
Why American Eggs Would Be Illegal In A British Supermarket, And Vice Versa - memset
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/25/why-american-eggs-would-be-illegal-in-a-british-supermarket-and-vice-versa/
======
user24
> Since the late 1990’s British farmers have been vaccinating hens against
> salmonella [...] Amazingly, this measure has virtually wiped out the health
> threat in Britain.

"Amazingly"? No not really! Vaccination stops disease. It's completely
expected, not amazing at all.

edit: Likewise it's not "amazing" that cases of Diptheria, Measles, Polio, etc
have been drastically reduced - by 100% in some cases - since widespread
vaccination began in the USA (source:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/02/19/a-graph...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/02/19/a-graphic-
that-drives-home-how-vaccines-have-changed-our-world/) )

~~~
falcolas
When addressing a public who largely still links vaccines and autism, they
would indeed find it amazing.

To the remaining, thinking public, you're right. It's not amazing at all.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
I would argue that the public doesn't "largely" believe that. The majority of
parents get their kids vaccinated.

It is a small fringe of people who believe things like that; just
unfortunately these same people are the most likely to catch the disease (and
be unable to afford decent treatment).

~~~
sliverstorm
The really unfortunate thing is they can compromise herd immunity, leading to
people who can't be vaccinated or even people who WERE vaccinated getting
infected.

I would be much more tolerant of the people who are afraid of vaccines, if it
wasn't for the risk of them hurting _other_ people with their decisions.

~~~
philjohn
And even worse - they can infect (and end up causing the death of) babies who
are too young to be vaccinated.

That one fact alone shows how truly reckless people who refuse to get their
offspring vaccinated are.

------
simonsarris
This is generally one of the first things that people who decide to keep hens
learn, and is reprinted in nearly every homesteader/farmer magazine ever.

(that said, I'm surprised to find it on the front page of hacker news!)

Where I live in NH lots of small farms and people keep a few hens, and most of
the smaller places will mention this to customers.

Eggs from these "home hens" definitely taste different, though I doubt it has
to do with washing and much more to do with hen diet.

(And now it's mid noon here, time to go home and make eggs. Far more important
than any local food movement, for me, is living within walking distance to
work!)

~~~
gadders
I can totally vouch for having your own hens. I have three, and I'm planning
on getting another three this weekend.

\- The amount of work is fairly minimal - about as much effort as a pet rabbit
- and you get eggs

\- When you observe chickens up close, they're surprisingly attractive
animals. And not as stupid as you would assume, either

\- The eggs really do taste better. I think this is because a) they eat
better, and b) they are much, much fresher

\- You can feed most of your kitchen scraps to your chickens to recycle your
waste. They're omnivores, so eat meat (although officially you're not supposed
to feed them it).

~~~
bediger4000
> _When you observe chickens up close, they're surprisingly attractive
> animals._

Wow! I kept 20-25 laying hens in yearly batches when I was between the ages of
13 and 18. I found them to be singularly repulsive, all having the same rude,
avaricious, gluttonous personality, and all behaving in the most horrible
manner possible. I'm not against eating chicken mainly because of this
experience.

I also had several pairs of ducks during those years, providing an avian
contrast. Ducks have different personalities, aren't nearly as vicious to each
other or to their prey, and are generally good sports.

Everything else you say about laying hens is true in my experience. The eggs
are indeed much, much better than supermarket eggs.

~~~
eurleif
>I'm not against eating chicken mainly because of this experience.

I don't understand your reasoning there. To me, whether it's ok to eat an
animal should depend on whether it can experience suffering, not on whether it
has a good personality. I mean, is it ok to eat people who are jerks?

~~~
kamaal
>>To me, whether it's ok to eat an animal should depend on whether it can
experience suffering

Oh! When you get infected by a micro organisms do you kill yourself or do you
take antibiotics. And what about mosquitoes? Plants?

Besides to survive as a human you have to kill something.

~~~
jessedhillon
Jesus Christ what a dumbshit comment. You quoted him correctly, then failed to
apply what you quoted, at all, to the words you wrote. Do you think bacteria
suffer?

------
alphaoverlord
I feel like this story is a great example of how its easy to come up with ad
hoc justifications. After you decide to do something, it's quite easy to find
evidence for your perpsective and justify standard practice.

At the point that there is such a huge variation in practice, for most of
these steps, I can't imagine that they are very significant/important. The two
systems are made to sound like there is significant justification for each
step, which protects one from the shortfalls of other steps, but I can imagine
that a combinatorial approach for each of the requirements would work just as
well.

Then again, I don't know anything about hens. Just my thoughts.

~~~
munificent
> At the point that there is such a huge variation in practice, for most of
> these steps, I can't imagine that they are very significant/important.

It seems a little premature to jump to that conclusion. The US and Great
Britain are entirely different countries with different geography, climate,
history, culture, laws, economies, etc.

Farming doesn't exist in a vaccum. It's affected by all of that, so it stands
to reason that those things will influence policies and practices.

What I found interesting about the article was that while each system was
different, each was internally cohesive. Trying to cherrypick one facet of one
country's system and applying to the other would almost invariably make things
worse. You have to understand the entire system.

That's an important lesson to keep in mind when we constantly read articles
like "Country X does Y and it makes Z B% better so we should too!" We need to
always remember that X is doing Y _in some context_ that likely matters
deeply.

~~~
alphaoverlord
> It seems a little premature to jump to that conclusion. The US and Great
> Britain are entirely different countries with different geography, climate,
> history, culture, laws, economies, etc.

I would say that there is also significant intra-country variation. I have a
hard time imagining that there isn't some part of the US where conditions are
not similar to the UK. At the point that these regulations work for these
locales, I don't see compelling evidence that it wouldn't work elsewhere.

My argument isn't that there isn't culture, climate, or a variety of other
factors that influence how things are done - rather, at the point that there
is variation, but they all generally work, I have a hard time imagining each
of them are important.

> What I found interesting about the article was that while each system was
> different, each was internally cohesive.

Hence the idea that these narratives are contrived. If we look at any system
(that works/is real), there is internal consistency. It is very easy to point
to any particular aspect of the system, and say that it is
crucial/unique/signifantly valid and valuable.

I would say that this argument is very similar to creationism arguments that
the universe's constants/parameters are uniquely functional because we are
here. I'm not saying it can't be true, but it seems like a logical fallacy to
presume that a particular aspect causes the system in place.

~~~
pixl97
U.S. has the FDA so food regulations tend to get applied equally across the
country, even if it doesn't make sense.

------
newishuser
This is one of those obvious to some, and eye opening to others things. I had
always wondered why other countries keep their eggs unrefrigerated and we
Americans have always been very thoroughly warned about the dangers of room
temperature eggs.

I always figured it was a matter of cultural tradition and that eggs weren't
really as sensitive as I've been told. I had no idea there was so much process
and science behind it.

This kind of fits as a rough analogy for software. Consumers may see eggs in
either market as just eggs. Maybe they have a slight different taste, maybe
some are kept in a fridge, but they're still plain, simple, safe eggs. Getting
to that point of consumption though is a choreography of processes that has no
"right way" and is more complex than the average consumer wants or needs to
know.

~~~
Spiritus
>Head to an American supermarket on the other hand and eggs are always held in
refrigerated units, like milk and cheese and other dairy products.

This applies to Sweden as well. Every supermarket I know of sells the eggs
refrigerated (by the dairy products).

~~~
dagw
Some do, some don't. The two smaller stores I normally shop at don't, the huge
supermarket a bit down the road does.

------
mauvehaus
"guidance set out by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers
recommends supermarkets maintain a temperature of between 66.2F to 69.8F in
the winter and between 69.8F and 73.4F in the summer. Room temperature is
generally considered to be between 68F to 77F."

Does it drive anybody else a little nuts when newspapers don't either 1) leave
the numbers in their original units and put the conversion in parentheses (or
vice versa) or 2) round sensibly? It's misleading to suggest that anybody is
measuring supermarket temperature to the tenth of a degree Fahrenheit by using
so many significant figures.

It would both help people understand the metric system and be a more accurate
description of the situation to say that what's actually specified is 20 degC
+/- 1 degC in the winter and 22 degC +/- 1 degC in the summer.

~~~
gpvos
As a non-American, the sentences are basically unreadable when they don't give
the Celsius conversions (actually, in this case, the original values). The
only thing I know is that 100F is roughly 37C. I have to get out a conversion
tool. Doesn't Forbes have an international audience?

~~~
adamauckland
There's plenty of countries who use the imperial system... Liberia and
Myanmar!

------
mongol
I don't think the article is accurate. In Sweden, part of the EU, washed eggs
are common. I google and find for example this (Swedish): "from 2004 EU
labeling rules were changed so it must state if eggs are washed".

More, in Swedish on [http://producenter.svenskalantagg.se/tvaettade-/vi-
tvaettar-...](http://producenter.svenskalantagg.se/tvaettade-/vi-tvaettar-
ae.html)

~~~
vilhelm_s
Yes. I did some Googling, and here is what I found:

Prior to 2004, the EU rules was that "class A" eggs could not be washed. The
only EU country that used egg-washing was Sweden (where about 50% of eggs were
washed), and producers who washed them sold them as "class B" eggs.

In 2004, the EU merged class B and class C, and forbid selling class B eggs
directly to consumers. This would have banned washed table eggs, so Sweden
objected. In response, the European Commission passed a derogation where egg
producers who already washed eggs can continue to do so, for 3 years, provided
they are authorized by the national food and safety agency, and sold in areas
where that agency has jurisdiction ([http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?mode=dbl&lang=en&...](http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/Notice.do?mode=dbl&lang=en&ihmlang=en&lng1=en,en&lng2=bg,cs,da,de,el,en,es,et,fi,fr,hu,it,lt,lv,mt,nl,pl,pt,ro,sk,sl,sv,&val=286903:cs)).
I.e., Swedish producers can sell washed eggs in Sweden.

In 2005 a safety study was commissioned, which turned out positive: "Taking
into account the very low prevalence of Salmonella spp. in Swedish egg
production, the risk associated with egg washing using the current system
under strict rules is considered to be outweighed by the advantages of egg
washing." (<http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/269.htm>)

Apparently 9 Swedish egg packeries and one in the Netherland was granted the
exception, which was subsequently extended at least to 2007. I couldn't see
any information about the current status, but if Swedish producers still sell
the eggs, they probably do it under the same form of exemption.

------
greghinch
Basics that I've seen when it comes to regulations of these kinds in US vs
UK/EU:

In the US, the regulations are primarily to serve the corporate interests
(consistent production at scale, distribution over a wide area)

In the UK/EU, the regulations are primarily to protect the citizens, often to
the point of impeding business to a degree.

I'd rather see the latter but it goes against pretty much everything we're
taught from birth in the US.

~~~
rmc
There is lots of EU law and regulations to do with making things easier for
companies. Consistent naming and measurements (the metric system) as well as
standardisation and certification (so that if you can sell in one member
state, you can sell in all the others). Making a "single market" (as opposed
to 30 different markets) is one goal of the EU.

~~~
greghinch
Didn't mean to make it sound like the EU was anti-business, just meant that
given the need for a choice, the EU/UK regulations tend to favor the needs of
consumers/citizens over those of a corporation.

In the US, the citizens are basically protected just enough to keep them
complacent/prevent lawsuits, but the goal is to let the corp. maximize profit.

~~~
rmc
Oh, it's complex. I'm just saying there are lots of examples of the EU doing
laws that make things easier for businesses.

~~~
PeterisP
Yes, but I've not really seen new EU-wide laws that make things easier for
business by removing some of the many consumer-rights or worker-rights. And
there are quite a few things that could be done that way to improve the
economy.

------
DanBC
This is a fascinating look at different systems.

I hope that cooks are frequently washing their hands when preparing food,
especially when moving between items that cary a risk of contamination (raw
meats, etc) and already prepared items (cooked meats).

Also: egg yolk colours are controlled by feed additives. Farmers can get
colour charts and specify the colour of the yolk they want.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I assume that the colors are limited to a fairly basic range of yellows,
right?

Or can I get blue yolks?

~~~
DanBC
Ha, yes.

(<http://www.robotmation.co.jp/keiranycceng.htm>)

Range from a very pale yellow to a deep orange colour.

Different countries have different preferences.

EDIT: Here's a Tufte page about Salmon colour charts.

([http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-
msg?msg_id=0...](http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-
msg?msg_id=0000XT))

------
tptacek
You can get unwashed eggs from farms in most parts of the US. Farm-fresh eggs
are much better than supermarket eggs, regardless of whether they're washed.

~~~
memset
I listened to an NPR Splendid Table segment [1] where they say that, in a
blind taste test, nobody can really differentiate between the taste of farm-
fresh eggs versus supermarket. Do you find the experience (colors, community,
etc?) of fresh eggs better?

[1] <http://www.splendidtable.org/episode/july-17-2010>

edit: (Or do you feel that this segment is malarky!)

~~~
gambiting
I find the free range eggs tasting marginally better than the cheapest
Tesco/Asda/Morrisons Value eggs. They have a nicer colour of the yolks and a
tiny bit more flavour. But if you ask me, it's definitely not worth a 4x
increase in price.

~~~
tptacek
I don't know what a free range egg is. Is that a designation for premium eggs
at the market, or your way of saying "eggs we sourced directly from a farm"?

[ _Following up: the answer appears to be "it's a designation for premium eggs
at the supermarket"._ ]

~~~
doe88
I don't know if it's a EU norm but in France eggs are marked with a sequence
starting with [0-3]FR, with 0 being the best quality i.e. free range eggs, and
3 meaning battery eggs.

~~~
gpvos
It's the same in the Netherlands (marked [0-3]NL), so I guess it's a EU norm.
0 = organic, 1 = free range, 2 = barn (max. 9 hens/m2), 3 = battery

------
Vlaix
1\. Why would anyone ship eggs across the pond ?

2\. I don't buy "clean" eggs. They look fake. Eggs come out of a hen's butt,
deal with it. But then again, I'm neither American nor British (but French).

~~~
jcoder
I don't think they come out of its butt.

[Edit] Fair enough, parent didn't say "anus" "intestine" "digestive tract" or
anything more specific. And the "last mile" is a shared pathway. "Butt" works
:-)

~~~
Nursie
I'm no expert, but don't they just have one opening that does everything? So
you could call it the butt...

~~~
wiredfool
It's a cloaca: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaca>

Basically, it's a vent that everything comes out of. (and in, in the rooster
-> hen case)

------
rmc
As a European who watches American TV & films, the one thing that strikes me
about American eggs is the colour. They're white! This just looks wrong! Eggs
here are a peach/pink colour. White eggs look like fake eggs.

~~~
anigbrowl
Americans like white eggs. You can tell which type a hen will produce from the
color of its ears. As a european I too find this weird. It's the same thing
with bread, they practically bleach it over here.

~~~
tptacek
America is getting over the white bread thing.

------
mozboz
To summarise the numbers: the American laws result in 0.045% of the population
being affect by salmonella related disease, whereas the British laws result in
0.00093%, that's 50 times more illness in the US per capita.

~~~
Mvandenbergh
It looks like that's purely because of the salmonella vaccination which is not
required by American or British law but which British supermarkets require of
their suppliers. Maybe that's easier to do because the UK supermarket space is
more concentrated than it is in the US?

------
kemiller
I feel like there's a lesson for software here. You can have more than one
effective system. Each will have its own properties, upsides and downsides,
but you can't cherry-pick specific practices within the system and transport
them into the other system, or even evaluate them in isolation. What is best
practice in one system may be actively harmful in another.

------
MichaelGG
It seems like there should be solid data backing up the EU or US regulations.
Is it not possible to accurately calculate how much/often contamination gets
inside the egg? Do health records not provide sufficient evidence to determine
if cross-pollution by end-users is causing sickness?

~~~
rsynnott
Hard to do the experiment, as you need two countries with otherwise identical
production practices, where one washes and the other doesn't. For instance,
the US and the UK would be a bad example, because egg producers in the UK
generally vaccinate for salmonella, while those in the US don't; regulations
on things like cage sizes also differ substantially.

You also need identical reporting regimes, which may actually be a greater
problem; salmonella is not generally a mandatory reporting thing, and many
people infected with it don't go to the doctor with it anyway; if you're a
healthy adult it's pretty much just nasty food poisoning.

------
darxius
Very informative article. I was expecting the author to finish off on an
"Americans are weird and people shouldn't have to worry about refrigerating
their eggs" but, instead, he showed why its valid for us to be doing so.

Kinda cool, learned something about eggs today.

~~~
ars
Nah, you really don't need to refrigerate eggs. They'll last for months
without refrigeration.

But if you do that, I guess it's prudent to cook them. (BTW salmonella from
home use of eggs is rare. It usually happens in restaurants where they mix a
bunch of eggs together.)

~~~
darxius
I don't know much about the subject, but does cooking a salmonella infected
egg neutralize the bacteria?

~~~
mauvehaus
It's why cooked eggnog is safe (and delicious).

I'd be interested in knowing how much alcohol you'd have to put in uncooked
eggnog to render it safe. The recipe in The Joy of Cooking suggests 4 to 6
cups (a liter to a liter and a half) for 18 servings. That seems like rather a
lot from a drinking standpoint, but maybe not that much from a sanitizing
standpoint considering that there's also 2 cups (half a liter) of heavy cream
and a pound (half a kilo) of sugar.

~~~
ars
You can mix the egg and alcohol first, let it stand and kill the bacteria, and
only then add the rest of the ingredients.

(I've never made eggnog so not sure if the recipe demands a different order.)

~~~
mauvehaus
Thank you for the light bulb moment. Joy says to do exactly this "to dispel
the eggy taste". I suppose that's more appealing than "to kill any bacteria
that might make you ill".

------
gcb0
Both sound good in theory. And they arebeing applied for decades. Just get the
delta of salmonella cases from before and after each solution was implemented
and you will be able to measure which is better in practice.

------
hiharryhere
So in short both methods = lower disease.

Let's review the approaches:

\- EU relies on natures own mechanism along with responsible farming and
vaccination \- US relies on energy intensive washing, coating with a chemical
spray and constant refrigeration

Hmm...

~~~
dagw
_So in short both methods = lower disease._

But the British method leads to even lower level of salmonella by an order of
magnitude.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
And with lower effort/expense too, it seems.

------
ndespres
I'm a new (small) farmer, and I've just begun selling eggs from my small (70
hens) to neighbors, and they're often surprised when they see that the eggs
are not refrigerated. I do have conversations a lot about this, and folks are
often surprised to learn that the eggs in their grocery store cooler are often
2-3 weeks old already and that the refrigerator is a requirement to keep them
edible for so long. Mine will be edible for just as long, and they taste
fresher too!

------
elptacek
Coincidentally, I was just telling our kids last night how much store-bought
eggs and raw chicken skeeves me out. I don't know where these things have
been, who has touched them or what they've been fed. We never washed eggs with
water (I grew up on a farm), just knocked any big bits off with a soft brush,
like the kind you'd use for mushrooms.

Too bad I can't keep some hens...

------
nnq
I _hate_ dirty eggs, even when there's just a tiny point of dirt on one in a
box! I wish the EU would make egg-washing mandatory, even for purely
"aesthetic" reasons :)

~~~
user24
Oh get over it, it comes from a hen's bum.

~~~
epmatsw
And therefore shouldn't be washed? Seems like you made a pretty good argument
for washing them to me...

------
scrumper
Enjoyed this, very interesting. The salmonella scandal in the '90s was
absolutely huge in Britain. The health minister at the time, Edwina Currie,
was forced to resign over it. The tabloids subsequently dubbed her 'Eggwina'
and she's never really lived it down.

~~~
alexkus
> she's never really lived it down

And dropped even further after the revelations about her affair with former PM
John Major.

 _mind bleach_

------
spiritplumber
This is why laws that cannot prove that they're consistent with physics and
formal logic are useless and should not be considered when transacting
business.

~~~
dagw
Which part of which law here isn't consistent with which parts of physics and
formal logic?

------
mydpy
Why is this on Hacker News?

~~~
anigbrowl
Because it's a practical example of A/B testing on a large scale.

