On Doomsday Preppers I saw the one lady preserving eggs by coating them in some kind of cooking oil. Does this work?
I cringe watching that show. The same lady was training other women on self defense but was obviously very out of shape. She was also giving firearm classes where they were shooting at small targets laid on the ground.
As for the firearms and personal defense, about all I can say is if you have a gun, be prepared to use it and don't be afraid of it. If you don't think you could aim it at another person, you'd better get into shape, because you almost certainly will have a fight on your hands. Better to have a reliable handgun with a laser sight ("point and shoot") than get shot, choked, stabbed, etc from close-contact struggle.
Coating eggs in oil might help some but I wouldn’t want to save them for long. The oil would fill the pores in the shell.
Coating eggs in vegetable oil is one method they use to control swan population levels around here. It causes the embryo to suffocate.
Doing this would allow you to have eggs during the winter months when chickens naturally do not lay many or any eggs. The reason eggs and Easter go together is because that was usually when the hens began laying again. It was customary for the peasants to bring their lord an Easter tithe and it was usually eggs.
You can expand the hens laying time with a warm coop and supplemental food but without the additional light from a bulb they will stop laying during the winter.
If you go to youtube and search for I’mstillworkin, she did experiment with ways to preserve eggs and that was one of the ways she used. She and katzcradul have great videos.
I’m not so sure that the preppers show is to ridicule preparedness, rather than show it in a good light. Like the guy that bugs out with his kids, then shoots his own thumb off.
Re: “On Doomsday Preppers I saw the one lady preserving eggs by coating them in some kind of cooking oil. Does this work?”
Yes it does. And there are various similar, proven, ways to extend the life of eggs for up to a year without refrigeration.
The secret to coating them with a substance like cooking oil is that it seals the pores in the eggshell and makes them airtight.
Other substances that have been used are vaseline and water glass (sodium silicate).
This technique works and is perfectly safe. If an egg does go bad you will know it as soon as you crack the shell. I have eaten eggs stored without refrigeration for months and they were perfectly good.
This way of preserving eggs was well known by our forefathers but the advent of electrical powered refrigeration has led people to forget the old methods.
You can learn a lot about food preservation without refrigeration from long distance small boat sailors and the books they wrote. People have been sailing across oceans in small sailboats for over 100 years. To do that they have had to stock up on foods that will last for months without refrigeration. So they know many techniques and ways of living without refrigeration that others are not familiar with.
There are many books offering good information on the subject from people who have actually had to live off their non-refrigerated stored foods. So they have actual experience in what preppers are trying to learn.
One good book to start with is “The Care And Feeding of the Sailing Crew” by Lin and Larry Pardey.
You can also Google “storing eggs with water glass” for more info.