[Hellen Thomas]

Hellen Thomas asked the Naked Scientists:
   
During the July 15 broadcast from South Africa a question came up about the colour of eggs.  I just want to set the record straight - you can get both white AND brown eggs in this country.  As far as 'everyone' using powdered eggs in recipes - that's the first time I have ever heard that, and nobody I know uses it in their recipes.  It is available, yes, but saying everybody uses it is a bit like saying every man in England wears a bowler hat! 
 
Love the show by the way, and will continue listening.

Hellen Thomas, New Jersey, USA 

What do you think?

[Bored chemist]

I think someone might be telling an outdated joke about South African politics along the same lines as "South Africa: the only place in the world where licorice allsorts are sold in two bags".
An obsolete reference to apartheid and the fact that the sweets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice_allsorts
are black and white.

[CliffordK]

I'm not sure if I've ever had powdered eggs, unless it was for camping.  However, I could imagine things like instant cake mix could have some type of powdered eggs in them.  Do people actually cook anymore without using pre-mixes?

I do like cooking with powdered milk 

Egg color is determined by the type of chickens.  Most store bought eggs are from White Leghorn chickens.  However, there are many brown egg, and even a few green egg types of chickens. 

In many cases, brown (or green) eggs are more expensive than white ones, with not a big difference in the end product.

[syhprum]

I wish it was true that produces of cake mixes incorperated powdered milk and egg, in my local store they they all have on the packet in small print add milk, butter and an egg which rather defeats the object of buying a mix.

[SeanB]

Pretty much the only place you get powdered egg is in the  bulk baking industry, where the bulk premix has it in it, so it can be bagged and stored dry until needed. Powdered soup as well, and custard powder, for the same reason. Pretty only where there is a need to store for a while, and where you do not want to chance a rotten egg spoiling a big batch. The bad eggs are separated out before the egg is broken open and dried.

I used to get institutional food, the eggs were lousy, but they were  nominally fresh ( even if they had been fried a day or three before and refrigerated) and the scrambled eggs were not powdered ( still had shell pieces in it often enough) but not to discuss the hard boiled eggs ( blue from the shell in, black and green in the centre).

[syhprum]

I had plenty of powerded egg during the war by the standard of what food was available then they were pretty welcome.

[Geezer]

I had plenty of powerded egg during the war by the standard of what food was available then they were pretty welcome.

My mum got so used to cooking with powdered eggs during the war that she complained when they were no longer readily available!