So, a handful of people have gotten sick recently from eating salmonella-contaminated eggs from a farm in North Carolina. Salmonella, of course, can be a serious infection and is certainly not one even a healthy person wants to encounter. But who is writing the advice we are being given on how to handle these eggs should we be unfortunate enough to find them in our refrigerator?
Do not eat, serve, or sell these eggs; throw them away or return them for a refund, and be sure to disinfect the shelf on which they were stored.
Really? That kind of overreaction can only have been designed by hyper-sensitive doctors under the advice of their lawyers and malpractice-insurance companies. Why not just hard-boil the eggs? If you cook them until the white and yolk are both hard, you've killed the salmonella bacteria. Maybe I'd give them a couple of extra minutes, just because I can be a little paranoid that way.
And unless you're crazy enough to take your eggs out of the handy carton they come in and store them directly on your refrigerator shelf, I can't imagine why a shelf would need to be especially sanitized.
But hey, what do I know? I'm not a doctor, a biologist, a lawyer, an insurance company executive, or even a helicopter grandparent, so don't take this as advice.
Take it as yet another sign that common sense has been thrown out the window, and scare tactics rule the day—making us more and more inclined to miss the signal of an important warning amidst the noise of constant overreaction. Aesop warned over 2500 years ago of the dangers of crying "wolf."
