The objective of this study to verify the physicochemical quality of commercial washed and unwashed eggs, experimentally inoculated on the shell with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and stored at 5 and 25 ºC for 30 days. A total of 384 eggs, classified as large, from light Dekalb White laying hens at 30 to 40 weeks of age, were used. The experimental design consisted of two blocks in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial arrangement (contamination, washing, and refrigeration) with six replicates. The sanitization was performed by mechanical washing (hot water with chlorhexidine 20% and 8% active content). Eggs were contaminated by handling with 1.5 × 10(5) colony-forming units (cfu) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa/mL solution, and stored at 5 and 25 ºC for 30 days. Each ten days,... |