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Show FARMaijHOMEfei i UTAH STTE EXTENSION SERVICE ACBICULTT'Rff - HOMB - BCONMMWH By Mary Lois Reicherl Home Demonstration Agent COLD HOLDS QUALITY Chilly fall or winter weather won't help hold quality in eggs, once they've reached the market or the home kitchen, the U. S. I Department of Agriculture reminds . family food-shoppers. With modern mod-ern heating the atmosphere in the markets and homes in winter often , is hotter and drier than on many summer days. At ordinary room temperatures (70 to 80 degrees F) eggs lose quality rapidly;, at higher temperatures, temper-atures, even faster. To hold quality qual-ity for even a short time, eggs need to be kept at 35 to 45 degrees de-grees F with humidity about 85 percent. Smart shoppers buy eggs by grade and also make sure that the eggs have been kept and dis-: Dlaved under refrigeration in the store no matter what the weather. weath-er. Grade AA and A eggs are top quality when they go into the carton, but if they are kept in a warm place after grading, they may reach the home refrigerator below these grades in quality. ZERO DOES IT Zero F is the temperature recommended re-commended for foods in home freezers, the U. S. Department of. Agriculture says in response to frequent inquiries. Research has shown that at temperatures above zero foods don't hold quality satisfactorily. sat-isfactorily. On the other hand, at lower temperatures the home food supply doesn't keep enough better to be worth the extra operating expense. But home freezer owners should understand that setting the temperature-indicator to zero doesn't insure that the freezer interior will be uniformily zero. Temperatures Tempera-tures vary in different parts of the freezer To know where to set the indicator to make sure none of the food is stored above zero, set a thermometer in various locations lo-cations inside and record temperatures. temper-atures. Tests of home-freezer temperatures tempera-tures made at the Department show that in a chest-type freezer the space under the lid is likely to be warmer than the rest of the interior. For example, when the space around the middle of a chest-type freezer is zero, the top third of the storage compartment and the top fourth of the freezing compartment probably will be above zero that is, too warm to keep frozen food at its best. The same is true generally of upright freezers with refrigerated walls, except that probably the space just inside the door will be warmer. In contrast, in upright freezers with refrigerated shelves the top shelf is likely to be coldest cold-est and the bottom, near the compressor, com-pressor, warmest. Some manufacturers recommend turning the indicator to its coldest position several hours before a load of food is to be frozen. Then the extra chill of the food already in storage will offset the warmth brought in by the unfrozen food. |