We go to the supermarket, we pick up a package of eggs where it says in big letters “Category A” or “Fresh Eggs” and we assume that those chickens They laid the eggs a couple of days ago. But the reality is very different, and the legal and biological sections follow very different paths. And it’s something easy to see if we look closely. on best-before dates and if we do the necessary math we will see that what the law considers “fresh” can take almost a month in the world.
Many doubts. Seeing this, the most logical questions we can have in this case is if it is safe to consume or even if it is legal. And the reality is that it is. But there is a small print in the 28-day regulations that you need to know before deciding whether to make a curdled tortilla or homemade mayonnaise.
The 28 day clock. To understand what we are buying, we must first go to the BOE and to European regulations. In this case, category A eggs —those that we usually find on the supermarket shelves— have a very specific commercial life cycle. According to marketing regulations, these eggs must be classified, marked and packaged within 10 days of laying.
But this is where we have the key information: the best before date is set in a maximum of 28 days from laying. That is, the law allows an egg to be legally sold and consumed up to four weeks after it comes out of the hen. In this way, as they collect the labeling technical guides and AESAN itselfthat is the deadline to supply them to the consumer.
Therefore, under the legal umbrella, “fresh” does not mean “placed yesterday.” Means “within the 28 day window“.
How to know the real age. This is where we find the picaresque and calculation that many popularizers like the doctor Fernández Viso has shared on his TikTok account. In this case, the packaging rarely says the “selling date”, because it is not mandatory, if the ‘best before’ date appears. And with this you can do a kind of reverse engineering.
To do this, let’s give an example. If we are in the supermarket on January 8 and see a container of eggs with the best before date of January 18, the operation is quite simple. The deadline in this case is 28 days after placement, and if they expire on January 18, it means they were placed around December 21. That is why nothing fresh.
Its meaning. Although originally this time frame was limited to 21 days in order to guarantee proximity and consumption a little more, the reality is that it was changed to 28 days to reduce food waste. It is not that the egg magically stays “ultra fresh” until the 28th, it is that it has been prioritized that they do not end up in the trash if they are still suitable for consumption.
The truly fresh one. There is a category that is much more recent, and it is the one that says “extra” or “extra fresh” on its packaging. The EU Delegated Regulation specifies that this term can only be used during the first 9 days after laying. If you see that label, you are guaranteed real freshness. If you don’t see it, you are looking at a standard egg that can be from 10 to 28 days old.
The problem is that, in the consumer’s head, the term “fresh” on the shelf is interpreted loosely. Good business practice guides recognize this disparity: the legality of labeling does not match what people intuitively understand by freshness. Furthermore, the common commercial practice of mixing lots on shelves, which is legal as long as traceability is respectedmakes us lose the perception of the exact age of each container of eggs.
Food safety. Knowing the age of the egg is not only a question of gastronomic quality, it is a safety issue. The AESAN and the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) warn that extending the storage time increases the risk of Salmonella poisoning.
Risk mitigation. This is a risk that grows exponentially the longer eggs are stored, both in the store and at home. Therefore, the experts’ recommendations are clear, and depend on the calendar we follow.
Specifically, for cooking, that is, for the egg to be well set or cooked, it can be rushed until the best-before date without problem. But for raw consumption such as mayonnaise or tartars, freshness is critical. In this case, it is recommended to use eggs that are more than two weeks away from expiration.
Images | Jakub Kapusnak
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