I Thought Egg Yolks Were Yellow
July 6th, 2007 @ 12:00 pm | Filed under What Was I On?
So last night I was tucking away into some poached eggs lovingly made by my good lady. The toast was well buttered and the eggs were perfectly poached (i.e. still a bit runny). All was well until I cut into the second of the two eggs and was presented with the following sight:
I’m not sure how well you can tell from the picture (I’d already eaten the other egg which would have helped for comparison) but the egg yolk is completely white with not even a hint of yellow! The egg was well within its sell-by date and the other one (from the same batch) was just fine. Has anybody come across such a phenomenon before?
Update 1: Andy B has a better photo of a white egg yolk compared to a normal one in his comment below.
Update 2: The general consensus is that white egg yolks are perfectly safe to eat and the reason they’re white is a lack of pigment. Count yourself lucky if you ever find one - they’re pretty rare! Lots more information in the comments below.
78 Comments on “I Thought Egg Yolks Were Yellow”
August 7th, 2008 at 19:28
I’m another “me too”. I ate my white egg, since it did not smell off, then got second thoughts and decided to hit tne internet, and found this site. So i’m relieved that my instinct to use my nose to check the egg was justified.
August 15th, 2008 at 05:29
From the slow but steady list of comments to this blog entry, it is beginning to look like there might be more than the “10 to 12 white eggs per year” that the Deputy Chair of the British Egg Council described.
I got a white egg yolk today (in Melbourne, Australia). If you’re interested in looking at yet another white egg yolk (next to two yellow ones), here’s the link to the photo and my description:
http://www.anthonyholmes.com/Blog.nsf/dx/white-egg-yolk.htm?opendocument&comments
This wasn’t one of the “deformed”, “thick”, “double yolk” eggs that some people mentioned. It was a perfectly normal eggshell and apart from the colour, the yolk was normal.
August 19th, 2008 at 00:55
Just to clarify - the yolk of the egg was absolute white - like a stick of chalk. Not pale yellow or tinged with yellow - it was white.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:59
I happened to find a white egg yolk in a batch of eggs I bought from UAE. They taste the same as the yellow ones.
September 7th, 2008 at 15:17
I just found one too! Don’t think I’ll eat it though - it doesn’t look very appetising.
September 9th, 2008 at 20:49
Well.. the big egg debate..lol
Last week we had a double yolked egg and today a single WHITE yolked egg..both from the same batch, well in the same box.. so the big debate goes on. We did eat it and it tasted just fine. BY the way we’re in sunny sussex on the south coast of the UK..
September 11th, 2008 at 03:04
From what I have been told corn is usually fed in a higher proportion to laying chickens. Because of the cost of corn,ethanol production, there has been an increase in grains fed to chicken, which doesn’t impart much color to the yolk. Now that being said, it doesn’t make much sense that two eggs from the same dozen have different coloring. I know that chicken farmers will give marigold to chickens to increase the color of the yolk. Just something to think about, I’ve heard stranger stories.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:04
Hi Guys
My wife was making breakfast this morning when she came a cross a ‘blondie’ she mixed it up with a couple of yellow yolkers for some scambled eggs. No ill effects so far, but have developed a strange urge to peck at the lawn and kip in a cage with the light on!
Love from Liverpool
September 27th, 2008 at 16:42
I’m in northern Tanzania, Africa, and I just cracked open an egg with a white yolk. I’m making cookies, so I figured since it would be baked I might as well use it. I’ll comment again if I get sick. Otherwise, let’s assume the eggs are ok!
September 27th, 2008 at 21:33
Wow, I think it’s fair to say that white egg yolks are a worldwide phenomenon!
September 30th, 2008 at 10:26
I found another one this morning, and consequently this blog in search of an answer. I moved from the US to Slovakia in July, and we get our eggs from a rural chicken farmer. About three weeks ago my father-in-law (Slovak) had a hard boiled with a white yolk, ate it, and explained that sometimes you just get that and he didn’t know why it happened. It didn’t seem as ‘out-of-the-ordinary’ to him as it did to me. I suppose the explanation from Radio 4’s iPM programme is sufficient. Well, I have a strong sense of adventure, so I’m going to eat it, and I’ll post any side effects as they occur.
October 5th, 2008 at 18:59
hi all. we have about 15 chickens - have had the same ones for a few years now and today for the first time ever, with no change in diet or anything else in their lifestyles, we’ve had 2 very small (much smaller than usual) eggs and when I cracked them for our yorkshire puds the yolks are white. never heard of it before and like a lot of people on here, found this blog looking for some info. it did startle me a bit, but we’ve sold our other eggs so I had no choice. won’t mention it till the family have finished their teas tho. but very odd. never heard of it before.
October 5th, 2008 at 18:59
ps we’re in the UK, in North Staffs.
October 9th, 2008 at 07:16
By the way, Im in New Zealand and found 2 yesterday. I couldnt eat them either. These were organic free-range. Glad there are other people out there who were also curious. Id never come across them before.
October 10th, 2008 at 20:28
I’m from the South coast of the UK and just cracked two eggs into a cookie mixture.. one yolk was yellow and the other was white. Couldn’t decide what to do so came online and googled “white egg yolk” so here I am. Glad I’m not the only one!
October 26th, 2008 at 19:22
I am living in Nebraska and I have found two of the white egg yolks while eating hard boiled eggs in the last month. I don’t eat the yolk but the egg white tastes normal. The first time I saw the white egg yolk it almost ended my breakfast but I was hungry.
October 27th, 2008 at 01:27
Girlfriend got the white yolk. Yay!
October 27th, 2008 at 01:28
Actually she got 2
November 1st, 2008 at 16:17
We just got one too here in Southern Ontario, Canada. Ate ‘em, they were fine. The other eggs in the carton were all normal coloured. Just a fun rarity.
… now to check my lottery tickets.
November 4th, 2008 at 15:45
While working at my job in the deli of kroger’s grocery store i was packing up salads and cut into the hard boiled egg and the yolk was completely white like a ghost… we displayed it for halloween as our ghost egg. i didn’t know enough about why it would do that so refraned from using in the salad.. didn’t want to poison any one…..just in case there was something wrong with the chicken who laid it… like bird flu or something…. but it was cool to see.
November 17th, 2008 at 15:39
Hi.
Like others, I Googled and found this thread after finding a white yolk.
I threw mine away, as I have no sense of smell to be able to use that to reassure myself it was okay.
Upon making that decision, and whilst scooping it back out of the pan, I found it to have the same thick membrane as Dan Wager noted; definitely not normal and I wouldn’t have eaten it even if i could smell that it was apparently normal.
November 26th, 2008 at 22:22
I am working near to Tanzania in the indian ocean, the eggs we get from Tanzania are ALL white yolked, i wasnt pretty sure why or if they were bad for health, but we had to eat something…
The taste is almost the same, the only real difference i found is that the yolk is white, and of course looks unnatural since we are used to the yellow/orange yolks.
good topic btw.
December 23rd, 2008 at 20:49
The yellow color in egg yolks comes from the plant foods that the hen eats. Most often the yellow color is due to a natural compound called lutein. The hen gets the lutein from her diet, most often corn. Lutein is also in vegetables (e.g. kale, broccoli, spinach, celery)and flowers (marigold). A white egg yolk indicates that the hen that laid the egg did not have lutein in her diet or else was unable to absorb lutein from her food. Chickens cannot make lutein; they have to consume it. Hens that are fed wheat which is low in lutein produce eggs that are only slightly yellow.
December 23rd, 2008 at 20:59
That certainly explains off-yellow yolks and has indeed been mentioned in the comments above and in the BBC article linked to but doesn’t quite explain why a hen can pass one egg with white yolk and many more yellow - it’s more of a one-off thing. So if it were lacking in lutein you’d expect all the eggs of a given batch to have similarly white yolks but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
December 24th, 2008 at 21:04
There is nothing wrong with the egg, we had boiled eggs this morning and one was white. Nature at it’s best. Isn’t it marvelous and wonderous. Just when you think you are smarter than the universe it throws you a curve to make you think. The yellow in the egg yolk comes from carotenoids, that’s whats in the food they eat. The more yellow the more the chicken ate.
December 25th, 2008 at 08:10
It’s December 25, 2008. I am over 40 years of age, cracked open thousands of eggs, and today to my horror an egg had a pure white as snow yolk. I didn’t eat it, it looked too uncertain. Free range eggs too.
January 1st, 2009 at 01:06
An entry from Ireland.. and from 2009! I was doing some New Year’s baking today & came across the first white yolk I’d ever seen. Like the previous entry, Tony from Sydney, I’m over 40, have been baking for years, and had never seen the like.. They were free range eggs and all the others had normal yolks. I only needed the white for the dish I was making, but I have to say it was kind of freaky and I considered photographing it. Nor sure if I’d have eaten it. I’m sure it was fine though, & I was happy to use the white of the egg. I put it down to being something like an albino chick/egg. I’m not thoroughly convinced by the other explanations - surely no hen lays all white-yolked eggs? Funny that this is the only blog on the net for this phenomenon! Well done, John! (PS: also came across an article where a Japanese company is deliberately rearing chickens on a different diet to produce whiter yolks.. strange. The link is: http://www.jamd.com/image/in-search/51375424/#2g51375424 )
January 4th, 2009 at 19:12
Well, in all my years of making my mom’s fabulous chicken salad I’ve never seen a white egg yolk until this afternoon. Very freaking!