Cooking Your Eggs Sous Vide Is As Dangerous As It Is Trendy

Starbucks and MasterChef have both brought this elegant method of cooking a simple egg to the mainstream. But now, scientists are warning that the method could be a recipe for food poisoning.

The process involves submerging a vacuum-packed bag with the uncooked egg inside into a vat of heated water. The water is low-heat and cooks the egg slowly, resulting in a unique and rubbery texture applauded by chefs and consumers alike.

Celebrity chefs, such as Heston Blumenthal, brought the technique to the center stage on MasterChef. The resulting craze reportedly increased sales of sous vide machines by 300 percent in the United Kingdom — quite a large increase for a machine that costs over 400 pounds. Some have even suggested attempting the method in your washing machine as a cooking hack. Starbucks also introduced the trendy, sous vide eggs to their breakfast menus, and the egg pouches are shipped across the United States.

But recently, experts from Public Health England analyzed 34 meals from various restaurants and discovered an alarming reality about sous vide cooking — it doesn't always do enough to kill the deadly bacteria that cause food poisoning. And eggs, alongside chicken and other poultry, are one of the most common culprits behind salmonella infection.

Sous vide machines heat food to a temperature well below the boiling point of water. Though bacteria like salmonella can be killed by temperatures below boiling, it seems that many restaurants aren't doing enough to make sure their sous vide preparations reach the right temperatures for decontamination.

In the study, as reported by the Daily Mail, ten of the 34 meals had 'unsatisfactory' levels of bacteria and eight more were frighteningly near dangerous levels. Buying anything that's been cooked sous vide could be risky, and it's even more risky to try the method on your own at home if you don't have the expertise to meet food safety standards. You might want to try one of our tried and true egg recipes, instead.