Look For These Numbers On Your Egg Carton, Here’s What You NEED To Know

Amanda Shea

Code on carton of eggs

If you have ever wondered what the three mysterious numbers printed beneath the “best by” date on a carton of eggs were for, you’re probably not alone, but you really need to know what they mean. Every package you’ve ever bought has them, but they are often overlooked.
When grocery shopping for eggs, you may open the carton to check that they’re each intact, then pick the package with the furthest out “best by” date printed on the outside. When each of those indicators pass our individual inspection, we feel like we just got the freshest selection for our family to enjoy. But now, it’s come out that not knowing what that three-digit code means could hurt whoever is eating the eggs inside.
The “best by” date is not an indicator of freshness, nor is it required by the FDA that egg producers post it. Consumers rely on this optional addition to packaging, which is nothing more than the producer’s opinion for when the eggs are no longer safe to eat, Cosmopolitan reported. That date doesn’t always tell the truth, but the three numbers right below it do.

This 3-digit “code” is actually called the Julian Date, which hides in plain sight the actual day the eggs were put in the carton. The number represents what day of the year, out of 365 days, the eggs were packaged. For example, if the code is 358, it means that carton was put together on the 358th day of the year, which is December 25.

This is good to know, because if you picked a package up on January 20, for example, that had 358 printed on it, those eggs would already be a whopping 27-days old. Meanwhile, the “Best By” date suggests that you can go ahead and eat them well into the first week of February.

According to the Food Safety and Inspection Service, eggs kept at forty-five degrees Fahrenheit are healthy to eat for four to five weeks from the Julian Date. That means that the eggs with the December 25 Julian Date (358) should not be consumed past January 29 at the latest, yet the best by date will tell you that it’s okay to eat until around February 7.

It may take a little math and some time to get quick at it, but you and your family’s health is worth the effort. The FDA should take the guess-work out of it and make it a requirement to print the Julian Date as an actual date, rather than some code for you to crack.

h/t: [LiftBump]