Keeping bread in the fridge

thewintermute wrote: »

eggs at room temperature.
Think about it. They'r not in the fridge in the shop are they?

Degringola wrote: »

Ya buy ketchup from the shelf, but instructions say once opened refrigerate, so not a hard and fast rule. Same for mayo. Taste better cold anyway!

castletownman wrote: »

Brennans. Today's Bread for a fortnight.

Should eggs be stored the fridge? Although fridges come with an egg tray, I read somewhere that putting eggs into the fridge actually makes them degenerate quicker - something to do with the cold and pressure change encouraging air into the shell. Can anyone enlighten me?
Neil Storer, London, UK

My microbiology lecturer at university was quite anti egg refrigeration. He claimed that if the egg was cracked into a frying pan straight from the fridge and cooked until it looked OK, the yolk would only be blood warm and since the yolks at that time were sometimes contaminated by salmonella, this could be harmful.
C Partridge, Manchester UK

Eggs will last longer in the fridge, provided you don't put them in the door. The cold does make them last, but constant changes in temperature can make them go off quicker. They should be kept nearer the back of the fridge, where the temperature is more constant. For cooking, its better to use room temperature eggs, so get them out in good time.
Lizzie, London

I don''t know about degeneration but I know that the yolks of refrigerated eggs are more likely to break when you put them in the frying pan as the change in temperature is more severe.
James Hamling, London England

I don't know about whether they degenerate quicker in the fridge, but it does make them more difficult to cook. A 3 minute egg for example, is cooked for three minutes providing that the egg starts at room temperature. If it has been kept in the fridge, a 3 minute egg would turn out to be far too runny.
Seth, Edinburgh Scotland

Eggs should be stored in the fridge. They are not stored in the fridge in shops because they would amass condensation on your way home and this is what will encourage contamination through the shell.
John Davis, Otley West Yorkshire

How do you like your eggs? Well, how you store them makes a difference. Eggs left out on the counter don't last very long (a couple of weeks if kept cool), but they maintain a fairly high level of quality until they "go off". Eggs stored in the refirgerator remain edible for a long time, but the quality deteriorates quite quickly. And frozen eggs are edible for years after they are laid, but you might as well eat shoe leather!
Paul, Minneapolis USA

Eggs should be kept in a fridge as they need a constant temperature. The fridge is the only place in the kitchen that you can guarantee this. If you can maintain a constant temperature elsewhere in the kitchen then you could keep the eggs there.
Chris, Oxford UK

Wherever the supermarket/corner store had the eggs stored when you bought them is the best place to store them when you get home, they obviously know how to store food. Most supermarkets I've been in have eggs stored in a fridge/chiller.
Gary Byrne, Dublin Ireland

I have used supermarkets in many parts of the world and have yet to see one where the eggs are stocked in a chilled condition. My tour of Ireland occurred in 1993 so I have forgotten my experience there.
Jack Hill, St Albans England

If the same-temperature rule applies, then I would suggest they are stored at room temperature. I know of no major supermarket chain in the UK that displays eggs in a chiller.
Harry Winckworth, Swindon UK

I've also used supermarkets in a number of countries. Some chill the eggs, some do not.
Kevin, Fort Collins, Colorado USA

A recent TV program gave a chef's reason for NOT keeping them in a fridge was because egg shells are porous, and the eggs would absorb food smells from the fridge contents
john cammish, london UK

Eggs have to be stored at less than 20 degrees centigrade. Most supermarkets keep their selling space well below this temperature. However, at home, the easiest way to do this is to keeps the eggs in the fridge.
john dumbrell, Rilhac Treignac, France

An egg kept in the fridge is more likely to "go off" as the porous shell will allow water to be absorbed. I have been led to believe that it is this water absorbtion that actually makes the egg inedible.
Dom, Cirencester, UK

If you buy your eggs in small quantities (half dozen say) at a time then the argument as to where to store them doesn't arise. We get through 1/2 doz a week and keep them out of the fridge.
Bill Peach, Newark, Notts

Really confused now - In the fridge or out?
Liz Forgione, Blackpool

It's all about personal preference as there seems to be no definitive answer. The best advice as already stated, is to buy what you need for each week rather than bulk buying for long storage.
Jay Scott, Blackpool, UK

All perishable foods will store for appreciably longer times in a refrigerator than at room temperature in a kitchen where surface temperatures may exceed 25*C. Whilst a chilled egg will take 5.5minutes to boil, if you do a test to determine comparative shelf life to fully bad state, you will find that the relationship is an inversely proportional line some eggs surviving bacteria free for 4 months. Bacteria cannot penetrate the membrane inside the shell it forms a total barrier to even viruses, this is how viruses in germ warfare are incubated and preserved; if it can't get out, then it also can't get in. This tale of condensation and moisture is all a damned good yarn but only that. When broken into a pan a fresh egg has good elasticity in the albumen and it should stand like a lens in the pan, a flattened egg has deteriorated and aged, and this room temperature stored egg will not produce the same fresh moussed effects as a fresh or refrigerated egg. The best part of boiling a refrigerated egg is that your time to a perfect boiled egg will be very consistent, a room temperature egg has a variable starting point and that is bad for timings. In conclusion refrigeration is all advantage, it may be possible that egg producers are the only ones to gain from room temperature storage as eggs go bad in about 2 weeks at 25 degrees centigrade, in a frig at 7 degrees they will last a minimum of a month. In tests not one egg was bad in 4 weeks under refrigeration. All chemical reactions double in rate for every 10 degree rise in temperature, so 20 degrees above fridge temperature represents 4 times the rate of rotting. All eggs are liable to internal contamination as the last part to form is the outer skin.
Bill Wright, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK

What about if you have your own chickens, and the eggs are fresh? Where then? Presently I keep them out of the fridge. Really fresh eggs don't make good boiled eggs as they are hard to peel, so should I want to set some eggs aside to age for a week, where should I keep those?
Heather Ransom, Bolton, UK

Always buy fresh, free-range and,if your budget can stretch to it, organic eggs in small quantities. Keep them out of the fridge and test for freshness by popping them into a glass of water before you cook them. If they sink,they are still fresh. If they float, they're off. This is because the air pocket inside gets bigger as the egg deteriorates. My Dad was brought up on a farm and this was their standard way of checking egg freshness.
Jackie Hamill, Birmingham, UK

I worked as a chef for many years and had large amounts of eggs and they were always in the store room not a fridge. If you fridge them they will spit at you when frying them. Happy days.
Ken Malin, Blackpool, Lancashire

I don't know anything about egg storage. I'm just astonished that people from the UK talk about whether you should keep eggs in the chiller. In the UK, room temperature is the same temperature as the chiller! ;-)
Tony Martin, Melbourne Australia

I bought 120 eggs from the supermarket where the eggs were stored on the shelf. 40 of them were off. So now wondering where I keep my normal supply (this was for a birthday party brunch). More confused than ever, as been led to believe they stay out of the fridge. Will buy less, leave out and use quickly. Interesting. Thanks.
Coral Sands, Auckland, New Zealand

We've always stored eggs in a porcelain chicken on the worktop. When there's only one or two left, its topped up with another half dozen, not taking any notice of old from new. We may just be extremely lucky but in 50 years of marriage we've never experienced having a bad one. Our eggs come from various stores, shops or farms and always taste good. ps: We've lived in Spain for several years and they are equally good in all this heat.
P Kelly, Los Gallardos, Spain

I suggest the loft for the perfect egg storing space and temperature , trust me its worth the effort
Alex Mcluskie, Northchurch, UK

i worked on an egg producing farm for 5 years. There were 50,000 birds there and not at any time were any eggs stored in a fridge,we once stored some in an open sided barn on pallets of 9 boxes each box with 30 dozen in for 6 weeks in the middle of summer but they were in the shade and we turned them upside down each week. Egg yolks gradually move in the white until they touch the inner membrane that is when they go bad so turning them stops them reaching the shell.
vaughan james, birmingham great britain

A bad egg is one that has been contaminated with bacteria. Hens lay eggs and the embryonic chicks develop perfectly satisfactorily over a period of 21 days. i.e. Little bacteria gets into the egg, even with an incubation temperature higher than room temperature while the hen sits on it. One can conclude that eggshells will maintain integrity in room temperature for at least 21 days. However, at low temperatures (say, in a fridge), the outer mucoprotein cuticle (which behaves like wax) covering the shell dries and shrinks, exposing the some 17,000 pores in the calcium carbonate shell. This increases the probability of bacterial contamination but only, according to academics, by about 5%. As the cuticle is soluble in water, you shouldn't wash eggs before storage either. By far the largest contributing factor, however, is the number of bacteria that has access to the egg and, contrary to belief, there is still a large number of bacteria in the fridge. In summary, keeping the fridge clean, or eggs in their box, or a clean porcelain chicken (love it!) is by far the best strategy.
Andy P, London UK

I have always kept my eggs in the fridge, never had a problem!
rob bierd, birmingham united kingdom

I have lived in the states most of my life and we have always kept our eggs in the fridge and my family has never had a problem with eggs. Our stores do not keep eggs out either. They are all stored in a chilled shelving unit that also stores cheese and other items that should be refrigerated. I've never had a rotten egg from a refrigerator but I have had plenty that were bad that had been left out.
Wynter Bradbury, Luray United States

Which came first? The chicken or the egg or the fridge?
JT, North Shore Hawaii

mayobumblebee wrote: »

my fella insists on salt being kept in fridge - he is convinced it keeps it from clumping so it lives in the fridge.