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A SIMPLE test can reveal whether your eggs are fresh enough to eat, as new research finds 720 million are wasted every year.

This is because consumers are relying on best before dates, and throwing away eggs that are still fresh enough to eat.

 You can test the freshness of your eggs by putting them in a bowl of cold water
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You can test the freshness of your eggs by putting them in a bowl of cold waterCredit: Too Good To Go

All you need to do is put the eggs in a bowl of cold weather, and observe what happens to them.

If the eggs sink to the bottom and lay flat on their sides, they’re very fresh.

If they're less fresh but still good to eat, they'll stand on one end at the bottom of the bowl.

If they float to the surface, they're no longer fresh enough to eat.

Even worse, the number of wasted eggs has tripled since 2008, says food waste app Too Good To Go - and it could save shoppers £139million a year.

 If the eggs float, they're not fresh so don't feel bad about throwing them away
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If the eggs float, they're not fresh so don't feel bad about throwing them awayCredit: Too Good To Go

Almost a third of Brits (29 per cent) throw away eggs just because they have passed their "best before" date, with the average household wasting more than 2.2 eggs a month.

Yet eggs are often still good to eat long after the date on the packaging has passed, the company said.

Jamie Crummie, co-founder at Too Good To Go says: "If you've been throwing your eggs in the bin based on the dates on the box, you’ve probably been wasting perfectly good food.

"Food waste is a huge problem - a third of all food produced globally is wasted.

"Small changes from each of us can make a big difference."

Supermarket sausages, mince and bacon "could be safe to eat" weeks after use-by dates expire, new research suggested last month.

Last year, Tesco removed best-before dates from own-label fruit and veg to cut down on food waste.

Co-op has also been selling food past its "best before date" for the same reason.

Celebrity Chef Heston Blumenthal shows how to poach the perfect egg for a classic eggs Benedict


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