How Can You Tell If Eggs Are Bad When You Put Them In Water To BoilHow to Tell if Your Expired Eggs Are Still Good to Eat Food Hacks Daily Wonder. How. To. A lot of people rely on the date on the packaging to tell them when food has gone bad, even with eggs, but the sell by dates are often rather arbitrary, and do not correlate to expiration dates. If youve been tossing away your eggs based on the dates on your cartonyoure wrong. Your eyes and nose are the best tools for determining freshness with meats, produce and herbs, but you cant really use your senses to test an egg before you crack it unless youre highly skilled. Image via Shutterstock. Eggs are often still good to eat long after the date on the packaging says to throw them out. If you want to test how fresh they are before finding out the hard way, here are a few methods for testing them. How to Tell if an Egg is Bad. Have you ever been in the middle of baking or cooking, only to notice your eggs are past the sellby date This wikiHow. The Best Method for Uncracked Eggs The Float Test. Just fill a bowl with cold water and place your eggs in the bowl. If they sink to the bottom and lay flat on their sides, theyre very fresh. If theyre a few weeks old but still good to eat, theyll stand on one end at the bottom of the bowl. If they float to the surface, theyre no longer fresh enough to eat. Dont Miss The Best Way to Test Baking SodaPowder for Freshness. While you could fry or scramble an egg thats on its side or standing upright, when it comes to hard boiling, youll want the upright ones, as Yumi points out in her guide to peeling hard boiled eggs. How do you now if your eggs have gone bad You dont have to cook them, crack them, smell them, or shake them to find out if theyre still fresh. Nope, the answer. Comments from Readers Recently I was informed the way to tell if an egg was bad was to place it in water and see if it floats. Because as the egg aged, gasses were. Now if youve ever encountered a really bad egg, youd know. Quick Tip How to Tell if Eggs Are Good. Quick Tip How to Tell if Eggs Are Good. Pasty. Megan Gordon. Sep 4. How to Tell if Youve Got a Bad Egg. How can I tell if an egg is bad without breaking itImage by Yumi SakugawaWonder. How. To. Below, you can see what a really bad egg looks like in comparison to really fresh one. The one on the left is most likely 3 or more months old from when it was laid, not the date you actually bought them. Image via Sturgis. You know that date stamped onto your egg carton Its not actually an expiration date eggs are usually good well past that date. In fact, if youve kept the eggs. Can the float test tell you if an egg is bad or old How else can you tell How long after the sellby date are eggs still good A food safety expert answers. Theres really nothing worse than trying to nurse a Sunday morning hangover with an omelet, only to discover youve got a fridge full of expired eggs. A lot of people rely on the date on the packaging to tell them when food has gone bad, even with eggs, but the sell by dates are often rather arbitrary, and do not. To give you an idea of hold old an egg actually is, look at the packed by dates on the carton, which are in Julian date form by the sell by dates. Julian dates range from 1 to 3. Image via FDAWhy the Float Test Works So Well. The reason this method works is because the eggshells are porous, which means they allow some air to get through. Fresh eggs have less air in them, so they sink to the bottom. But older eggs have had more time for the air to penetrate the shells, so theyre more buoyant and will float. Other Ways to Test Uncracked Eggs. Some people also claim you can hold an egg up to your ear and shake it to test for freshness. If you can hear a sloshing sound inside the egg, its probably gone bad, but if you hear nothing, its fine to eat. Personally, though, I dont think this method is as reliable. Dont Miss Organic, Cage Free, Natural The Truth Behind Egg Labels. How Can You Tell If Eggs Are Bad Do They Sink Or Float' title='How Can You Tell If Eggs Are Bad Do They Sink Or Float' />Additionally, there is the candling method, which is used primarily for testing egg quality before putting eggs on the market, but it could help determine freshness too, though its more difficult to see at later stages. Some just put a flashlight right next to the eggshell to light up the insides, but historically, a piece of cardboard with a small hole in it was used, with a light source behind it and the egg in front. Image via Womans Institute Library of Cooking 1. The above method will let you see the air space and mold, but its really a difficult technique to get down. Image via Womans Institute Library of Cooking 1. Above you can see a fresh egg little air space, slightly visible yolk, a slightly old egg larger air space, slightly darker yolk, a nearly bad egg really dark yolk, spotty, and a spoiled egg mixed in yolk, lots of dark using the candling technique. The Best Method for Cracked Eggs The Plate Sniff Test. If you dont need the shell intact, you can also crack the egg onto a plate or other flat surface to test how fresh it is. If its fresh, the yolk should be bright yellow or orange and the white shouldnt spread much. If youre not sure, give it a good sniff fresh eggs shouldnt have much of a smell at all. Image via Rouxbe. If the egg is older, the yolk will be flatter and the white will be much more runny. An egg that spreads out when cracked isnt necessarily bad, though, just older and again, good for hard boiled eggs. If its gone bad, you probably wont even need to do the sniff testeven slightly rotten eggs will have a very strong, distinct smell youll notice right away. What to Do with Eggs That Expire Soon. Got a bunch of eggs that are going to go bad before you can use them Hard boil them and throw them in a jar with a beet brine to make tangy, delicious, and beautifully purple pickled eggs. Image by Yumi SakugawaWonder. How. To. There are also lots of things you can do with those discarded eggshells, like make your teapot super clean, fertilize soil, and make sidewalk chalk. And dont forget about those leftover egg cartons, which make good seed and fire starters, bird feeders, and candle making molds. Do you know of any other ways to test whether or not an egg is good to eatShare your method with us in the comments. Cover image via Our Little Coop.