Eggs, not alligator

[sleeping bear]

I'm going camping in a week and want to take some eggs. I took some eggs last time I canoe camped with my mom and was concerned about eating them quickly so they wouldn't go bad. She says it takes a long time for them to go bad, at least a couple of days. People have been eatings eggs for centuries and refrigeration is a relatively new concept. I did a couple of quick searches on the web and all I got was that you shouldn't leave eggs unrefrigerated at all. Well, that's not the answer I'm looking for.

In all seriousness, how long do eggs last unrefrigerated before spoiling? Hardboiled vs raw?

 

[Pamola]

Eggs should definitely be fine unrefridgerated for a couple days as long as you keep them out of the sun. I wouldn't trust them for much longer than that, especially since you rarely have a precise idea how fresh they are when you buy them.

If you're camping in an area where you don't have access to ice, use good ol' physics to your advantage. Put the eggs in something protective and then put them in a cloth (old fashioned cotton. keeps it wet longer) bag. Douse the bag with water and the evaporative cooling will help keep them fresher, longer. At least a little bit.

 

[DougPaul]

Sailors have techniques for keeping eggs for weeks or months. Don't remember the details and my sailing books are still packed.

Caveat: boat interiors have less temperature variation than packs. Also easier to protect the eggs from breakage. (There are plastic egg carriers that might help.)

A simple google search on "keeping eggs sailing" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=keeping+eggs+sailing&btnG=Google+Search
brings up some references, including http://www.landlpardey.com/Tips/Tips_2001_December.html
and
http://www.sailnet.com/forums/provisioning/10259-storing-foods.html.

Some of the other hits likely contain more info.

Doug

 

[SAR-EMT40]

One thing I remember hearing is that people use to keep eggs very long times by waxing them. The thinking was that the eggshell is gas permeable and waxing keeps the air from entering and letting the egg decompose. I have not tested this nor do I know if it works. Just something I was always going to try.

The other part of this is eating bad eggs. I suspect that if your eggs go bad you won't have any trouble detecting that so eating them and getting yourself sick is unlikely. Again, my belief, haven't really tested this theory but I have smelled rotten eggs. No mistaking that.

Keith

 

[Jay H]

You can try these

Being chinese, I've seen these all over Asian/Chinese food markets, they are packed in this black charcoal like dirt and are called "thousand year" eggs or Preserved Duck eggs.

Though I don't think that is what you're looking for...

Jay

 

[Chip]

BLECK I'm glad I've eaten lunch already Jay, no disrespect for the family heritage or anything, but ICK. Anything packed in mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and straw should make a nice fire starter, not meal.

To the original post: 2 words - OAT MEAL !!!

 

[Jay H]

clay, ash, salt, lime, and straw should make a nice fire starter, not meal.

Hey.... multiple uses! kind of like corn chips, I guess.

Myself, I've never tried it, but my parents have. But they usually have it nicely displayed in a large procelain urn in the corner of an aisle. Hard not to notice it.

I like the wax idea, but I think it would last a bit. Could put it in a stream at night to keep it even cooler..

Jay

 

[Pamola]

After a bit of reading around the web, the wax idea pops up quite a bit. Also a flash boiling of 5 seconds or so. The most interesting things is that this wasn't as much of a problem back in the day when farmers would eat the eggs from their own farm and didn't buy them from supermarkets.

Evidently there is a thin substance/layer of shell on a fresh egg that prevents oxidation naturally. Eggs produced for commercial distribution have this layer washed off, and therefore don't last as long.

So if you were able to visit a farm prior to your trip and get real, fresh, unwashed eggs, maybe you won't need any other method of preservation at all.

 

[DougPaul]

One thing I remember hearing is that people use to keep eggs very long times by waxing them. The thinking was that the eggshell is gas permeable and waxing keeps the air from entering and letting the egg decompose. I have not tested this nor do I know if it works. Just something I was always going to try.

Several of the sailing references talk about this and other methods of sealing the eggs.

Using never-refrigerated eggs looks key for long storage. However, the OP may be only be interested in over a weekend.

IIRC (no reference), raw can last longer than cooked, but again, this may be moot for a weekend.

Doug

 

[DougPaul]

I like the wax idea, but I think it would last a bit. Could put it in a stream at night to keep it even cooler..

I have a vague recollection the wetting the eggs is a bad idea.

On the other hand, I have another vague relcollection that they can be stored in lime water.

Maybe I'll have unpack those sailing books one of these days...

Doug

 

[Puck]

BLECK I'm glad I've eaten lunch already Jay, no disrespect for the family heritage or anything, but ICK. Anything packed in mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and straw should make a nice fire starter, not meal.

To the original post: 2 words - OAT MEAL !!!

Actualy they are not that bad. The yolk, if you can still call it that has a lot of sulphur compounds in it. Has a way of coating the mouth.

You should try balut. its suspended between being and egg and being a duck.

 

[Nessmuk]

dehydrated

What are you going to do with the eggs? Dehydrated powdered eggs are actually quite good these days and keep almost indefinitely if well sealed. Scrambled or omletes from powdered eggs are hard to tell from fresh, on the trail anyway. Of course you can use them as ingredients in cooking something else too. There are a number of sources, but I get mine from Kingarthurflour.com. They sell whites only, yolks only, or whole powdered eggs.

Raw eggs are one of the few foods you cannot safely dehydrate with home equipment.

 

[cbcbd]

You can try these

Being chinese, I've seen these all over Asian/Chinese food markets, they are packed in this black charcoal like dirt and are called "thousand year" eggs or Preserved Duck eggs.

Though I don't think that is what you're looking for...

Jay

Lol, I had these in Chinatown with my Chinese friend once. Very easy to find them there in any of the restaurants with hanging dead animals on the window

They're not bad.

 

[michaelb]

Fresh eggs can and should be able to keep for weeks at room temperature. I am not sure what my outside limit in terms of days would be for me personally, but you will also know immediately if the egg is bad. Cook them fully, since there could be something on the shell that you then crack into the egg.

I remember reading an article, I thought it was in backpacker, but I don't see it there, about a study on storing eggs for up to a year. It was shocking how many months fresh eggs stayed fresh, and the various methods of trying to extend the time, vaseline, wax, dipping in hot water, etc, were actually worst since they disrupted the natural integrity of the shell.

This isn't the article I was thinking of, and this contradicts some of what I saw, but this is an example of a similar (earlier) experiment:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Live...esh_Eggs_a_Year_or_More_Without_Refrigeration

"Believe it or not, our controls (both fertile and unfertile) were hanging in there yet after another full four weeks had passed. If we'd had our druthers, understand, we'd have eaten something else ... but, under survival conditions, we could have lived on the completely unprotected 90-day-old eggs if we'd have had to."

 

[WBB]

We usually have eggs on first morning of a trip. We make omelets by cracking 2-3 eggs in a zip lock freezer bag. We then add cheese , ham, onions /peppers. Seal the bag with no air inside and put it into the freezer. We then take a Nalgene bottle and it fill ¾ full and freeze it. The day we leave we slide the frozen eggs and any other items we want to keep cold such as cheese/ sandwich meat along with the Nalgene bottle into an insulated water bottle case. This is buried in a pack, and even in the summer we will have ice into the 2nd day.
As for the eggs we cook them by holding the freezer bag in boiling water for about

 

[michaelb]

You also asked about hard boiled eggs. The study found that they didn't keep very long at all, since cooking destroys the protective membrane of the shell. But I have backpacked with hardboiled eggs for a week and they were fine to eat and I survived (that was long ago, before there were all these prepackaged options to bring). Consider them like a perishable fresh food, in hot weather they may go bad in as quickly as a few days; in cool weather, say summer in Vermont, they may last for a few weeks.

 

[sleeping bear]

Thanks for all the input!

I'm just looking to expand my camping breakfast menu. Since I am just going on a weekend trip I'm not really worried about the eggs going bad, I'm more just curious what that timeframe would be. I'd like to take eggs on future (longer) trips as well. It's a canoe trip, so breaking them shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I've considered buying powdered eggs, and probably will at some point, but I have eggs here at home already. I really like eggs for breakfast, and they clean up well, and they come in a neat little shell!

The wax idea sounds pretty good, might give it a whirl.

 

[bcskier]

Speaking as a farmer

We raise chickens and eat eggs fresh out of the nest. My advice is that if you can find eggs at a local farm BEFORE they've been refrigerated, and you can keep them from temperature extremes, they ought to stay edible for two or three days at least. Ask at the farm, if one is available close by, and see what they recommend.

 

[woodstrider]

Travelin' Eggs

A friend once told me that back before refrigeration on long sea trips, eggs are used as a food source. Stored below decks, below water line they must have kept cool.

Once in a while I will take eggs on a backpack. I never had a freshness problem- but I usually eat them in the first 3 days.

How long they keep is dependent on the temprature (season), how fresh they were to begin with, and how you store them.

The biggest problem is making sure they don't break. I store them inside of my pot, with the lid tightly on (one of those msr pots with a locking top). They are usually cushioned in a bandana, or a 1/2 dozen in the carton fits nicely in my pot.

You can't imagine the look of envy when I whip up a fresh egg omelet when my friends are eating oatmeal. Hardboiled in the AM they make a handy lunch.

Cheers

 

[DougPaul]

The biggest problem is making sure they don't break. I store them inside of my pot, with the lid tightly on (one of those msr pots with a locking top). They are usually cushioned in a bandana, or a 1/2 dozen in the carton fits nicely in my pot.

You can also get plastic carriers--eg http://www.rei.com/online/store/Pro...12&parent_category_rn=5760752&vcat=REI_SEARCH.

I'd put a plastic bag around any carrier with fresh eggs in it...

Doug