Our lawyers are better than their lawyers.
US regulations require that eggs be power-washed, which removes all organic matter (and any harmful bacteria) but also strips the egg’s shell of its protective coating, thus rendering it more porous and open to contamination.
http://www.thekitchn.com/is-refrigerating-eggs-necessary-176617
/johnny
Forgot this part:
The USDA also requires that eggs be sold under refrigeration, regardless of how they are washed, so even your super-crunchy health food stores are going to keep their eggs in the refrigerator or risk being shut down.
If you go to a grocery store - even a convenience store - here in the Czech Republic, the eggs are refrigerated; however, if you go to most folks homes, no the eggs aren’t refrigerated. Most people here just put them either on a shelf in the kitchen cabinet or leave them on the counter.
Of course, there’s plenty of farmer’s markets as well, particularly a massive one in Prague, and I haven’t seen the eggs refrigerated there.
Putting them in the refrigerator gives the consumer impression of freshness, even if it doesn’t matter.
Or - the FDA demands it, because their bureau of poultry management has nothing better to do.
My bet it is the fresh foods street markets and cultures who shop daily that you have observed...???
Canada.
http://www.family-survival-planning.com/storing-eggs-without-refrigeration.html
Our dense chicken farms increase the risk of Salmonela. And as our eggs are scrubbed, rinsed, dried, and sprayed with a chlorine mist, the protective cuticle may be compromised. This is a natural barrier that comes from the mother hen that lays the egg, and it acts as a shield against bacteria.
So we keep the cold to help prevent the growth of bacteria.
On our nuclear powered Submarines, there is not sufficient space in the refer to store “fresh eggs”. The ones that we carried when I was in were stored in boxes in the bilge spaces. These eggs were scrubbed as noted above but were coated with a thin coating of parrafin. They would keep fine for about 6-8 weeks.
The fact that eggs keep without being refrigerated is what led to the Easter Egg.
When early Christians fasted for Lent in the early days (first millennium, etc.), they were much more hard core: no meat, but also no fish, no eggs, no nothing that would offend a vegan.
You could delay butchering your animals until after Lent. You could make your milk into cheese, and eat it later. But eggs just piled up. So went the fast was broken on Easter, everybody ate eggs. Lots of eggs. Oh, have mercy, lots of eggs.
It’s because we wash the eggs, removing the cuticle which is natures protection against bacteria, etc. Leave eggs unwashed, no need to refrigerate - but try explaining to people that it’s OK to have a dab of chicken poop on their eggs.
Eggs last longer when refrigerated about 5-6 weeks. While unrefrigerated they last 2-3 weeks.
The Easter Bunny threatened us.
We refrigerate e erything because:
#1. We can
#2. We have super large refrigerators and sometimes 2 or 3. Which brings us to point #1.....Because We Can.....
#3. Bug Control
#4 Refrigerators are handy places to put everything, like that salad dressing that looks toxic from being in the fridge for a year or more.
#5. We are the most efficient, most productive and laziest people in the world. Why should we waste time pondering the expiration date for everything in our various cold storage bins.
Againm because we can.
#6. Those other countries like to live miserly and miserable.
#7. Who cares why the rest of the world stores whatever they store?
#8 . Americans hate going to the grocery store more than once a week.
#9. Those other countries benefit from our spectacular creativity and slothfullness.
#10. We gave the rest of the world clean drinking water, freakin toilets so newspaper reading can be leisurely while we pinch one off.
Ice cubes, ice cold beer and ketchup on french fries.
Bottom line is:
We’re so dang’d kewel the rest of the world wants to come here to enjoy life, libert and the pursuit of happiness.
To be like Americans
And just so they can finally put eggs and whatever they want to in their fridge.
Even something stupid like peanut butter somehow seems appropriate in the fridge, just so we can chisel it out of a glass jar, hoping we don’t break it.
Even if we do break it, unlike the rest of the world, we’ll only remark “Oops” and then we’ll grab another jar of peanut butter next to the ketchup amd those darn eggs that we haven’t gotten around to cooking.
Maybe some of their eggs are from closer to home and more fresh. I don’t refrigerate fresh eggs.
On the egg subject, does anyone know why eggs boiled at Easter seem to not peel as nice as other times?
Is it because they are older eggs that have been stockpiled for the holiday?
People in Europe don't refrigerate a lot of things. I had exchange students from Germany and they thought we were weird for having everything so cold all the time. Beer and milk especially - they drink that stuff warm. And our way of putting ice in our drinks - they thought that was funny.
America has the #3 safest food supply in the world. Maybe you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.