Shell Treatments as Affecting Microbial Egg Spoilage

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONWHEN considering factors affecting microbial egg spoilage, it is perhaps intuitive for one to regard the shell as a major barrier to bacterial penetration into the egg. Work in our laboratory has indicated that once egg spoilage bacteria have passed through the shell, even in low numbers, eggs become susceptible to spoilage. Attempts to correlate various measurements of shell porosities with susceptibility to spoilage have led to conflicting results (Lorenz et al., 1952; Walden et al., 1956; Hartung and Stadelman, 1963; Kraft et al., 1958; Haines and Moran, 1940), although good agreement has been reported between shell permeability to methylene blue and susceptibility to bacterial egg spoilage (Fromm and Monroe, 1960; Almquist and Holst, 1931).The present paper presents data on the influence of chemical and physical treatments, designed to change shell characteristics, on subsequent spoilage of eggs exposed to Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The effect of these treatments on the …