12/10/2025
As a Nigerian, I grew up seeing everybody do it – throw a couple of eggs into the pot with the rice, spaghetti or noodles to save gas and time. It’s so normal that nobody even thinks twice. But honestly, the more I’ve looked into it, the more I’ve started boiling my eggs separately, and here’s why (even if it feels like extra stress).
The main worry people have is bacteria on the eggshell – things like Salmonella, E. coli and Staph aureus. Those can definitely be sitting on the shell, either from the hen itself or just from the environment. A lot of us assume that once the water starts boiling hard, everything dies, so no problem, right?
Well… mostly yes, but not 100%.
- Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli? Boiling water (100 °C) wipes them out easily once it hits 65–70 °C for a few seconds. No live bacteria survive proper boiling.
- Staph aureus? The bacteria themselves die in boiling too, but the real headache is the toxin they can produce. That toxin is heat-stable – even if you boil for ages, it doesn’t break down. So if the egg was heavily contaminated and the bacteria had already made toxin on the shell before it went into the pot, that toxin can still make you sick.
Plus there are a few practical things that can still go wrong even when we boil together:
- If the egg cracks while cooking (which happens a lot with Jollof rice or spaghetti), whatever is on the outside can leak straight into the food.
- Sometimes the eggs sit at the bottom or get buried under the rice, so parts of the shell might not get blasted with rolling boiling water the whole time.
- When you’re fishing the eggs out afterwards with the same spoon you’re stirring the rice with – that’s cross-contamination right there.
- Washing the eggs first? It gets rid of the visible poo and dirt, but it can actually spread the bacteria around the shell and even push some through the pores if you rub too hard.
So yeah, boiling does kill the live bacteria (except in very rare cases), but it doesn’t fi
