The horror, the horror

January 3, 2012 8:47 AM

What is this thing in my hard boiled egg?

For scale, the eggs are large. The thing was stiff like plastic, and could not be pried out of the white.

(The egg was not eaten; it was screamed at in horror and then hurriedly thrown away.)

posted by hmo to Food & Drink (10 answers total)

Not really sure as I can't see the picture, but with fertilized eggs it's not totally unheard of to get eggs that have started developing chicks-- a haphazard claw there, a beak here, an eye or an organ or what-have-you. This is one of the reasons that eggs are "candled" or inspected through their shells with a light behind them before they are sold; so that any eggs containing extra parts (they show up as opaque spots-- the whole thing works a bit like an x-ray) can be disposed of. Is it possible you were eating a fertilized egg?
posted by WidgetAlley at 9:02 AM on January 3, 2012

Response by poster: Sorry! It can be viewed here:

http://i42.tinypic.com/2n8wy8m.jpg
posted by hmo at 9:15 AM on January 3, 2012

Best answer: I think it is a bloodspot. You can google it to find out more. If it is a bloodspot, it should not be an issue and is safe to eat.
posted by catseatcheese at 9:19 AM on January 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Does this help?

Does a blood spot mean an egg is contaminated?

No. You can’t see bacteria with the naked eye. Blood or meat spots are occasionally found on an egg yolk and are merely an error on the part of the hen. They’re caused by the rupture of a blood vessel on the yolk surface when it’s being formed or by a similar accident in the wall of the oviduct. Most eggs with blood spots are detected by electronic spotters and never reach the market. But, even with mass scanners, it’s impossible to catch them all. Both chemically and nutritionally, eggs with blood spots are fit to eat. You can remove the spot with the tip of a knife, if you wish.

posted by Houstonian at 9:20 AM on January 3, 2012 [3 favorites]

And for the record, many people think that eggs with bloodspots are fertilized -- they are not. Egg-laying hens are very likely not exposed to roosters with any sort of regularity -- the breeding would happen separate from the edible egg producing.
posted by brainmouse at 10:01 AM on January 3, 2012

I was expecting to see something truly terrifying, but that? That is a bloodspot. I probably would have just eaten it, or at least cut it out and eaten the rest of the egg.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 10:48 AM on January 3, 2012 [5 favorites]

The little red thing? Just a bit of blood. These are really, really common in eggs so I'm surprised you're surprised by it. I usually have my eggs poached, fried or scrambled so I hook these out with a spoon if I see one that looks big enough to be unsightly.
posted by Decani at 11:42 AM on January 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Agreed with all the above posters. At the sake of outing myself as a gross person, the eggs we get from our CSA has these from time to time and, while we will attempt to remove them from time to time we are by no means anal about it, have caused us no harm in scrambled eggs/omletts/non-pasteurized eggnog (1x or 2x a year).
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:33 PM on January 3, 2012

Best answer: Yeah, it's a blood spot. I'm not surprised you're surprised by it though, because I almost never see them show up in store-bought eggs. When I was a kid we used to get blood spots all the time in the eggs from our own chooks, though. It's no indication of quality and we used to eat them all the time, although now I am all citified I would probably scoop it out if I came across one :)
posted by andraste at 1:43 PM on January 3, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yes. More of my eggs have that than not. (Australian free-range eggs). Blood spots are totally harmless and I generally eat them.
posted by lollusc at 5:00 PM on January 3, 2012 [1 favorite]