Raw Eggs?

science
food
(Brendan Cole Sweeney) #1

Can someone help me to understand why I should use raw eggs? How high are the chances of salmonella?

(matt ) #2

who is telling you to use raw eggs?

(Brendan Cole Sweeney) #3

No one is telling me to use them. I have seen recipes which do use them, and I was wondering about the benefits of raw over cooked, and the commonality of issues that arise from raw eggs.

It is the basic risk vs reward question.

(matt ) #4

What would be an example of recipes that involves eating raw egg? I am 100% sincere.

(Brendan Cole Sweeney) #5

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/cherry-coconut-cookie-dough-truffles/16853?u=colaer

It looks tasty but I am slightly weird about by the eggs.

(matt ) #6

Thanks.

Well in a case like this, where there is raw egg, I would think that if you are really worried you can wash the shell to lower the risk there, but in the end you are eating a raw egg. I have never worried about it and I have never had an issue. Then again I eat meat rare/raw and so far so good. I know I will pay some day but odds are but I won’t die.

So it’s a risk I am OK with.

(Brendan Cole Sweeney) #7

Fair enough.

(A ham loving ham! - VA6KD) #8

Here in Canada and the USA we wash, sterilize and refrigerate eggs almost as soon as they’re laid and it’s not advisable to leave them to get to room temperature for extended durations of more than a couple days. In most of the rest of the world, eggs are never refrigerated (it’s also quite discouraged) and can be put on the shelf for several weeks quite safely. When I emmigrated from Australia to Canada, it puzzled me why eggs were kept in the fridge here and I found out it’s due to differing production practices. I believe that Australia has now flipped to follow the North American practices however. I found an article that details why if you’re interested: http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-heres-why-we-need-to-refrigerate-eggs-20140714-story.html

(Brendan Cole Sweeney) #9

I actually understood and already knew about the refrigeration of the eggs. I was a US Submariner and we would take about 3 weeks worth of eggs for a crew of 160 people underway. There was no way we could put that amount into our refrigerated stores, so we put them in a fan room (giant ventilation duct 2m wide 3m tall and 25m long). It too baffled me about those practices of refrigeration compared to the rest of the world.

(Sonia A.) #10

Emma Morano, a 117 year old Italian woman who died recently, ate 2 raw eggs a day all her life without problems.

(Allie) #11

Any bugs on the egg are on the outer shell so just wash them first.

(Brendan Cole Sweeney) #12

I you read the article as mentioned by @keehan, it can be passed into the egg prior to laying.

(Allie) #13

I’m in the UK though -

Europeans take a different approach. In the United Kingdom, for example, producers instead vaccinate laying hens to prevent the transmission of salmonella. They then rely on a thin, naturally occurring coating called the cuticle, to prevent any contamination from the outside of the shell penetrating to the egg.

(Brendan Cole Sweeney) #14

I live in the US therefore I cant necessarily rely on vaccinations of the hen.

(Louise ) #15

Nooooo!! Do not wash eggs! That’s how the salmonella (if it in the outside) gets through the porous shell! I know this as the Public Health Department rang as a follow up after my son contracted salmonella from either eating raw egg (in pasta dough) or KFC. What was also told was to wash your hands after handling eggs as well.
Raw egg can ‘cook’ when emulsified with oils like in mayonnaise.

(Brendan Cole Sweeney) #16

In the US eggs are washed during processing.

(Davi) #17

If you have a sous vide circulator, you can pasteurize your eggs and they’ll still be raw but safe. You’ll have to Google for instructions as I haven’t done it so I cant remember temp + time

#18

Are there any distinctions to be drawn here (vis a vis safety) if you’re using pastured local eggs versus factory farmed/store bought eggs?

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #19

I only use raw egg in my paleo mayo recipe, I use an immersion blender and the rotation of the blades bring the mixture up to a temp that supposedly, according to the raw eating guidelines, that makes it safe to eat. I am very careful to keep eggs in the fridge and I keep my mayo in the fridge as well. If I take something on a picnic, I do use a cold pack to keep everything cooled down.

No problems whatsoever.

When we moved to Australia I was freaked out to see eggs stored outside the grocery along the sidewalk even in the summertime. I learned down there the difference in how they are handled here vs. other countries.

#20

Getting back to the original question for a bit:

Can someone help me to understand why I should use raw eggs?

Mostly because you want to or have a recipe that has it. Other reasons I can think of though: leaving the yolk uncooked prevents certain breakdowns and changes to the fats in the yolk, along with retaining some of the vitamins/preventing their breakdown, which some suggest is in a better state the less it is cook or at least before it gets hard. Eating raw would retain the original amounts the most for the yolk, though there can be some debate about how beneficial this may be and whether the same process makes some of it better available to the body (usually discussed as a trade off situation, some things you get more, some less).
Similarly, proteins can break down some during cooking, so I’d expect the whites to also retain some of their proteins better in raw form, but that’s mostly speculation on my part so if I were you I’d look into that hypothesis and see if anywhere else supports the idea before relying on it if such was a concern.

Other practical reason: faster and more convenient? No need to cook means no cooking time, and no need for cooking gear on hand necessarily.

Other less practical reasons: It makes you feel like Rocky or various other famous body builders, boxers or wrestlers.

Salmonella risks are typically pretty low, but at the same time salmonella is one of the things you really don’t want to mess with as it has so many ways to attack your body once it gets in there’s very little chance of actually having an immunity to it, less so than other things.