Like meat, fish, milk, and other complete proteins, eggs provide all the essential amino acids needed to support life and growth. Eggs also have several physical and chemical properties important in cooking and baking. Eggs thicken custards, puddings and sauces. They stabilize mayonnaise and salad dressings. They're often used to coat or glaze breads and cookies.
Eggs also are easy to use.
Because they can be cooked alone or, in many cases, with other foods relatively quickly, they are a convenient, nutritious food for people on the go and those unable to do much cooking. And, unlike other animal foods, they can keep in the refrigerator for three to five weeks. A major nationwide SE outbreak in 1994 involved ice cream, which, according to FDA's best determination, became contaminated during shipment of the ice cream mix in an improperly cleaned tanker previously used to haul unpasteurized liquid eggs. Also, the ice cream maker failed to repasteurize the ice cream mix after shipment. One contaminated raw egg can infect the whole lot when mixed together, for example, in making scrambled eggs.