Storage Eggs

What is a bad egg? One that stinks with hydrogen sulphide, or one that contains a partially formed chick.

What is a good egg? One that has a thick jelly-like white, an upstanding yolk, a firm membrane separating white and yolk, a sheen over the whole contents.

What is a poor egg? One with either watery or turbid white, a yolk that flattens out or bursts because of its thinned membrane, a dull appearance throughout the contents.

Poor eggs are practically as edible and nourishing as good eggs, merely less pleasant to look at and hence less appetizing.

Cornell University has been making a study of egg deterioration and preservation. Last week Paul Francis Sharp, Cornell's professor of dairy chemistry, who has been working on the matter with other Cornell men, wrote a preliminary report to Science. Eggs spoil, he stated, because:

1) they contain germs caught from the hen or absorbed through the shell pores; 2) they lose water by evaporation through the shell, a condition which helps break down the membrane between yellow and white; 3) they are kept at a temperature too high, which causes chemical reactions, if not the formation of embryos; .4) most important and only newly discovered, the alkalinity of white and yolk has increased.

Alkalinity increases because carbon dioxide escapes through the shell from the white. Then the white absorbs carbon dioxide from the yolk, only to lose it again through the shell. Result of the loss is that the yolks get flabby, the whites watery.

These observations suggested to Professor Sharp's group the way of preserving eggs in their newly laid condition, a way which they have found efficacious.

It is simple: store the eggs in a place filled with a low concentration of carbon dioxide. That keeps a carbon dioxide balance within and without the eggs. Cost is 1-c- per case of eggs, .03-c- per dozen.