Egg Pasteurization

There has been a lot of recent news about the eggs contaminated with salmonella and shipped all over the country. This outbreak has been traced back to one farm that has a history of violations, none of which ever shut the producer down. Now, instead of discussing the reasons so many eggs would have salmonella, chickens living in unsanitary and inhumane conditions, being given feed that was contaminated instead of being allowed to forage on pasture, people have begun discussing requiring pasteurization of eggs before they hit supermarket shelves. Perhaps the FDA is missing the bigger picture, an outbreak like this points to a flaw in our food system, not the need to sterilize the product after the fact. If chickens were allowed to wander outdoors during the day and peck at the ground as nature intended not only would their eggs not require pasteurization to protect the public from bacteria but their eggs would also be more nutritious and tasty. Seriously, buy eggs the next time you are at the farmers' market and compare them to generic, mass-produced supermarket eggs (there really is no comparison, they are practically different products). To read the most recent article from the New York Times about this issue, click here.