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Comment by ranger_danger | Hacker News Reader

My understanding is that unwashed eggs preserve a protective layer that inhibits bacterial growth, which is why washed eggs in the US must be refrigerated instead. I think they are both valid methods.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/11/336330502/wh...

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Yes it’s one of those weird American things. Like being extremely worried about chicken meat because the conditions chicken are raised in are so awful you can’t trust it’s not contaminated.

I find it endlessly amusing that Americans are both extremely worried about food safety and apparently completely unable to pass reasonable food safety law.

It's largely a generational thing. Most baby boomers are afraid to eat eat even slightly pink beef. Arguments that millions of Americans eat hamburgers with the middle of the paddy still oozing blood and virtually nobody is harmed by it fall on deaf ears. Old dogs, new tricks, etc.

Unwashed eggs can also be refrigerated, and they last an absurdly long time that way — much, much longer than either refrigerated washed eggs or unrefrigerated unwashed eggs.

Once you refrigerate unwashed eggs, though, they need to stay refrigerated thereafter.

Here in Norway, farmers have been lamenting the EU rules of requiring a rather short "best before" limit of 28 days while our eggs are safe a lot longer[1], typically 4 months but can last over a year[2].

So they changed it to "best before <date> but not bad after" and have been regularly running campaigns reminding people.

[1]: https://www.prior.no/artikkel/datomerking-av-egg

[2]: https://www.nrk.no/livsstil/eggene-varer-_nesten_-evig-1.759...

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