Scientists say they’ve cracked the code for boiling the perfect egg

Making sure your boiled eggs are perfect can be a challenge, but scientists believe they’ve discovered an ‘egg-celent’ method for boiling them just right.

After cooking hundreds of eggs and using a bit of math, researchers found the sweet spot. One equation helped them understand how heat travels from the hot surface to the egg, while another explained how the egg transforms from liquid to solid, with a gel-like stage in between.

Their winning method? Transfer the eggs in a steamer basket every two minutes between two bowls of water—one boiling, the other lukewarm at 30°C. After 32 minutes, cool them down under running water, peel, and voilà—perfectly cooked eggs.

“You could definitely do this at home with half a dozen eggs or so,” said Gregory Weiss, a chemist at the University of California, Irvine, who didn’t work on the study.

Food scientist Joanne Slavin from the University of Minnesota (also not involved) added, “This is a slower process to get a better outcome”.

The discovery comes after recent research showed that regular egg consumption may reduce the risk of cardiovascular-related death in healthy older adults.

Researchers from Monash University found that for relatively healthy older adults, consuming eggs 1-6 times per week was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality (death from any cause) and CVD mortality compared to those who rarely or never eat eggs.

As part of the study, researchers had 8756 adults aged 70 years or older report the frequency of their total egg consumption.

The guidelines for reporting were as follows:

• never/infrequently (rarely/never, or 1-2 times/month)
• weekly (1-6 times/week)
• and daily (daily/several times per day)

Researchers found that compared to older adults who never or infrequently ate eggs (up to to twice a month), those who ate eggs 1-6 times a week had a 15 per cent lower risk of death from any cause, and a 29 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease-related death.

-with AP.