Random question about chicken eggs!

[scattercushion17]

Evening all. I've found a box of eggs I'd left in the car since Sunday. Not sure if they would be edible with the temperature change?

Totally fine

But you can check if they float in a bowl of water

Very likely to be fine - most people leave them out in the kitchen, also fine

Absolutely fine.

I don't refrigerate my eggs, I thought you weren't supposed to. So I can't see the difference between having them in the car or on the kitchen counter.

Totally fine. I store my eggs in the cupboard and have never had any issues.

@mrsm43s

I don't refrigerate my eggs, I thought you weren't supposed to. So I can't see the difference between having them in the car or on the kitchen counter.

I think it's the fluctuation in temperature OP is worried about?

They're unlikely to have got hot enough to be a concern.

But freezing is probably a different matter. Give them a once over to check they haven't cracked, from freezing. It doesn't seem the risk lies in the freezing itself so much as the damage from the egg expanding when frozen and cracking its shell.

I think it's the fluctuation in temperature OP is worried about?

Would the temperature fluctuate much more in a car parked outside/in the garage than in the kitchen? If anything surely a kitchen is heated during the day, and then unheated overnight, whereas a parked car is always unheated? So keeping eggs outside (in the car) is likely to be less fluctuation than having them on the countertop in a house with central heating that is off overnight?

Honestly, I don't know, I'm no egg expert, but it wouldn't have crossed my mind that leaving them in the car was an issue at this time of year. (I'd feel differently in the height of summer).

But the eggs may have in the car when the temperature was below zero; presumably the kitchen is not.

There is a thing where eggs which have been in the fridge (in the shop where they were bought, for example) should then always be stored in the fridge. This is to do with, I think, temperature fluctuations and the air inside the egg cooling and then potentially drawing in bacteria. However, I would do as pp say and do the float test. IME eggs last for ages so I wouldn't be overly worried

Good thing about eggs is that if they are even slightly off they stink. So crack em open!

@elelel

But the eggs may have in the car when the temperature was below zero; presumably the kitchen is not.

Why does under zero matter? (not challenging, just curious).

In our house, the kitchen falls to sub 10 degrees at night (quarry tiles on soil as flooring means it gets really cold once the heating is off) but is heated to 20 during the day (and probably gets even hotter if the oven is on). So a fluctuation of at least 10 degrees as standard. I'd be surprised if the temperature inside a parked car in winter has fluctuated much more than that?

Thank you all, I seemed to have sparked a debate. I was concerned about the cold and fluctuations in temperature. I try floating them. Thanks all for your help..

Why does under zero matter?

I don't know? I just thought that's what OP concern was, the fluctuation.