What you see: A vivid red speck, or something that looks like a drop of blood in the egg yolk.
What it is: A spot of blood from the chicken’s reproductive tract.
Eat or toss? Eat! Even an icky-looking blood spot is safe to eat once the egg is cooked.
Is an egg with a red speck still edible?
This spot is actually blood, which is admittedly gross. But, really, if you think too hard about anything we eat it’s all pretty strange, right?
These little spots glom on when the ovary releases the yolk. That yolk release is normally a smooth process, but sometimes a blood vessel catches and leaves behind a drop or two of blood. The Virtual Chicken, a short animated video produced by Auburn University, takes you on an, erm, intimate journey inside the chicken and gives you a sense of how this can happen.
Eggs with blood spots are safe to eat
Like everything else inside that eggshell, blood spots are safe to eat, as long as the egg is thoroughly cooked. But if you want to ruin your appetite, or get inspiration for your next horror film, do a Google image search on egg blood spots. Yeek!
SOURCES:
- Pat Curtis – Head of Prestage Department of Poultry Science – North Carolina State University
- Virtual Chicken video – Auburn University
- What Does a Blood Spot in an Egg Mean? – Eggsafety.org
Out damn spot….Or, I’ll just eat you
