Most people trust the big, friendly dates on the carton—“sell by,” “best by,” “use by.” But none of those are truly about your safety. The real story is in that quiet three-digit Julian date, the pack date, silently telling you exactly when those eggs left the processing plant. From that moment, the clock starts ticking: roughly 3–5 weeks of safe use if they’re kept cold and handled properly. After that, every sunny-side-up breakfast, every silky custard, every “just slightly underbaked” quiche becomes a calculated gamble.

Food poisoning from eggs isn’t always dramatic in the moment you crack them. Salmonella doesn’t smell, doesn’t discolor, doesn’t warn you. It waits. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for days, until nausea, cramps, and regret hit. Learning to read that tiny code is a small act of control in a messy food system: two seconds of attention that can spare you a ruined evening, a frantic night, or an emergency room visit.