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.
255 Comments on “I Thought Egg Yolks Were Yellow”
August 6th, 2009 at 00:35 |
I was fed two eggs with white yolks in Narobi, Kenya! I was unsure and the guest hose cook persuaded me. I ended up in the hospital emergency room and threw up for 24 hours. I never knew IF it was the eggs, or where the eggs really came from….but I would not eat them again!
August 10th, 2009 at 21:25 |
believe it or not i live in mexico and there is a lady in our town that sales nothing but white egg yolk eggs i was told that chickens are feed something to make yolks yellow and her chickens are not given any. i refuse to eat them……….. it looks to grose to eat.
August 13th, 2009 at 23:20 |
I got 6 this morning – hard boiled eggs. Yes wierd but didnt stop me and my colleagues from eating them…thought maybe they would have added benefits..just as yummy as yellow ones…Im from the Cook Islands.
August 17th, 2009 at 19:25 |
I’m an British ex-pat living in Greece, in my 50′s, and had never seen a white-yoked egg until I hard-boiled two of them for egg salad today!
They were given to me by a friend who was returning to the UK for a few weeks and didn’t want to leave them in her fridge. They were quite small, and I’m not sure of their origin, as many of us here receive regular gifts of eggs from our Greek neighbours, who all have chickens (we live in a rural area). The shells didn’t want to come off the whites very easily, either, but the eggs had no unusual smell or texture, so I ate them! So far no ill effects….
September 1st, 2009 at 16:42 |
same as everyone as said before i boiled 2 eggs and 1 was white i smelt it ,ok, but could not eat it so i gave it to the dog,it was just to strange and unappertising to eat,i had never heard of anyone else finding one so must be rare,i live in the canary islands,but still want to know why they happen. mik
September 26th, 2009 at 22:03 |
hi there, i think i figured it out. the chickens arent getting enough corn. my egg yolks are clear too but taste awesome. thank you
October 4th, 2009 at 21:40 |
I made hard boiled eggs today to turn into Deviled Eggs for a party. I had never seen or heard of a white yolk before. From reading all the comments I guess the white yolks will be safe. I might add a little yellow food colouring so people don’t freak out. lol
October 22nd, 2009 at 20:13 |
I join the club! Raw egg is in the fridge, going to photograph it tomorrow to add to the gallery of white yolks. Free range carton, bought in Cambridge UK. Never heard of this phenomenon before, have had a lot of double eggs before but not white (organic free-range seem to pop out quite a few freaks of nature!) Somehow just managed to eat an egg while reading all these posts.. until I got to the one about the membrane……ugh.
October 22nd, 2009 at 20:24 |
Welcome to the club!
November 16th, 2009 at 17:27 |
hi, just making omelette’s for my kids tea when found one of the eggs had a white yolk….. and like everyone googled white egg yolk and here i am. im 35 and never seen one before, i make wedding cakes as a living so i use a lot of eggs every week. i now feel im part of a rare club!!! lol
November 16th, 2009 at 17:28 |
oh forgot, im on the east coast of England and the eggs were free range
November 23rd, 2009 at 17:42 |
I’m living in Ghana temporarily and most of the egg whites are pale. Occasionally you’ll get a yellow. As the egg board says, being from the US, I prefer the yellow. In France they are the dark orange colors. Personally, after living in Ghana, I would bet it’s based on malnutrition, but maybe it is just a wheat-based diet. Corn here is more valuable than wheat.
November 24th, 2009 at 03:12 |
Last week I was fixing eggs for breakfast and came across one with a solid white yolk. I thought it must be a ‘bad egg’ ( no pun intended) and I was afraid to eat it so I dumped it down the drain. It smelled ok, but I wasn’t willing to take a chance on it. I should have taken a photo of it but didn’t find out how rare it was until I asked the Amishman who sold me the eggs. He had never seen one or even heard of one either.
November 26th, 2009 at 13:31 |
I found one too, im from Dublin Ireland. I ate it before checking it was safe…. HARDCORE
I feel so lucky im off to do the lotto
December 6th, 2009 at 11:43 |
Found White egg yolk this morning (in Dublin). It’s in date and since no one on this blog has mentioned death to be a side effect, I’m gonna eat it anyways.
December 13th, 2009 at 23:50 |
Hi, Yesterday for breakfast I had a white yolk. I didn’t give it much thought and prepared two dishes of fried eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, and buttered toast. Sadly, today I am so sick, my stomach began hurting me later in the day yesterday and now I am having body aches. I have slept for half the day and my eyes became dry to the point it felt like sand in them. I feel like I have the flu! The white yolk got me!
December 31st, 2009 at 03:18 |
I just hard boiled a dozen eggs and they all had white yolks – this is what I found… Yolk color is dependent on the diet of the hen; if the diet contains yellow/orange plant pigments known as xanthophylls, then they are deposited in the yolk, coloring it. A colorless diet can produce an almost colorless yolk. Farmers may enhance yolk color with artificial pigments, or with natural supplements rich in lutein (marigold petals are a popular choice), but, in most locations, this activity is forbidden.
January 3rd, 2010 at 20:14 |
That’s one explanation, although it doesn’t explain the random ‘white egg yolk in a batch of yellow yolk eggs’. Fortunately that’s also explained in the comments on this post!
February 12th, 2010 at 10:17
I GOT MY WHITE EGG YOLK IN A PACKAGE OF EGGLAND’S BEST! REALLY NEAT!
January 3rd, 2010 at 21:03 |
I found one today when I was making my breakfast! It was probably ok but freaked me out I wondered if it’d make me ill so I dumped it… and here I am having googled it! Came from a free-range box in Brighton, UK…
January 27th, 2010 at 21:57 |
I just hard boiled seven eggs and five had white yokes. Googled “white yokes” and ended up here. Very weird phenomenon, but from all the comments, evidently not a health issue.
February 2nd, 2010 at 04:33 |
I’m from Tasmania (Australia)and to my surprise after cutting open a hard boiled egg the yolk was completely white. I didn’t eat it though. This was the only thread I have found about white yolk’s and I too didn’t realise how uncommon they were.
April 17th, 2010 at 01:48 |
So it looks like I’m not alone here in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. I boiled up some eggs to have breakfast with a friend this morning and found that my egg’s yolk was white. I took a pic, then ate it. It tasted just like a normal egg yolk. I bought the package fresh last week and all the other yolks were nicely yellow. Glad I looked it up on Google!
April 18th, 2010 at 03:56 |
We have 60 hens. All in their first molt. We just found a white egg yoke. First one we have ever seen so I don’t think it is the result of alibinoism, or a ginetic defect. I think it is just a function of old age or poor condition during the molt. Just as we are now occasionally getting double yokes and thin egg shells. Have to agree with all of you, my wife and I were both freaked out and fed it to the dog. He seemed to think it tasted just fine.
May 3rd, 2010 at 06:30 |
White yolks are caused by the diet of the fowl. Some fowls apparently cant metabolise the feed they eat and a white yolk will happen. Give the chooks some lucerne hay or let them graze for longer periods on grass.
May 5th, 2010 at 18:15 |
I’ve been eating 2 raw eggs every morning for the last year and today I was shocked to see one of them white!!!
I drank it anyway
Now I feel like I have super-powers, I can hear things in the distance and have stronger sense of smell than a dog… but the crazy homeless voodoo lady outside my house called me “el blanco pollo el diablo!!” like if she had seen a ghost :O
May 5th, 2010 at 18:18 |
I live in Limerick Ireland and today we came across our second white yolked egg in a week. We have our own hens so still have to figure out which one laid it. Like everyone else we did’nt eat it
May 8th, 2010 at 13:24 |
Hello I raise 20 or so chickens and have done so for 8 years and just recently came across the white egg. Two weeks ago we hard boiled some of our wonderfull farm fresh eggs and out came the white yolk. We thought it was a an egg from an old chicken though I will be checking out Phils link to read more. Today we were frying eggs and again another white yoke appeared infront of our eyes.
May 12th, 2010 at 02:51 |
We have four hens and have for the past two weeks, been regularly getting white yolks eggs from one of the hens. The first few, went straight in the sink – yuk ! I thought, but my husbands said, NO!, what a waste, dont throw them away, there is nothing wrong with them ! Needless to say, he got the next few, as the children wont eat them either. I have just boiled a couple of eggs for my sons breakfast and one had a lovely yellow yolk and the other had a yolk as white as the white of the egg – I brought myself to eat it, out of curiousity and it wasnt yuk, tasted like a yolk but definitely not as tasty as the true colour yolk. We live in Perth – Western Australia and these white yolks have become quite a regular occurence in the laying of our four hens – however I do believe only one of the hens is the culprit.
May 14th, 2010 at 15:22 |
Also reached this page googling white egg yolk. I had boiled eggs to make tuna salad and was chopping them up and saw the white yolk…did the smell test…it passed so used it anyway. I figured I don’t eat tuna salad so if hubby got sick…then I would know!! Shame on me!! I had never seen nor heard of white yolk but with the world wide web…now I don’t feel so alone in this.
May 27th, 2010 at 02:09 |
Another “me too!”, will be eating this egg in mere minutes. =) I will have to try the diet this year on our new chickens.
1st white yolk I have ever seen.
June 2nd, 2010 at 04:34 |
cool… an albino egg… what else could it possibly be? That would have been an all white probably with red eyes chicken. pretty neat.
June 21st, 2010 at 23:11 |
In georgia 5 hens all laid orange yokes untill a mth ago nelly the last on peck order now are white yokes im figuring some sort of nutrient imbalance im gonna try to feed her sepratly add calcium and more greens they are nasty yokes the dog likes them not me
June 29th, 2010 at 19:31 |
I found a white egg yolk today. It was an egglands best egg. Now I will include it in the egg salad since it is safe.
July 1st, 2010 at 15:16 |
I have been getting a lot of eggs latley that are almost white. (yolks)
Cleveland Ohio
July 1st, 2010 at 15:18 |
forgot to mention my eggs were from a farm in PA
July 23rd, 2010 at 18:03 |
I’m working in Sudan at the moment, and for the last 2 weeks ALL THE EGGS have had white yolks. The first time we saw them, we threw them out, but the locals assure us that local eggs, have white yolks…
July 28th, 2010 at 16:00 |
I have just bought 4 hens at POL, 2 are speckled star and at least one of them if not both is only producing white yolks, after throwing away the first 6 I convinced the wife to try one hard boiled and it tastes just the same as a normal egg she assures me. I live in Yorkshire, UK.
July 30th, 2010 at 06:01 |
I was making breakfast this morning. a friend of mine gave us some eggs. i cracked it the first egg and had to gawk at it for a min. the sucker was white. it freaked me out so i smelled it. it smelled fine so i ate it.if id have known it was so rare i would have taken a pic. oh well
July 30th, 2010 at 06:02 |
i live in Oregon
July 31st, 2010 at 23:26 |
I too have a hen laying eggs with white yolks. My hens are all healthy and the white to the eggs is lovely…it is just too wierd for me and I don’t eat them. It was good to see I am not alone in the world with the only hen that lays white yolked eggs. Also, I have so many hens…I wouldn’t know how to begin search out which lays the white yolked eggs. Best wishes to all.
August 4th, 2010 at 09:51 |
I am from South Australia and I have had this happen to me today. I got a bacon and egg muffin from my local cafe and bit into the yolk and it was completly white.
August 9th, 2010 at 03:41 |
Very cool! Woke up this morning to have a nice boiled egg breakfast for my “40th” birthday…and while cutting into my second boiled egg and wondering when I was going to finally get to the yellow center of it…I realized it was white!! I was really weirded out…and lost my appetite quickly…it didn’t really have a taste to it. I took a photo…gotta figure out how to load it on here. I was in Houston Texas at the time…being it my 40th birthday…thought it was pretty special
shoulda bought a lottery ticket…although I also thought it could mean something bad…my uncle did pass away early this morning…about the time I had the egg? Strange. I will keep thinkin’ it is a lucky egg and a good sign of the beginning of my 40′s 
…great to be among this very special crowd 
~Donna Jean
August 12th, 2010 at 06:13 |
I have had a WHITE egg yolk,egg (not pale) in my freezer for a year. I hard boiled some for my husbands lunch, he came home after work and showed me. He did take one small bite, tasted fine, but he would not eat anymore. I was so surprised, and like some of you I felt very special. I never heard of this white yolk phenomeno, I called the Dept. of Agriculture, but got no info and they did not return my call. I asked everyone, no explanation except that the hen must have been Albino, but do they really exist? I also thought I had a real prize, worth a lot. My neighbor told me to look in the internet for info and wal-la, here I find you! Now I will keep looking for more info. I want to know if anyone has tried to sell one, cause I thought it was very rare.
August 19th, 2010 at 17:20 |
I just ate a hard boiled ‘double-yolker’ with one yellow yolk and one white yolk! My chickens are in their first summer, are not laying really consistently yet, and about every fifth egg is a big one with two yolks. While it may have something to do with diet, it must also have something to do with the yolk itself since this egg had both colors. I ate it and the white yolk was a bit tougher than the yellow but tasted fine (what doesn’t with a little hot sauce…).
August 27th, 2010 at 03:27 |
Add me to the list – Iowa, USA. I was cutting up some hard boiled eggs to add to my tuna salad, when one of the eggs’ yolk was white. I thought I was going crazy. I was afraid to eat it. Thanks for the site John. At least I know I’m not the only one with a white egg yolk. I might go play the lottery now.
September 1st, 2010 at 07:15 |
Hi
I’ve also had a white yolk and when I asked the man who I buy my eggs off of he told me it was because it was most probably the first egg that the hen had laid. Last night I fried another of his eggs and this time there was no yolk at all just all white lol
September 1st, 2010 at 07:17 |
I forgot to say I live in Maldon Essex (where the Maldon Sea Salt comes from)
September 2nd, 2010 at 17:33 |
Something I had never seen or heard of in my entire life. Imagine the shock. I had boiled some eggs for a pea salad and to my surprise and shock a white egg yolk. I live in Texas.
September 14th, 2010 at 14:16 |
September 14th, 2010. Went to cook a couple of fried eggs this morning and one was a pure white yolk. Freaked out thinking it was a rotten egg or something and threw it away. Funny after reading this it is ok to eat. Just seems weird coming from the same dozen egg container from the same farm this would happen. Off to play the lottery now!
September 22nd, 2010 at 13:33 |
Hi, I live in Irekand and have around 25 free range hen’s of different breeds. The newest breed being white sussex hen’s. This morning I knocked over three egg’s and tomy total amazment one of the eggs was totaly white!! I was completly freaked out. I have never heard or seen anything like this before. I did take picture’s, to have proof! I think it must have come from one of the new laying hen’s or it is a diet problem. I will have to look further.
October 3rd, 2010 at 23:48 |
All theory about the hen’s diet and such just went out the window. I found a white and yellow yolk in the same egg; it was double yolked! Weird.
October 10th, 2010 at 00:24 |
i found a white egg yolk while i was baking cookies. when i cracked it open, i saw it and it totally freaked me out! i asked my mom and she said” it’s only an egg, just put it in the batter” but i was still worried, so i went online and found this site! we ate the cookies and were still safe!!! btw, i live in california, and im only 12! O.O
October 10th, 2010 at 18:20 |
Fantastic! Glad to hear you didn’t wuss out like I did and ate the white egg yolk!