This might seem like an obvious thing to do, but Murphy points out that the date printed on the packaging isn't always an expiration date. A carton of eggs may not always need to be thrown out as soon as the date passes. The date is usually just an indicator of the egg's freshness.
"The expiration dates are not expiration dates. Sometimes they are, but most of the time, the printed date is a best used-by date or sell-by date," Murphy tells INSIDER. "So, that does not always mean that the eggs have gone bad. Food can be bad before the date. Eggs and other dairy products are temperature sensitive. If you left your carton of eggs out on the counter for an extended period of time, the eggs would actually go bad before the date."
Per Murphy, "bad," however, means that you shouldn't eat the egg because it has the potential to make you sick. But, eggs can still be fresh even if they have passed their sell-by or used-by date.
"The fresher an egg is, like a lot of things, the better it tastes. In terms of freshness, a company can put a sell-by date or best used-by date on the carton. There is no regulation on that. The date is a good indicator of freshness," said Murphy. "The closer you get to the date, the less fresh the eggs are going to be. But, just because you've hit that date or gone beyond it doesn't mean that the eggs are necessarily bad."
Step-by-step explanation:
The easiest way to tell whether or not a carton of eggs has gone bad is to do the float test. To conduct the float test, take one egg and place it in a bowl of room temperature water, according to Murphy. If the egg sinks to the bottom and lies flat on its side, it is still fresh. If the egg stands up on its end like it's standing up, then the egg has gone bad.
"When an egg is first laid and it's truly really fresh, it's completely full there is very little air inside. But, egg shells are porous. So, as time goes by the inside starts to evaporate and is replaced by air," said Murphy. "The amount of air in the egg depends on what happens to the egg when it is dropped into water. Generally, if an egg actually floats that's the point when an egg has gone bad."
