Why You Should Never Put Eggshells Back in the Carton
When you cook or bake eggs, food safety compliance is paramount. Sometimes, however, laziness wins: at some point most of us put the spent eggshells back in the cardboard box instead of finding a more suitable container. Even if you’ve never sent anyone to the hospital with this move, it’s still a bad habit that you should get rid of immediately.
As you almost certainly know, eggs can be contaminated with salmonella bacteria , which can cause severe food poisoning. We generally consider raw and undercooked eggs to be a major risk factor, but it is important to remember that eggshells can also be contaminated. Fortunately, this is rarely a big deal: industrial disinfection procedures remove the vast majority of surface contamination, so as long as all the eggs are intact, the carton environment is usually your least concern.
Everything changes when you put empty cartridges back in the cardboard box. You are suddenly bringing another potential source of bacteria – raw egg leftovers – into the area where you store your eggs. If you think leftover eggs are safe just because their shells are intact, think again. Eggshell is not Fort Knox; Salmonella can enter them , creating a serious chance of cross-contamination. Even if you just put the seashells in the cardboard box for a minute while you finish cracking the rest, they will surely leave behind leftovers, which might be enough to populate the entire cardboard box. Cold doesn’t kill bacteria – it just slows them down.
Bottom line: Storing empty shells and whole raw eggs in the same container gives Salmonella an even better chance of breeding and has the potential to cause serious illness, so don’t. Instead, collect the eggshells in a bowl and discard them right away. It really does require you to remember to take out the bowl before you start cracking, but it’s definitely better than food poisoning.