Is it really necessary to refrigerate your eggs in the US?

Recently I came across [this](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/should-you-refrigerate-eggs) article which fascinated me because I have never refrigerated my eggs. Growing up my family had chickens and we usually didn’t refrigerate their eggs. Occasionally we bought store eggs and refrigerated those but nobody ever told me why. When I moved out and started living on my own 5.5 years ago I started buying my own store eggs and never refrigerated them. To be clear, I have eaten a lot of eggs. For a couple years while I was lifting weights a lot I would eat 6-8 dozen eggs a week. For the rest of those years I ate about 2-4 dozen eggs a week. I have lived in 4 different states, shopped at many different stores, and usually bought the cheapest eggs available. I buy in bulk and usually some of the eggs sit out on my counter for 2-4 weeks before I eat them. I cook eggs in all sorts of ways, but usually scramble them or make omelets. I cook my omelets without flipping and my scrambled eggs to the point that they are still a little runny. I have on occasion eaten whole raw eggs, but this is not a common occurrence. I have never felt sick from eating eggs. In fact, it's the food that I enjoy the very most. My younger sister did get salmonella one time but it was from a refrigerated until cooked egg at her friends house. I understand that my personal experience is only an anecdotal case study. Based on the fact that I have eaten probably over 10 thousand unrefrigerated and not fully cooked eggs I would have expected some issues based on all the fear around this practice I see online. That being said, I haven't seen any good scientific studies showing that I am at a higher risk of sickness from eating unrefrigerated eggs. All the information I see are theories about bacteria penetration increasing risk or whatnot. So I will repeat my question: Is it really necessary to refrigerate your eggs in the US? P.S. I would love some actual studies from the source or links to sites like healthline that have a lot of actual studies in the notes. I know what the nutrition communities “correct” answer is, I just want some actual scientific evidence one way or another or an explanation as to why I have never gotten food poisoning. TLDR: I have eaten over 10k unrefrigerated and slightly runny store eggs without ever getting sick. Is this luck, or is the fear around this practice overstated.

Answer

Freshly laid eggs have a thin layer on them that is removed during processing or washing. From any article:

“Fresh Eggs are laid with a near invisible coating called the ‘bloom’ or ‘cuticle’ on the shell.This coating helps keep air and bacteria out of the egg, keeping the egg fresher longer. So as long as you don’t wash your fresh eggs until just before cooking them, there’s no need to refrigerate them.”

So yeah there’s bacteria risks eating room temp washed eggs or if bought from the store without putting in the fridge. (doesn’t mean you’ll always get instantly sick, but cant be good for gut flora and whatnot)

Answer

In the US-

I personally don’t refrigerate my backyard eggs and I avoid store bought eggs.

With store bought You never know how long they have been sitting there and it’s just not fresh - I wouldn’t eat them unless they were refrigerated

If you can I would look for a small backyard egg seller and get your eggs from them!

Answer

OP, it comes down to risk of Salmonella poisoning. The risk is never zero but to minimise it. There’s the risk in food prep. There’s also the risk in who catches Salmonella and who can die from it. Typically it’s the very young, the very old, and those with comorbidities.

If you look at the statistics for USA, there’s 330m people, and every year about 1m suffer from salmonella, and 400 people die from it. That means there’s around 99.7% chance of you not catching Salmonella each year.

If you go back in history, eggs were attributed to 80% of outbreaks of salmonella in 1980s. That’s around 100m cases a year. Population back then was 220m or so. That’s half the population catching Salmonella each year. Compared to 0.3% now.

I think the whole “must refrigerate eggs” would have been a typical mindset of the older generation.

Answer

I’ve tried to find concrete data about this too. It seems the US washes a coating off the eggs that other countries don’t. That coating slows the growth of salmonella and any other nasties that might be in the egg. That’s why the US only sells refrigerated eggs. I’m guessing you eat your eggs fast enough that they don’t incubate enough salmonella to make you sick. If they aged a few more days you might have some trouble now and then. Eggs are excellent growth mediums for bacteria and viruses. I don’t mind refrigerating eggs, us there a significant benefit to leaving them at room temp? Have you ever had bad food poisoning? I have, and I take precautions to hopefully never have it that badly again. It was gruesome.

Answer

Problem with store bought us that they are much older already when you buy them, but the cheap eggs are probably the freshest because most people buy the cheap ones (even though they are extremely inferior). I’ve never refrigerated my hen’s eggs but I wouldn’t risk store bought eggs personally, although you will probably be fine.