In many countries, eggs aren’t refrigerated and they’re still considered safe to eat. But in the U.S., we have to chill them, because we’ve washed away the cuticle that protects them from bacteria.

Source: www.npr.org

For many Americans that are traveling abroad for the first time, realizing that eggs aren’t in the refrigerator is a bit of a culture shock (not to mention the moment they find milk in a box that also isn’t being refrigerated).  Agricultural practices dictate storage requirements and some things we might have imagined were universal are actually place-specific or peculiar to our cultural setting.  What we are taught to think of as gross, appropriate, attractive or even sanitary is often steeped in a cultural context.  So is it strange the we refrigerate our eggs in the United States, or that they don’t in other places? 


Tags: food production, technology, industry, food, agriculture, perspective.