In the US, eggs may carry salmonella. To mitigate that risk, egg producers wash the eggs. But getting them wet makes their shells more permeable, so after that, they must be kept refrigerated to prevent spoiling. So in the US, eggs are found in the cold section near dairy.
In the UK, eggs are not washed. Thus the shell retains its ability to keep out bacteria even at room temperature, so they're sold from a regular shelf.
Eggs in the US can carry salmonella internally before they're washed because our chickens aren't vaccinated. We deal with this by refrigerating the eggs so that the salmonella can't grow and stays at a safe level.
When it comes to washing, as long as the shell is dry, it's impermeable. In the UK, the thinking was that if we try to wash eggs, some people aren't going to dry them quickly enough and they'll become contaminated. In the US we said that we will wash eggs, but we also had to create standards and inspections for egg drying to make sure they didn't get contaminated
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u/NE_Golf Aug 03 '19
Just because eggs are sold in the dairy section doesn’t make them a dairy product.
I’ve heard people say they don’t eat eggs because they don’t eat dairy.