Does anyone know what Kpeg is made of? We have a few extra dozen eggs that we would like to put up, and have heard that Kpeg extends their shelf life. Before trying it, though, we'd like to know if it is a natural product or some chemical mixture, or what. Where does one buy Kpeg?

Also, does anyone know how much coating eggs with Kpeg is supposed to extend the shelf life for? Untreated eggs can keep for 12 months or more in cold storage, so how long would kpeg eggs keep?

-- Mouna Ji (pharmacognosia@aol.com), November 05, 2001

Answers

I bought some KPEG in prep for Y2K,, from HAPPY HOVEL,, they have a website,, they dont say whats its made from and I have heard that regualr vasoline works just as good. I didnt get good results from it,, afdter 3 weeks, the eggs were "watery" and I used fresh eggs. I had better luck using water glass,, works on the same principle but after 4 weeks those eggs tasted fresh

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), November 06, 2001.

i dont know waht kpeg is made of either, but here is how i do it. this is a recipie that the french used inthe 15th century to preserve their eggs. melt beeswax and put in alittle olive oil. get it very warm almost hot.. roll the eggs in it and let it dry, it seals out the air. voila!!!!!

-- cody (urbsuted@alltel.net), November 06, 2001.

That's interesting. I've used KPeg as a child. It worked, and the mess potential wasn't as great as for a bucket of water-glass, although the individual eggs were more messy. KPeg was something like vaseline - not the pure white kind, but the cheaper pure light brown kind, but a stiffer and greasier consistency. I'm prepared to believe straight vaseline would work; but after reading the above I believe beeswax dissolved in molten vaseline would get closer to the KPeg formulation.

Of course, whatever you do, you want to optimise storage conditions. Cool is key. If you can't keep it cool enough, then why bother? Since mostly you want to store eggs for use over the winter break when the hens are hardly laying, this shouldn't take much work.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 07, 2001.

Thanks for your replies. It seems that all of the suggested agents are aimed at sealing the eggs of from entry of air. If so, I would prefer beeswax thinned with some olive oil, since these are both foods.

We are thinking in terms of long term storage (more than one year) since we don't have ouur own hens yet. Our concern is that whatever is used to seal the eggs is likely to penetrate them as well, since eggs are so porous. The idea of having vaseline (even traces of it) in our breakfast and baking eggs is neither a palatable nor healthful one.

That's why we wanted to know what's in Kpeg. The only thing we've found that correlates with the name "Kpeg" has been on an internet (Google) search. There, KPEG is "Potassium (K) Poly-Ethylene Glyconate". It is a chemical used for toxic waste clean-up. It's formula is not very far removed from antifreeze, which tastes sweet, but is toxiv and makes animals sick when they lick it up. Not high on our list for food additives...

We were thinking that flax oil would work well also, since it dries into a hard varnish-like film (like linseed oil does, but non- toxic). We often use expired food-grade flax oil (which we get from a local health food store for below wholesale since they can no longer sell it as food) for sealing/protecting our wooden cutting/chopping boards, and other wooden kitchen utensils.

Thanks again everyone for sharing your experiences and info. We're going to call Happy Hovel and see what they say the ingredients are.

-- Mouna Ji (pharmacognosia@aol.com), November 08, 2001.

If you find out from Happy Hovel, please post it here.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), November 08, 2001.

The Happy Hovel didn't know, but I did get the correct spelling-- "Ke- Peg"-- from the label. Searching on Google today I found the Ke-Peg website: http://www.giveanaussieago.com.au/sites/kepeg.html I also found another website (http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/9684/egg.html), with egg storage info. According to them, Ke-Peg is "Liquid Sodium Silicate".

-- Mouna Ji (pharmacognosia@aol.com), November 13, 2001.