EGGS 129 



CARE AND PRESERVATION OF EGGS 

 CARE OF EGGS 



The Bureau of Chemistry of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture has given marked attention to in- 

 vestigations the results of which it is thought will add 

 considerably to the value of egg products by saving 

 many millions of dollars as the result of more care in 

 handling them. 



Eggs contain a large percentage of moisture, which 

 will evaporate through the shell. The evaporation is 

 more rapid when the eggs are exposed to heat or vari- 

 ations in temperature. Mr. Greenlee, of the Food Re- 

 search Laboratory of the government, says that chemical 

 analyses of eggs by various investigators are fairly 

 numerous, But that little has been done to correlate the 

 change in moisture content with the age or condition 

 of the egg. 



One investigator, who has made an extensive study 

 of eggs, has found that eggs kept for a year show a loss 

 of weight equivalent to 10% of the total weight, which 

 loss is largely water evaporated from the whites. He 

 found also that when fresh eggs are boiled a loss in 

 weight occurs, whereas storage eggs gain in boiling. 

 Apparently the whites lose more water than the yolks, 

 and consequently gain more in boiling. The boiled 

 yolks, when fresh, contain less than 50% of water; when 

 cold-stored, this percentage is increased, the figures 

 reaching 64% in the last examination. This would indi- 

 cate that the yolks of eggs in storage gather moisture 

 from the whites and that the whites evaporate moisture 

 through the shell. 



Other experiments made by the government chemists 

 do not indicate definitely that water passes from the 

 white to the yolk. The same results, they say, would 

 be obtained if the white took up solids from the yolks. 

 They say further that the phenomena of a transfer of 

 water from the white to the yolk may easily be ex- 



