Scientist explains: We all store our eggs incorrectly
- Hanna Koll
Hanna Koll
A team of researchers has discovered that the way we store chicken eggs in cardboard boxes is actually wrong. The likelihood of them breaking would be lower if we did it differently.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered that most people store eggs incorrectly. Currently, they are sold upside down in cardboard boxes , but this can quickly spoil them.
However, laboratory experiments, the results of which were published in " communications physics ," have now proven that raw chicken eggs are less likely to break when dropped on their sides. According to the researchers, they are most flexible and able to absorb the most energy around their "equator," which is the widest part of the egg.
To find this finding, researchers conducted drop tests to compare how large raw chicken eggs break when oriented differently—horizontally at their equator, vertically at their sharp end, and vertically at their blunt end.
They tested a total of 180 eggs—60 each from three different heights: 8, 9, and 10 millimeters. More than half of the eggs dropped vertically from a height of 8 mm broke (the downward-facing end of the egg made no difference).
In contrast, less than 10 percent of eggs dropped horizontally from the same height broke. In a further pressure test, the eggs also withstood more pressure at their equator than at their ends.
In their paper, the researchers write that eggshell strength isn't only important for bird eggs. In nature, shells serve as protective layers for soft-bodied organisms, turtle shells, and sea shells, as well as for the outer membranes of viruses and bacteria.
Future research could also apply the new findings to technical scenarios, such as how structures respond to dynamic loads.
Insights into the mechanical failure of these structures could thus enable advances in a wide range of applications, ranging from the development of protective equipment to drug delivery," the team said.
- Consumption of one to six eggs per week was associated with a lower risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.
- However, this was no longer the case if the participants ate one egg every day of the week, i.e. seven per week.
- The researchers could not find a connection between egg consumption and cancer mortality.
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