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”
October 11th, 2010 at 13:09 |
Here’s another one. Opened and scrambled today.
October 11th, 2010 at 13:13 |
Welcome to this most exclusive club!
October 13th, 2010 at 15:27 |
I visited Africa, and most of the boiled eggs I ate where brown eggs with white yolks. I was surprised. So when I got home I bought some brown eggs but the yolks were yellow. and when i boiled them they tasted different. our eggs dont seem to be natural. they tasted a little rubbery, and not too pure. whats up with that???
October 20th, 2010 at 01:45 |
a dozen large eggs all with white yolks in Toronto, tasted all right!
November 3rd, 2010 at 05:48 |
Wow there is a lot of information on white egg yolks! based on the number of posters here, I count 49 posts in 2008 alone, I would say the number of people worldwide who find one but don’t report it to be probably less than 500 per year. You all are in an exclusive club indeed! Now I want to find one so I can join! I have a friend who raises laying hens and I want to see if he will let me put one or two in a different coop and try the acorn feeding for green and corn meal for white eggs, it would be interesting to see if it worked.
November 4th, 2010 at 14:02 |
Hi there
Yes it’s still happening! I always break eggs into a cup before adding them to a cake and came across an egg with a pale cream coloured yolk. Free range eggs bought yesterday from a supermarket. Aged 60 and my first one.
Glad I’m not alone – Cornwall,UK
November 21st, 2010 at 03:44 |
My first white egg yolk too. A strange sight when I cracked it into the frying pan. Was going to throw it away, but thought I’d do some research first. Glad I found this information. Thanks.
November 28th, 2010 at 19:13 |
Just found out that it can be caused by diet. Went to make an omelet this morning and had a white yolk fall into the bowl. Little freaky and I’m particular about the eggs I eat. This egg came from our own chickens. Every other one came out normal from that day and it’s the first one. We have had some oddities before, usually shell variations. Extreme taper, spotted shell(we have a Marans) and what our friend calls “fart eggs”(small, round, less than full size eggs), and for several weeks one of our hens produced a whole series of double yolkers.
December 15th, 2010 at 22:51 |
Just like most everyone else has I too was looking for info on white egg yolks and found this sight. Mine was hard boiled and I ate it without hesitation. Just thought it was cool, never in my 43yrs had I ever seen one and now I have.
December 20th, 2010 at 21:11 |
I used to work on a chicken farm in inland NSW, Australia. (for breeding not for meat). my job was to collect eggs and sort them and the real bad eggs got dumped. (ie. too dirty.) so its common to see ‘double yolkers’ and even ‘triple yolkers’ which are really big, (Poor Chickens), and ‘malforms’ funky shaped eggs and sometimes jelly membrane shell eggs. The outer shell of an egg could be any colour and it never effected the inside of an egg. I have never seen a white yolk in all my days until I came back to Ireland, yesterday morning I ate half of a runny egg with a white yolk, I wasnt bothered to finish it even though I concentrated on the taste to see if it was different and there was nothing wrong. I was comforted by my egg collecting days and seeing fertilised eggs I know the fertilised egg yolk remains yellow and visibly within the top of the yolk bubble you will see a tiny tiny little white streak. now go back to your breakfast because its fine!
December 20th, 2010 at 22:41 |
It continues to amaze me how lucky I was to encounter a white egg yolk – they’re so rare!
January 27th, 2011 at 00:33 |
I was preparing to eat an awesome breakfast for supper when I cracked on an egg and the yoke was white. I pondered on what to do. I checked the date on the eggs and all was well. I was just way too nervous to eat the egg. I too photo’d the egg. I begin searching on the internet and found this blog. So are we saying it is safe to eat?
January 27th, 2011 at 09:57 |
In a word “yes”! I wussed out and didn’t eat mine but then again I couldn’t find any information about them at the time. Apparently they should taste exactly the same as normal. If I ever get another one I’ll be sure to try it!
February 5th, 2011 at 22:35 |
I was making banana, coconut and choc chip muffins yesterday and cracked a white-yolk egg. These eggs were free-range certified organic, and the rest of the batch was fine. It was a bit of a shock! I didn’t use it in the muffins.
Brisbane, Australia.
February 5th, 2011 at 22:37 |
Welcome to the club!
But you didn’t say if the muffins were nice!
February 9th, 2011 at 05:05 |
I find it funny that you are the only useful hit that comes up in Google when you look up ‘white egg yolk’. I’m glad to find that it’s perfectly safe… it was definitely weird though!
February 10th, 2011 at 02:29 |
Came across your blog when I was looking for a picture of a white yolk. It’s an old post, but here goes anyway…
White (or platinum) yolks are diet related. It’s because their feed doesn’t enough plant compounds called xanthophylls. They are probably eating a low-quality diet of barley and/or wheat, which contains no color compounds. A lot of commercial egg producers will add marigold to their chickens feed to add to the color.
I raise free-range hens, and they all lay very orange yolks because of the high ratio of plants to grains in their diet. During the winter the yolks become paler as they rely more heavily on their feed.
February 10th, 2011 at 10:44 |
Read the comment and you’ll find it’s a little more complex than that. Usually a white yolk appears in a batch of yellow ones rather than a hen consistently laying white eggs as a result of a particular diet.
February 13th, 2011 at 03:18 |
Seems the Japanese food company Q.P. Corporation developed white yolked eggs commercially back in 2004 for confectionery companies. There’s speculation elsewhere on the web that the hens’ diets are rice based to achieve the near-white yolks.
http://www.life.com/image/51375424
http://www.life.com/image/51375420
February 13th, 2011 at 16:07 |
That takes all the fun away if you know you’re getting a white egg yolk! Interesting though.
February 15th, 2011 at 08:33 |
I just hard boiled an egg, and when I cut it open, the yolk was white. I looked on Wkipedia, and it says it’s lack of colour in the food the chicken eats. If it eats corn, and grains very yellow in colour, the more yellow the yolk. A diet on plainer coloured seeds or grains, will produce a whiter yolk. Harmless, and tastes exactly the same.
March 7th, 2011 at 22:13 |
This must be a regional thing, because I just got back from climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and every day on the mountain they served us eggs with white yolks! When they fried the eggs–all white. When they hard-boiled the eggs–again, all white. I wonder if it has something to do with iron loving parasites? Isn’t the yellow part where all the fat and iron are? And this is what parasites love. I know that Tanzania is known for having loads of parasites (I’m intimately familiar, as I managed to get a souvenir that’s most memorable…belly rumbles and smelly things and such) so could it be that even the chickens are infected and anemic??
March 24th, 2011 at 04:13 |
From my experience (farm boy), a hen that lays an egg with a white yolk typically has worms. It’s the worms that wind up eating the vitamin A that colors egg yolks.
March 24th, 2011 at 12:35 |
Have you come across many of them? They still seem to be pretty rare.
March 29th, 2011 at 01:35 |
I ate one, in fact I have now eaten two in my lifetime. I am hoping they give me super powers of sorts.
April 2nd, 2011 at 00:29 |
The second of my two poached at home this morning in Melbounre (OZ) was white. It might have been the most unappetizing thing I have seen on my plate. I think it’s because a perfectly poached free range egg’s got to be one of life’s simple pleasures. Needless to say I even spared the dog (who loves an egg!)from the fate of eating the white yoked egg.
April 8th, 2011 at 15:42 |
My wife and I have been in Kenya for several weeks. Breakfasts almost always include eggs. We have not had an egg with a yellow yolk yet. White seems to be the normal color here. The cooked yolk has the consistency of the familiar yellow yolk, but it is not nearly as flavorful. I found this site by Googling to see if anyone anywhere else had encountered white yolks.
April 9th, 2011 at 19:30 |
I found a white egg yolk today. Used it to make french toast. Gobbled it down. I have a photo as well, will try to upload it.
April 9th, 2011 at 19:37 |
Cool! Just drop me a mail and I’ll update your comment with it if you like.
April 17th, 2011 at 21:43 |
I boiled some eggs last week and put them in the fridge for later use. As I was slicing one up to put in my salad today I was shocked to see the yolk part was not its normal yellowish hue…it was completely white. In my 30+ years of life have never seen a white egg yolk, I’ve seen greenish hues from over boiling. So to the web I came to check out why the egg yolk was white and if it was safe. I came across all these stories of white egg yolks. It’s fascinating. I have to say it didn’t look too appetizing but it’s good to know that it appears safe to eat although Jon’s blog about the worms gives me pause.
Anyway, thanks for the blogs. (BTW I’m in NJ, USA and these were Egglands Best Organic Eggs.)
April 26th, 2011 at 03:20 |
i see their is no comment since 2008, well here we are 2011 in new york and i just found a white egg yolk , glas to see this website since this was a first for me, and like some of you i beleive this was to be an albino egg.
April 26th, 2011 at 09:25 |
Actually the comments continue to appear so white egg yolks do keep cropping up – you were only looking at the oldest comments.
April 28th, 2011 at 09:14 |
Hello, I’m in Alsace, France. I don’t like supermarket eggs where the hens have probably lived a life shut in a cage and pecking each other’s feathers out, then to be shipped for animal food at the end of their laying lives. I only buy eggs from free range hens who have at least had a good life, from a health food shop or farm. One day my husband bought what were classed as ‘Bio’ eggs from a supermarket. One yolk was white, pure white! I attribute that to the hens being fed a poor diet, the supermarkets are interested in profit, they don’t care about animal welfare much! I threw the egg in the bin. I’d rather have no eggs than buy them from a supermarket.
April 30th, 2011 at 22:44 |
We just found a white yolk also. We are in Colorado, U.S.
May 5th, 2011 at 19:12 |
My grandmother used to say that chickens need to eat grasshoppers in order to have yellow yolks. Later, I learned it was the sulfer in the yolk that turned it yellow. So maybe some of those chickens aren’t getting enough grasshoppers/sulfer.
May 5th, 2011 at 23:20 |
I found a white yolk today, first time ever, but one of those horrible ones someone else described with the tough wrinkled membrane instead of smooth like a normal yolk. I fished it out and threw it away but some of the white was in the bowl and we ate it anyway rather than throw the lot out. I’ll let you know if we survive…
Wish I’d taken a photo but I didn’t think. And why are there no other sites about white yolks???
May 10th, 2011 at 16:36 |
I had one this morning, but it was COMPLETELY CLEAR!!!! I ate it because it looked so GOOD. I am glad to know I won’t die:) I tool a picture of the end product but I’m not sure how to post it.
May 10th, 2011 at 17:33 |
Just email me it, my address is on my contact page.
May 21st, 2011 at 02:49 |
I have 8 laying hens black sex links and red rock they lay brown shell eggs one of my hens started laying a liter shelled egg that egg has a white yoke I eat them since I know they are fresh eggs Haven’t died yet been using them about 3 months
May 21st, 2011 at 02:56 |
when i let my hens out around the barn for several days i noticed when they eat lots of grass and forrage a lot the eggs yokes are deep yellow but the one egg that is usually white has just a little color to it i can tell which egg it is when i get them out of the nests
May 25th, 2011 at 23:49 |
Cracked of an egg for some fried rice, white yolk…hence this post. I’ve had double yolks before but an albino egg..wonder if could have been because of that.
May 30th, 2011 at 18:25 |
Hi, just googled and found this site. I am my younger sister were wondering why a half crate of eggs we bought all had white yolks. Of course since we always buy eggs from a reliable source, we ate them though we prefare the good old yellow yolks. It is a global issue and by the way, we are from and live in Nigeria.
June 22nd, 2011 at 10:56 |
I am from Herzegovina,and few days ago we also found egg with white yolk…I find out that only one hen is laying those eggs,all others are laying ”normal” egs with orange yolk…I feed them with wheat,plants from the garden such as cabbage,chard & zucchini,i give them mixture for laying hens,bran,and I laso give them corn,but last bag of corn that I bought they don’t want to eat,just a little!?…These yolks on picture loos just like this that I found..Are there any news about this?..
July 6th, 2011 at 13:11 |
My Blue Maran hen has started to consistently lay eggs with white yolks. Don’t think this can be down to diet as she is fed on Layer’s pellets, corn, kitchen scraps and free ranges, and our other chickens are laying eggs with yellow yolks. I personally prefer yellow yolks as they look tastier, so tend to keep this chicken’s eggs for cakes. Very strange because she originally layed normal eggs! I wish someone could come up with an explanation.
August 8th, 2011 at 11:02 |
I know that yolk colour is related to what the hen eats (My hens free range when I can let them out, and when the grass is green we get really bright rich colour)
I also know that farmed hens are given a food supplement to colour their yolks because they cannot get access to green grass.
but if a hen is given the same food as her pecking mates and produces a different egg..that is very interesting!
August 25th, 2011 at 10:22 |
Like many of you I came across a white yoked egg (hard boiled). Passed the sniff test so I ate it. Then started to wonder if it was safe lol. Thanks for all the information that you all posted. -jw
August 30th, 2011 at 16:04 |
I made a dozen hard boiled eggs & when I sliced one open the yolk was white. I was hesitant to eat it but did since it smelled fine & had the same consistancy of the yellow one. I get all organic eggs from my milkman so the eggs are usually different sizes & colors but the yolks are always yellow. Glad to find out I’m not the only one who found one. By the way I’m in Wisconsin.
September 2nd, 2011 at 06:00 |
I just cut open 3 boiled eggs to make egg salad and all 3 had white eggs yolks, Toronto Ontario
September 7th, 2011 at 17:15 |
I buy eggs from farm ‘free range’ and have just made the kids fried egg sarnie! 1 of the yolks was WHITE!! i gave it to my oldest daughter (Stronger tummy outta the two) and like many others ran straight to comp to google this bizzare thing!! Lol. I’m not sure if i could have eaten it myself……just ‘looks’ weird!! Lol.
September 11th, 2011 at 14:16 |
Well I just thought I do some googling and landed here. Im in South Sudan for business and I was having breakfast and came across boiled eggs most of the eggs yolks were white and some slightly pale yellow. At first it did put me off but it tasted like any other egg. I’m not to sure if it can be lack of nutrients cause the food all here is fresh and straight from the farm, but I read some where if the hens eat white corn there eggs will have a white egg yolks. Who knows…
September 14th, 2011 at 17:55 |
Hallo,
I live in Belgium. I keep my own (brown)chicken. They can walk free in a prairy of more dan 10.000 m².
One of them gives eggs with white yolks, all the time. She looks perfectly normal and healthy.
I eat them.
(sorry if my English has a bit an unusual colour…)
September 19th, 2011 at 00:15 |
I guess I’m now an official member of the “Albino White Egg Yolk Society.” Today after boiling 6 eggs for lunch with my salad, I was surprised to discover that one of the six had an albino white yolk. Maybe I should go buy some lottery tickets now! Is this a sign of good fortune?
I decided not to eat it, though it seemed perfectly ok. Here’s a picture:
September 19th, 2011 at 00:17 |
Ooops… seems the blog ate my white egg yolk photo. I’ll try again:
http://dailygangster.com/static/css/i/white-egg-yolk.jpgwhite-egg-yolk.jpg
September 19th, 2011 at 00:18 |
Dang…. one more time. Drum roll please. The white egg yolk photo:
http://dailygangster.com/static/css/i/white-egg-yolk.jpg
September 22nd, 2011 at 13:12 |
I’m surprised to read all these comments about how rare it is. I buy farm fresh eggs from a couple of farmers north of Toronto in Canada. One in particular has very white egg yolks from a number of chickens that he has. It seems that the fresher the eggs the whiter the yolks. I have kept the eggs in my fridge for some time… weeks, and I find the yolk gets yellower with age.
I think we are just used to really old eggs from the grocery store.
September 22nd, 2011 at 16:26 |
Hi All,
Well, today I got an all white egg too.
I boiled some eggs, and one of them was pure, pure white.
The consistency and flavor are exactly like a normal yolk just white.
I called it my albino yolk. Ate half and then started reading this blog and got a little freaked out.
I don’t see why it would be harmful, it tastes great and it came from a farmers stand we pick our eggs up at down the road.
We live in Victoria, BC – Canada
September 25th, 2011 at 19:03 |
Just cracked open one of these things today! Went to make an omlete with 2 jumbo size eggs. First egg was perfect. The second was a double yolk with one yolk normal and the other WHITE. It was pure white with no tint and held it’s round shape like a ball. Seperated it from the others and held it. It felt firm but spongey.
September 28th, 2011 at 17:13 |
Today I bit into a scotch egg. At first I thought that I had discovered the-egg-with-the-neverending-white!
Alas no… On closer inspection I found that there was indeed a yolk, which had the consistency of a yolk, but the colour associated with a white – White!
Could the yolk have been bleached by the harsh scotching process?
October 3rd, 2011 at 12:07 |
I decided to make my two-year-old son and myself a ham omelette for lunch, the third egg into the bowl had a white yolk! After reading a few stories on here I went ahead and cooked it… will update if there are any ill effects, but tasted just fine. Nicola – Kent, UK
October 10th, 2011 at 17:31 |
My family just finished a breakfast that included an entire egg carton full of white yolk eggs. Never seen this before….very strange, but they tasted fine.
October 13th, 2011 at 14:10 |
I cracked an egg today with a white yolk, but mixed it in with a second ordinary egg and made an omlette. May be a coincidence but I have had stomach cramps and an upset stomach for the past 2 hours !!!