How long do eggs stay good in the refrigerator?

Posted in Food & Recipes

Egg Survival

It's important to get tips on how to protect yourself and your family from food-related illnesses. It's sometimes easy to determine when food in your refrigerator has gone bad. All you usually have to do is check for mold, or for a foul odor.

carton of eggs

Question: How long can you keep eggs in the fridge?

Expert answer: We tell consumers to look to the egg carton dates to judge freshness. A couple of bits of info regarding the sell-by date: The USDA says that the date can be no further ahead than 30 days after the packing date. Your store can choose any day within that 30 days to date the eggs.

If you don't find a date on the carton, using the eggs within three weeks of the carton date should allow them to be used within optimum quality. By "optimum quality," we refer to the fact that the yolk will be high and upstanding, and the white will be tall and firm. As the membrane releases from the shell, the whites spread out, so you want to use fresh eggs for poaching and other recipes where shape is important, and save the older eggs for scrambled eggs and recipes that includes eggs.

Question: How can you tell when eggs have gone bad?

Expert answer: Eggs are one of the few animal foods that you can keep in your fridge and still be optimum quality. Eggs are unlikely to go bad in a refrigerator setting, but would dry up over time. Eggs don't automatically go bad or spoil after date.

If the eggs do not already have salmonella, it will not grow in an egg as it sits in your fridge. If it does contain salmonella, the number of bacteria will be quite small because it does not grow in cold environments, like a refrigerator, and with proper handling, cooking, and other food safety measures, the bacteria will be killed.

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Tags: cooking tips egg basics egg recipes food safety

Comments

Comments on "How long do eggs stay good in the refrigerator?"

Kath, hard boiled eggs don't keep as long as fresh (raw) eggs. Hard boiled should be refrigerated within 2 hours of cooking and tossed after a week, if unpeeled and no cracks in shell. If peeled or cracks in shell, toss after 3-4 days. If you would like to keep your uncooked eggs longer in the fridge, thoroughly coat the shell with a food-grade mineral oil to seal the pores. You can also use warmed beeswax with a little olive oil mixed in as a coating to makes eggs last longer, or a product called KePeg. Lard will also work if surface is entirely covered. Sealing the shell of raw eggs will make them last a very long time in the fridge because it hinders oxidation. You can use this same principle to make your boiled eggs last an extra week or so, but only if the shell has no cracks and is well sealed to prevent air from passing through the shell. For older, uncooked eggs, you can do the water float test to check for staleness (if stays on bottom it's good, if stands on end or bobs slightly it's still okay, if it floats it's stale) and always crack your older eggs into a separate dish in case they've gotten rotten (which will stink like sulfur).

I have 6 hard boiled eggs that have been in my fridge for almost a month are they still good ??? I'm getting ready to toss'em b/c my hubby won't eat them b/c he thinks there bad by now!!!

Delores, I was raised in the country and that usually meant the rooster got in the hen house.

I was going to fry eggs(egglandbest) and when I cracked it there was blood in it. Never happened before.

When I wanted to know how long eggs say good, the article said if you can't find a date on the carton, the eggs should stay good for 2 to 3 weeks From The Date On The Carton?????

back in Old days before refrigeration people left eggs out because chicken lays them with a coating called BLOOM that is natures way of preserving them. Now factories wash that bloom off before they carton them up to go to the stores and that natural coating is gone. Just saying..check it out, it's true.

Ive had this dozen of eggs in the fridge at my science lab and they havnt spoiled i had it in there 11 months........i havnt eaten it but i cracked it and theyre looking real good

When I was 7 yrs old my parents took me to my grandmothers farm in the country to stay til school started in Sept. Daddy would buy a WHOLE CASE of farm fresh eggs. He was the breakfast cook. They lived on eggs from June 5th until Labor day.They lived many long years.I still have 1 egg in fridge dated April which I plan to scramble tomorrow. I used 8 of them last weekend for egg salad and I'm still around at the age of 83.

I ve had eggs in my frig for maybe a year and have eatten them. As long as they smell ok then they sould be fine. I you have one of the egg containers in your frig and put them in there and buy new ones how are you supposed to remember which is which? So I just smell them first then cook. But now I am wondering about cooked or hard boilded eggs? I had some in the frig for a few weeks and I just thru them out. I didn't ck them cuz it was garbage day and was cleaning out the frig. So if anyone knows about that let me know. Thanks!

Couldn't remember the sink or swim theory on eggs. Opposite of theory: float: AWAY. Sinkers are not Stinkers. Thanks - I will remember this now!

My Mom told me at a young age to check expiration date on eggs. If more than 2 weeks past date, crack each egg open individually in a cup and smell it. If it smells like an egg (yes eggs DO have a very slight musty smell) then it's safe to cook. If it doesn't smell like an egg (rotten...yucky) then throw it away. Many years later, as an adult, I had a dozen eggs a month past the expiration date. I did as my Mom had told me and one egg was obviously very bad, the rest were ok. That was the first and last time I had ever found a bad egg after the expiration date. As a Senior Citizen, I still practice that advice to this day.

The article states "If you don't find a date on the carton, using the eggs within three weeks of the carton date should allow them to be used within optimum quality." This makes no sense, if there is no date on the carton, then how can I possibly use the eggs within three weeks of the carton date???....ummmm ok

Eggs never go bad... If you crack one open and it looks like an egg, they are fine. You only need to worry about if they sat under a hen and were incubated.

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the easiest way to tell if an egg has gone bad is to put in a pot full of water. if it floats then it's bad (it's full of gas), if it goes straight to the bottom then it's still good.

I've used eggs that I've had in the fridge for 6 months! I wouldn't use them when shape is an issue, but they are fine in cakes or as they say here scrambled or whatnot.

I have a co worker who thought that the eggs were bad because she stated they turned brown. Do eggs that go bad turn brown?

my eggs are dated aug 6 2008 and its the 13th. they been in the fridge since then. are they still good

yeah question about this: I bought 2 dozen eggs the first week of July. The sell date says July 10th on one carton, July 18th on the other, and I've only gotten into a couple during that time. now that its August 9th, I am wondering, are the eggs still good? I was told, bad eggs will make a *swish wish* sound when you shake them. or will float to the top if put in cold water. My eggs don't make any sound and sink to the bottom, so does that mean there ok? seeing as how its been a month in the fridge, I am worried, for eggs don't have a smell of any kind, so hoe else do we know if there safe to eat? I don't care if they won't go sunny side up, but it would be nice to boil some. just in case, I bought some more today, a dozen, but a dozen will only last me a week normally. I don't know why I let these sit in there a whole month, being a single guy I jsut forgot they was in there is all. I mean, I am visually impaired / legally blind, and that is what concerns me, for I can't see mold or nothing like that. thanks