Should we wash our eggs?

In a commercial production environment where best practices are used, egg washing is a safe and effective method of preventing foodborne illness.

However, it is probably difficult, if not impossible, for most backyard poultry owners to implement best practices:

It’s probably safe to assume that most of us don’t have a good way to know or control the temperature coming out of our kitchen faucets. When cleaning eggs, backyard poultry owners assume the temperature is correct. As with all assumptions, sometimes there will be some truth to it, but not every time.

It’s also safe to assume that most of us don’t know the iron content of our water. This is probably not a big problem for city dwellers who use municipal water, but the same cannot be said for country people who use well water. As mentioned earlier, iron entering the albumen can lower the eggs’ natural defenses against bacteria.

It can also be assumed that egg cleaning equipment — sponge, brush, etc. are not checked or cleaned regularly, so they can be an unexpected source of contamination.

Egg drying procedures are also likely to be lax or inconsistent. Backyard chicken owners may place eggs in the refrigerator before they are completely dry. Moisture on the unprotected shell can serve as a conduit for any remaining bacteria to enter the center of the unprotected egg. The best practice is to towel dry the eggs and let them air dry completely before placing them in the refrigerator.

While none of the above is impossible for backyard chicken owners, we believe that consistent implementation of best practices is unlikely.

For this reason, we have embraced the idea of washing only those eggs that clearly need the removal of large amounts of droppings and debris from the surface. It would be particularly unsanitary to place these eggs in the refrigerator without washing them.