THE EGG OF COMMERCE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 257, 9 March 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE EGG OF COMMERCE.

PRESERVATION IN STORAGE """"ADDS NEW DANGERS.

The egg has always been freely misused, but never so much as of late, in sauces, sodas, "flips'' and phosphates through rude interpretation of food values. Eggs arc highly nutritious, but tins richness is curiously misapplied by people : who cat two and often six egg» a day, when one would be quite sufficient, and more is undesirable if excessive consumption of nitrogen is ui bo avoided. Manyi persons should abstain from eggs altogether, says the New York '''limes." The time, therefore, has eome for a rather closer grip of tho real facts.

Eggs, as Professor Metchnikoff discovered, develop highly poisonous liquids or fats after keeping. Tho real mischief is the misuse of eggs ass food. If the public were aware that eggs are often exceedingly indigestible when slightly stale, the storing'of eggs as a speculation would: defeat tho object of the dealer. I would put the people off the wares of the egg "king." The theory that the egg is tho most digestible of foods is one of the oldest known to medical men. The speculator elaborates it, as applied to existing conditions, in a monstrous plan to corner tho market. Speculation is partly tho result of high prices and 1 partly of the bo'.ief that eggs are a necessary of life. Tho consumer in this matter is in a false position. If his money, instead of being wasted on storage .eggs, was put into plain meat and vegetables, tho cost of living would fall and the poor would Ikj better off. It ,would really seem, however, that centuries of bib iousraess have not sufficed to familiarise him with thus property of the egg. His pathetic faith, surviving all experience in a daily egg coming according to the calendar, is worthy of scientific investigation. Eggs .are stored for the r.'o of the citizens in towns, and even so-called fresh eggs which i each him are usually from two to eight days old. In the country, of course, it is different. There all eggs are more or less good, except to those whose business it is- to look on the hen as a kind of factory, and who take their view of eggs accordingly. But tho real appreciation of eggs rests upon the aocumpticn of 110 extremes of quality, and when extremes do come, as they do under trade conditions, the consumer pays tho penalty of his refusal to regard the egg in its true perspective. Usually he is not prepared to do so until his disordered health finds him out. In the meantime his purveyors ot preserved and infected eggs have calculated 0:1 his ignorance or weakness, and supply him with eggs which have been stored for a long time or with infected eggs or eggs preserved in water glass, with boric acud andi sulphurous acid, and, at best, often with dirty fresh eggs.

The.ro is good ground for suspecting dirt 011 tho shell as a source of infection of eggs. Bacteria thrive in the dirt of nests and boxes wliero the wood l is affected by dry rot or other timber diseases, and l the surfaces subject to damp in transit, and it is possible that there may be hitherto unsuspected communication between the bacteria and sport* responsible for digestive diseases and tho contents of the egg. In a careful study of this problem at the Stores Agricultural Experimental Station and the Sheffield laboratory of Yale Ilettger-says : —"AVe have frequently had occasion to observe the detrimental influence of dirt and moisture on the keeping qualitie .of eggs. Of ,i large nunvber of eggs which were stored in an ordinary refrigerator al'l were found after three or four weeks to be permeated with moulds. In a crate filled with eggs which had been placed in a damp, dark basement all the eggs were in an advanced state of rotting . . . It is of the greatest improtance that a general campaign bo waged to secure perfectly clean and fresh eggs for consumption, and especially when they arc to lie preserved in cold storage." This was written in 1013. During the past year the investigation has been extended and completed at the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station, at the station in Rhode Island, in Great Britain and Europe, showing the interest which tho authorities now take in tho subject. It has boon found that bacteria do not easily penetrate the shell of a perfectly clean fresh egg. but if tho shell is warm, moist and contaminated germs enter and infect the white and the yolk. It appears that the yolk is sometimes infected in the case of hens ivith diseases to wliich fowl are 'liable. Of 2510 fresh eggs from Go hens, per cent, showed infection of tho yolk, while the white was sound. No hen, it was found, laid sterile eggs. There were 110 differences between fertilo and interfile eggs, nor any varialon as regards season. From 57 infected eggs out of 737 examined, 37 bacterial typ.-s were isolated, including streptococci, moti'e and! non-motile forms. Penetration of the shell after tho eggs had been laid and infection during passage through the cloaca are uncommon. Still, inkv-tion does t ike place in many instances r.vithm the ovary of the fowl, and. in eases of white diarrhoe, within the cloaca. An article on commercial and fresh eggs, published in the "Bulletin" of the Internationa] Institute of Agriculture. Homo, March, 1!>16. contains some of tho severest (•••n.-aires of the effects of storage. Tho < ommerciji'l and the fresh •Junn eggs were placed in solutions of wati r glass, sodium silo'to, in s iterated limo solutions, and stored in laboratory, barn and cellar at 37 do;. Fahren-lio-t. Bacteriological and chemical examinations were made, cooking experiment, and pi reel post >h : pn,Vnts. A temperature of so d< rr. Fahrenheit permitted rapid mu'tipli-- ation of bacteria. lira groi l . th of er nimc-r< utl engs was manife-t. r-pe-iallv in the white. Iho count was much lower when the eggs were stored in .-00 l pbt'-os. At 3t d'-g. Fahrenheit the count- was particularly lo'.v, showing that cold storage is alter all, the be-t method if the eggs a.ro clean. .In.y and August eggs •showed the maximum number of infoct-

ei| eggs. It is ele.tr taaf eves tiny art v, cause or di.se:c,'\ T';ev font lin the bacteria that | redle es illness i-i heme's. Moreover eiffs- H'h.'ii eaten with monotonous regularity poison the '•print's of health bv '-. it, ■ 11,r- n morbid satietv. filled I; v: •ec,'.-,' 1 i ihilil v, and in children c-i c ia'!v there are manr st'/nof this fr. i! of im.rl :-!lf v in fret-fll'llr-s-• an-! ilv ; v-ia. T'e> Worsf o? the r'rir,.- fiesc l ir , r r> bee'l iufrele I in ,i. «• f . "vfi'dlv fro- hj" s ... , -, HM'o tK .io'. le-;-. K-r.- ; t„ It.; j„, f-'af I'e''e(l ,-. e: .t f? n da V from <?' em hen - »>. -K TT. f eet and i o ; -' "