Easter Egg Safety

Use these tips for Easter egg safety.

• Keep fresh eggs refrigerated until it’s time to cook them.
• Wash your hands thoroughly before handling eggs at every step of the process: cooking, cooling, dyeing and hiding. Egg shells are porous and let bacteria penetrate, especially after cooking.
• Cook the eggs until both the yolk and white are firm, not runny.
• Refrigerate hard-cooked eggs in their cartons until ready to dye them. Do not eat hard-cooked eggs that have been out of the refrigerator for more than 2 hours (1 hour in temperatures 90° or higher).
• Don’t color or hide eggs with cracked shells.
• Use only food coloring or food-grade egg dyes to color eggs. Refrigerate eggs in their cartons immediately after dyeing.
• When hiding eggs, avoid areas where they could come in contact with dirt, pets, insects, wild animals, birds, reptiles or lawn chemicals. Never hide cracked eggs.
• Total time for hiding and hunting eggs should not exceed 2 hours (1 hour in temperatures 90° or higher). Refrigerate eggs immediately after they are found.
• If you wish to use dyed hard-cooked eggs as a centerpiece or other decoration, cook extra eggs just for this purpose and discard them after use.

Watch our video on How to Boil an Egg perfectly.