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Wash the shell if you're so worried. My family eats raw eggs all the times. No problem. People who try to eliminate every possible germs are getting sick very easily.
Egg shells are porous. Trying to wash them may result in bacteria being sucked through the shell. They are cleaned before they are sold.
That's good information, and I believe in people getting good information, and then deciding for themselves how to use that information.
Quote:
An estimated one in 20,000 eggs is internally contaminated.
So for perspective, if you ate 6 eggs a week for 64 years your odds are 1:1 of getting one sometime in your life. And if it is fully cooked, even that one will probably not make you sick. So, while finite, the chances of getting sick from consuming an occasional raw or undercooked egg (soft boiled, light scrambled, sunny side up) are quite small. If you want to be safer still, then use pasteurized eggs.
Nice to meet someone else with a cast iron stomach ! I suppose some people will be naturally more susceptible to food poisoning but I agree with you that a lot of our modern intolerances and allergies for example stem from an obsession with germs and "disease". I suppose I am fairly relaxed when it comes to food, the only bout of food poisoning I ever got in 45 years was in a virtually sterile Dutch restaurant so you never know where and how germs will get to you.
Don't get me wrong, I am very clean (and often borderline OCD by nature ) but I rein in my natural obsession and have learnt to just deal with situations as they arise rather than seeing danger everywhere. I would otherwise end up paralysed with fear and unable to do anything or try anything new like street foods etc...
We all need to cultivate good bacteria and a lot of our obsession with dirt and germs is eradicating our tolerance and resistance to many harmful bugs, as we destroy the good with the bad and our natural protection. I notice that usually the healthiest kids and those without allergies tend to be kids who grow up in farms, or other such natural environments and those kids growing up in clinical homes often end up with Asthma and allergies , wheezing through their inhalers which is rather ironic.
Being careful is one thing but being obsessed is another IMO.
French, Italian, Spanish etc... people suffer a lot less food poisoning than Brits ( the Brits have some of the strictest health and safety regulations when it comes to food) even though they eat raw eggs, unpasteurised cheeses and rare to raw meats. I think the resistance has to be built from an early age.
Some of it will be natural susceptibility of course and some is a result of our environment. I have eaten in some pretty unsavoury environments and always been fine. Never got Montezuma's revenge in South America or Dehli Belly in India... It took Amsterdam to take me down ! And I got it a lot milder than Hubby who was quite ill.
Salmonella is obviously dangerous and can be lethal but I do think people worry a bit too much about their food still. Not everything is out to get us.
Deliberately exposing yourself to the risk of food borne illness by eating raw eggs is a bit different from not trying to sterilize your home.
Do you have a source for the relative incidence of food borne illness in European countries?
Also, just because one has never had food poisoning does not mean you cannot get it.
Of course French people get food poisoning ( and it is on the up even though health and safety and anti bacterial products use has also gone up and up).
I am not saying that they do not but I know that almost every single British person I know has had food poisonings ( most of them of more than one occasion) and most of my French ,Spanish and Italian friends have not. I could not find a figure, my source was a BBC 1 consumer programme about three years ago and I could not find a link to it. It compared Physician's reported cases and also hospital admissions because of food poisonings and it found the UK way ahead by a long way. Also it was comparing how many British tourists got sick on holidays abroad compared to other Nations. Admittedly it was about three years ago.
Of course everyone can get food poisoning, I have an iron stomach and I did. It happens to everyone. Sensible precaution are a good thing but I do think we are becoming a society of obsessives and lessening our resistance to many bacteria which is creating a lot of problems. Our immunity is becoming compromised by our fixation with germs for example.
I just think at some point we have to start living our lives and stop worrying about absolutely everything. I have eaten raw and extremely rare meat all my life ( and fish) , have eaten in the most unsanitary places in the world, from food carts and sources which would make most people blanch and yet my much more cautious and fussy friends regularily come down with the "collywobbles" and I don't. As I said the healthiest people and kids I know who never get sick tend to be people surrounded by animals, such as farmers. They have the strongest constitution and the most resistance it seems to bugs and bacteria.
I just refuse to let my life be ruled by fear that something, somehow is always out to get me. If it does then that's life. It is a bit like flying. There is always a chance my plane might fall out of the sky and crash or that a terrorist might decide to blow it up. I still carry on flying and am not going to let some potential risk get in the way of my life.
Life's too short. I'll take my chances with Steak Tartare and live life on the edge. As I said I am virtually OCD when it comes to cleanliness for example but I rein it in because otherwise I might as well live in a bubble for the rest of my life.
We take our lives into our own hands every single day by so many decisions we make. I could choke on a piece of toast or stumble putting on my underwear every morning. Slip in the shower, cut myself in the kitchen, get run over, then there is all kinds of pollutants, radiation, and other potentially dangerous stuff in our environment which could affect my health on so many different levels. Living IS a risk.
If people really are worried about salmonella and eating raw eggs then I understand they might want to pasteurise them but I won't and I also do not believe that all those precautions will stop us from getting sick anyway. Something, somewhere can get to us. As you said nobody is immune... Not the most prudent, not the most "daredevils".
^^^ This!!! Well written, Mooseketeer!
It just makes me think, how we lived 10 years ago, without the excessive use of antibacterial soaps, wipes and hand rubs...
America’s obsession with germs is fairly new, no?
Insisting on sanitized, overcooked, ultra safe bleached out everything, grows already well beyond the toilet and the kitchen, and makes human experience as a whole, one horribly bland, edge-free, prefab life.
Oops, I misunderstood your post. I thought the recipe had too much coffee, but you meant it made more coffee than you needed? I don't really have a liqueur substitute. More espresso? Have you ever looked up an English trifle?
Yes, the recipe called for 12 cups, while the "original" recipe posted only had one or two! You can only dip the ladyfingers for a moment or they disintegrate. I had well over half a pot of coffee left.
Yes, the recipe called for 12 cups, while the "original" recipe posted only had one or two! You can only dip the ladyfingers for a moment or they disintegrate. I had well over half a pot of coffee left.
Next time I'd use the recipe Suzy_q2010 posted. First, it cooks the eggs, and second, it uses a reasonable amount of coffee... 12 shots of espresso = 12 oz = 1 1/2 measuring cups of liquid.
Also, Americans often get tripped up by the "cups" measures listed on coffee makers. In reference to a coffee maker, a "cup" is a 5 oz. coffee cup, not an 8 oz. measuring cup. So a "4 cup" coffee maker only makes 20 oz., or 2.5 measuring cups. And since many mugs are 10 oz. that means an "8 cup" maker yields only 4 mugs of coffee. I know you've been wondering about that...
There's a huge difference between eating food that was made with a contaminated raw egg in it - and eating a whole contaminated raw egg.
The odds are that you won't get a contaminated egg at all.
The odds that any contamination in a whole recipe of a food item that contains 1 contaminated egg, will actually make you sick when you eat one portion of that food item - is pretty slim.
Remember when you eat 2 servings of tiramisu, you're not eating 2 eggs. You're eating a completed food item that was made WITH eggs - and you're eating only a portion of that completed item.
Same with ceasar dressing, and chocolate mousse, and eggnog.
The chances of you getting sick from salmonella poisoning from -any- of those things, are lower than your chances of getting sick from salmonella poisoning by eating a spinach salad.
Yes, I used a 12-(coffee)-cup pot of coffee. But I did use to wonder about that and finally puzzled it out. I didn't mean 12 cups as in 3 quarts of coffee.
Let me ask everybody something. Would you be squeamish about eating something with raw eggs in it, beyond licking your own brownie batter off a spatula at home? Would pasteurized eggs, which are sterile but still appear raw, still bother you? I mean other than the iron stomachs in here.
I do think I will make Suzy's recipe, minus the alcohol, but I suppose the uncooked recipes would do just fine instead. I just wanted to gauge people's reaction.
The tiramisu was the best on its third day, by the way. It is no longer with us.
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And I got it a lot milder than Hubby who was quite ill.
