I inadevvertently ate an egg that was 2 months out of date.

[SolidGoldBrass]

It didn't ming when I cracked it and it didn't taste funny, but according to the box it should have been eaten before Halloween. AIBU to be slightly concerned (not that I am going to shortly puke my ring up, because I ate it for lunch on Tuesday and only realised about an hour ago) that it must have been irradiated or genetically modified or something not to have been rotten by now...

As Branleuse said upthread, you will know if an egg is off when you crack it open and you won't forget it in a hurry. If it smells OK and sinks in a deep bowl of water, it will be fine.

I would never crack an egg into a bowl of other eggs, or any other food, just in case. Crack open into a small bowl, then transfer into the larger bowl with other things. That way, if it is off, you don't ruin the other things already in the bowl.

Sell by / use by dates are useful for telling you what food is older, and hence should be used first. They have a very, very wide margin for error. HTH

LizzieMint But what country was that blogger in? Eggs are processed differently in different places in the world.

US I think fred but can't honestly remember. I think they tested shop bought vs home-laid as well, I'll have to see if I can find it again.

If it smelt and tasted ok you have nothing to worry about x

I grew up in the days before 'Best Before' and 'Use By/Sell By' dates, and learned from my mum how to judge if things were OK to eat.

Like Finally, she cracks eggs into separate container before adding them to whatever she is making - she has a special cup, that the handle has broken off, for the purpose.

Food does not morph into a mass of toxic slime the minute the 'Use By' date or whatever, passes. And 'Best Before' means just that - if you use it after that date, it will not be the best it can be, but will not immediately become poisonous.

I believe that, as long as something looks, feels and smells OK, and is going to be cooked through properly, it is fine to eat it. I have eaten out-of-date pork chop before now, with no ill effects whatsoever.

Is one not meant to eat fertilised eggs/eggs with blood spots in? I generally just pick the spot out and tuck in

I keep (too many) my own hens. Occasionally I find a 'stash' of eggs someones been laying and hiding. I water test them. A super fresh egg is as alien to a shop bought egg as a rank one is! The whites are totally different, the older they are, the runnier they get.

But, thanks so much for the listeria thing, I didn't know about that; I occasionally get an egg with the fluorescent yellowy 'white'. I always chuck these, as they looked wrong. I'm glad I did now!

Sometimes we'll have so many eggs (think 15+ a day) that it takes us a long time to get through them. We rarely get smelly ones. By God they honk though! And all our eggs are fertilised, as we have several cockerels, I never mind the bloody bits!

The bloody bits are not from fertilisation, they are a normal part of egg formation as is the green bit. I had 2 chickens until last year and used the greenish ones- that is not listeria! If its was we'd all be dead long ago. My ladies had no access to a rooster and still laid eggs with bloody bits from time to time. Most egg variations are down to what the hens have been eating- different times of year mean the egg's colour vary etc.
Dont waste your bloody eggs

The bloody egg I had was at school, and it wasn't just a blood spot, it was very bloody. The Home Ec teacher told us that it was fertilised, but either way we weren't going to use it. A blood spot, not an issue, just dig it out and carry on. An egg that looks as though your finger's been cut off and bled into it, no thanks.

Apologies, the fluorescent green albumen isn't caused by Listeria (although it can apparently turn amniotic fluid that colour) but by Pseudomonas species, and is known as green rot. I still wouldn't eat it, regardless of which bacterial species was present!

This egg is still good to eat, so unless yours looked worse...

MMmm, Chinese hundred year eggs. I remember trying to eat one of those with a hangover once. Face turned the same colour as the egg.

I used to work on a farm which kept a large flock of free-range hens (able to roam in a large paddock over a hillside) and made most of their income from selling the eggs.

My understanding was that you shouldn't get fertilised eggs if you have bought them in a shop or supermarket because the egg producers are not usually supposed to keep roosters with their flock, only hens. Happy to stand corrected, and it was several years ago, but I thought that roosters were supposed to remain with approved breeding establishments??

That said though, I know that my then employer always had to keep a sharp eye out whenever they took on a new flock because chicks are apparently very difficult to sex at birth so mistakes do happen. Sometimes as the flock matured it would become clear that the odd rooster had slipped through the net. He would have to be returned to the breeder so that no fertilised eggs would be produced.

It was from there too that I learned that the apparently "fresh" eggs in the supermarkets or corner shops can easily be around 3 weeks old by the time they reach the shelves. If they have been stored properly there is rarely a problem.

If you do the water test cook and eat egg immediately, don't test them then put them back in fridge - don't ask me why.
I eat eggs that are way out of date for all the reasons give above.