Old Wives Tale.....Egg Water and Warts!

My mum told me that I would catch worms if I ate the pith of oranges.
Touching raw bacon rind too.

My gran & mum always reckoned that getting albumen on your fingers caused warts. To this day I rush to the tap if I touch any raw egg white, how ridiculous ☺️

My mother told me not to handle egg shells too much as the VIRUSES on the shell would give me warts. Viruses are not killed by boiling water.

That’s a new one on me. I was always told to avoid touching the uncooked white of an egg as it would give me warts. I wonder where these stories come from?

Science shows that the bacteria from the gut are killed by boiling water. The pores in chicken's eggs are too small for bacteria to get through, so the yolk and white inside are sterile till the shell is broken.

Sorry, this is wrong. Without the bloom, bacteria can enter the egg which is why eggs are unwashed because the "bloom" protects them. If the shells didn't let air and moisture through at the correct rate, developing chicks would suffocate. There are so many reputable places you can look up this information. I only know this because until last year, I was breeding chickens for quite a while.

I use the water from boiling eggs to nourish plants.

How interesting. Does it kill the weeds?

Not sure about the warts but my MiL told me the water the eggs had boiled in would kill weeds between the slabs and I still pour the water over anything green growing between the slabs and I think of her, a lovely MiL.

Sodapop I know that purple stuff (gentian violet) was used for ringworm in those dark ages. Never knew of it being used on warts though.

Sodapop Didn't think sun cream existed when I was young 40/50s. Even in 60s very little known about it.

I watched programme many years ago that was presented by Cheryl Baker. It may have been a kids cookery programme I forget. She said you should always wash your hands after handling egg shells as they are not washed and can carry bacteria. They have a protective membrane which stops the egg from going off so they are not washed before you buy. I would imagine any bacteria would be killed by the boiling water but personally I wouldn't put them in with any veg as sometimes there are little blobs of poop and tiny feathers on them which I wouldn't want in my food.

I've watched Jamie grab handfuls of herbs off of the window cill too. Hasn't he seen fly poops! Those nasty little orange stains you get on the cills in the summer. And flies, which could've been walking over dog poo could've been walking over the herbs. Yuk. If I pick from my garden I soak in a little bit of salt, then rinse before using. And do the same with any bagged salads or herbs that are 'on the date'. As you can get bacteria in those too.

Re warts. Don't believe in getting them from egg water but when my son was very small he had some tiny ones on his torso that wouldn't go. We took him to a specialist at Guys who took one look and produced a wooden cocktail stick from his drawer He proceeded to prick (much to small sons' disgust) a few of my sons' warts. Voila, week or so and they had all disappeared. He explained that by breaking the skin my sons' immune system would become aware of the virus and fight it. And it did. Who would've thought.

Nothing surprises me where Jamie Oliver is concerned.

Anja they are not washed and sterilised. Not in the UK anyway. Maybe in America where they chlorinate chicken

My mother told me that if I ate sugar raw (i.e. cube from the sugar bowl) I would get worms!

Chickweed is good for warts. Well, bad for them, I suppose.

Break the stem and there is milky sap, which stings a bit after a while, but it gets rid of them.

An acupuncture ? Meant to be a cup of tea......

As a child I made breakfast in bed for my parents, boiled eggs, soldiers and acupuncture of tea each. It was a first and my mum asked me about using the kettle as she hadn’t heard it whistle - no worries I said, I made the tea with the boiling water from the eggs!

annodomini That may be true; I know that one of my Aunts when a child had her warts cured by some plant juice her brother used on her hand...apparently he had got the remedy from some local gypsies?. In the old days when we had gypsies! (They used to camp regularly near the farm.)

"cockerels don't have a penis" (from further up/down the thread.

I googled it. So now I don't have to ask the obvious question.

I now know why we never wash eggs or keep them in the fridge!
My DM kept an egg pan specially. Actually it was a double boiler. Eggs in the lower part and porridge in the top.
I still have the top part. I think the egg water pan was deemed too discoloured to be hygienic. Wish they still made pans like that.
I have a 3 tier steamer but it is lightweight and not the same at all.
As for warts; my DC had their verrucas frozen off. I had a crop on my fingers as a child. There was some black ointment covered by elastoplast. I found it morbidly fascinating to see if they shrunk. They must have because they've gone now.

Warts are usually self limiting, that's why I can cure warts - that's what I told my students and their warts always went away.

Science shows that the bacteria from the gut are killed by boiling water. The pores in chicken's eggs are too small for bacteria to get through, so the yolk and white inside are sterile till the shell is broken. Duck eggs have shells with larger pores so their eggs can be infected.

A bacterium which can infect unsterilised, sealed foods, e.g. tinned meat (so 'blown' tins should not be used) produces a poison which is where the story about the dangers originated. The bacterium is killed by boiling but the botulin poison it produces, botox, is not destroyed and can be deadly. This is the poison used to smooth away wrinkles. Many people bless this bacterium!

Excessive cleanliness prevents us building up immunity to common bacteria when we are young and best able to do so - that's why so many children now have allergies. The old adage about a peck of dirt is apposite.

thank god im an atheist.

In the UK we don't wash eggs because the last stage of the egg developing process is the 'bloom' which is a liquid that keeps the porous egg shell from taking in bacteria. If you wash that away, you end up with potentially compromised eggs that go rotten quicker. You shouldn't store them in a fridge either.
I don't tend to cook eggs in the same pan as other things but will put them at the bottom of the steaming pan if I want hard boiled eggs to eat later.

The juice from dandelion stems is supposed to be a sure-fire remedy for warts. I'm waiting for a new crop of dandelions so that I can test this old-wives' tale. Has anyone here tried it?

When I had a wart on my hand as a young child I was told to dip my hand in the sea and the wort would disappear. I did and it did the very next day.

I've never heard the wart story before but personally I would not boil anything in the same water as the eggs.

Years ago I knew a lad who lived only with his dad and they used to boil their eggs for breakfast in the kettle to have with their cup of tea in the morning. Yuk, and they definitely all had mucky bums then.

When you’ve finished eating a boiled egg you turn the shell upside down and crack it with the spoon so that witches can’t use it for a boat! (So I was told as a child?)