Eggs and milk have a process
Wavy News in Richmond, Virginia has posed a question to their readers in the Commonwealth. They ask why we in America refrigerate milk and eggs when around the world other nations do not.
The answer is that both food products will go bad and cause illness but why is that now happening around the globe? Milk and eggs sit on store shelves outside of freezers in Europe and other locales because the pasteurizing process is different.
The different milk processes
In Europe, the standard is UHT pasteurization, or ultra-high temperature pasteurization. That involves heating raw milk up to around 280 degrees Fahrenheit for a few seconds, killing all bacteria, according to Brittanica.
The single-serve boxes of milk you see on store shelves for children have undergone the more strenuous ultra-high temperature pasteurization.
In the U.S., we typically heat the raw milk to a temperature around 160 degrees for 15 seconds. That’s enough to kill dangerous bacteria like salmonella and E. coli. But because some bacteria may survive the pasteurization, it can cause the milk to spoil if it isn’t refrigerated.