The Effect of Iron on the Pseudomonas Spoilage of Experimentally Infected Shell Eggs

Abstract

THE practice of washing dirty eggs has been carried on for many years. With the introduction of egg washing machines, the trend has been toward washing all eggs because it takes less time to do so than to separate the clean from the dirty eggs. It is recognized that washing increases the risk of spoilage in eggs destined either for the fresh market or for storage (Thompson, 1952). Various washing procedures have been suggested to eliminate this spoilage; however, controversy still exists as to whether or not shell eggs can be washed without a subsequent increase in bacterial spoilage (Lorenz and Starr, 1952). This disagreement among various workers may be due to unknown factors affecting spoilage which are not controlled in these washing procedures.Recently, it has been shown that conalbumin, the iron-binding egg white protein, is the most important factor controlling the growth of gram-negative egg spoilage bacteria in …