This Viral TikTok Is Changing The Way People Store Eggs
In the latest on the list of the many, many things we have recently discovered we're doing wrong, eggs are no exception. A man on TikTok has suggested a new way to store eggs, and the internet has once again reacted. Noah Young of the TikTok account @theshilohfarm describes his efforts on his Instagram: "Our passion is to pursue a simpler life for our family while trying to homestead 5 acres in rural Nebraska." And he's very (very) into chickens.
You might have noticed that eggs aren't perfectly uniform: they have a pointy end, and a wider, blunt end. According to Young, eggs should be stored with their pointy end down. This is because, as he explains, the air sac is on the blunt end of the egg — and if you put the air sac on the bottom (like the eggs in most egg cartons from the grocery store), the less dense air bubble will start to travel up the liquid in the egg toward the top and could contain bacteria that contaminate the yolk. With the pointy side down, the blunt end and air bubble will remain at the top.
Is the hack all it's cracked up to be?
Here's why he may be right. According to a manual on embryology from the University of Pennsylvania, the air cell is, indeed, is at the blunt end, and serves as a chick's first breath of air in fertilized eggs before they peck their way out. As for the bacteria in the egg white and yolk, this USDA egg training guide confirms that egg white, or the albumen, is resistant to dangerous bacteria, while the yolk is an ideal place for bacteria to grow.
As for the likelihood of the air sac to contaminate an egg yolk with bacteria, while traveling up an egg, it's a little less clear. But Young does have backup from another blog, Fresh Eggs Daily, who gives the same advice — with the same air cell rationale — to keep eggs fresh. But as we know, it isn't always compelling information that keeps us hanging onto the advice of the TikTok verse. As one commenter put it, "I'll listen to you because of your hat and because you're holding a chicken."