Looking for pasturized eggs

[Leslie w]

Can you buy pasturized eggs? I'll often see a recipe for a sauce, salad dressing or frosting that will call for uncooked eggs. Of course they have a disclaimer note about not serving it to pregnant women, children, the elderly - pretty much half the population. I know restaurants use pasturized eggs but I've never seen them in grocery stores. Anyone know where I can find them?

[JHolcomb]

In some parts of the country, yes. I believe that we are a test market here in NC. They cost about 1.40 a dozen, and Dh and I do buy them-we like our eggs runny and love raw dough, so we figured better safe than sorry. We like them, but some people are a little weirded out by them because the white is a little cloudy, which is caused by the pasteurizing process.

[BlueMoose]

You can get them around here just in the regular grocery stores in with the other eggs.

[AD]

One option is to use egg substitute. They are pasteurized and should work well for these items.

While I have found it to be a pain, some people prefer the powdered eggs or egg whites. (I think 2 egg whites can substitute one whole egg.) These are stocked near the dry milk in the grocery store. The dried whole eggs I have only seen in the King Arthur Baker's Catalog. You may want to order them.

I attempted to use the dried egg whites once, but the powder just formed a "rock" in the water and would not even partially dissolve or soften. It just lumped together and hardened.

If you are beating egg whites for a candy, dessert or meringue, the whites can be beaten atop a double boiler on low heat until they reach a safe temperature (which I think is 170 degrees). Or, if you are beating a hot syrup into the whites, the syrup should be hot enough to kill the dangerous bacteria.

The risk is not that great for getting sick. I think of all the people and kids who have eaten raw dough and raw cake batter, and I think also about the past before we knew what salmonella even was. Surely many people prepared food with raw eggs and ate it. I have heard most eggs are safe and that there is only about one in one-thousand eggs that has the potential to cause problems. It might be interesting to see if research tells us how many people have actually been to hospitals or died from raw eggs.

[SusanT]

Here's a link to the Centers for Disease Control with more information about salmonella contamination of eggs.


http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/salment_g.htm#How Eggs Become Contaminated

[Kelli Kerrigan]

I saw fertilized eggs sold at Whole Foods. Why would someone want to buy fertilized eggs??? Sounds icky to me.