look at the shell – and it’s got a nice look to it, it’s clean, there are no cracks – you might want to smell it.” Protein in an ageing egg breaks down and you can detect the smell of hydrogen sulphide.

Dr Martyn said: “See if the egg floats or not – a healthy egg should more or less sink to the bottom. But the shell of this egg is porous so over time as some of the moisture leaves and gets replaced with air so the older the egg the more likely it is to start floating to the top.”

Finally, she said, crack the egg onto a surface and see if the albumen or egg white has spread out wide – that usually means the egg is ageing.

You can watch the programme here and scroll to 26.20.

If you are interested in nutrition, take a look at our new Nutrition BSc(Hons) degree.