UK supermarket eggs come with a 28-day best-before date from the day they were laid, but inadequate home storage can lead to early spoilage.
There’s a plethora of techniques touted to extend the shelf life of eggs well past their best-before dates, yet one lesser-known trick might just take you by surprise.
Favoured by sailors who require a way to preserve eggs on long voyages, this food preservation method relies on an unexpected pantry staple. On an online Cruisers Forum, a user known as ‘RaymondR’ shared: “Vaseline, I have tried this one and it appears to work.”
Delving into details, he added: “I coated eggs with Vaseline and left them for about three months and when I cracked them and made scrambled eggs, they looked perfectly edible.”
This age-old technique mentioned by forum-goers has been lost to most over time. Nonetheless, sailing expert Michael Harpur also promoted this novel concept on Eoceanic, a sailors’ mobile resource.
He commented: “Eggs go off when they get oxidised i.e. air penetrates the protective shell. The petroleum jelly adds another protective coat to prevent this whilst also preventing evaporation.”
Michael pointed out: “Eggs coated in petroleum jelly will keep for months on end but will eventually develop an off-flavour after a few months.”
The yacht enthusiast disclosed his simpler technique for preserving eggs on sea journeys, remarking: “We found turning eggs met the extended life requirements we needed during our circumnavigation. We did Vaseline our egg store once but found it was not worth the trouble nor the mess involved.”
Michael also mentioned that innovations in egg storage have made the task much easier. Such storage solutions include plastic egg cases that facilitate the stowage of up to 15 eggs, which can all be conveniently turned with just one flip, and are handy for transport as well.
He elaborated: “They are very useful for protecting the eggs whilst they are being transported to the boat, and also if you want to put something on top of them when in storage.”
Official advice from the Food Standards Agency suggests that whole eggs should be kept in a “cool dry place”, and ideally in the refrigerator, to guarantee a stable cool environment and ensure their “safety”.