Are the chicken eggs that we eat actually chicken embryos?

Question

Are the chicken eggs that we eat actually chicken embryos?

Answer 1

Good grief!

The chicken eggs you buy in a regular supermarket are unfertilized and therefore not an embryo.

For those of you who are insisting that they are fertilized because you have found a blood spot or two... There are 2 circumstances where blood spots form in eggs. The first is that the egg has been fertilized and a chicken embryo is in formation. The second is that a tissue irregularity in the hen caused a small amount of blood to be deposited in the egg. In the U.S., since there are no roosters in the egg-laying coop, only the latter occurs, and incidence of that is relatively low (less than 1% of all eggs will have a blood spot).  In the laying industry the blood spot is sometimes referred to an inclusion.

United States government regulations require that Grade A and Grade AA table eggs be checked for blood spots in a process commonly referred to as candling (although it is now done with an infrared light) before eggs can be sold to the consumer as grade A or AA. Thus the incidence of blood spotting in grade A or AA table eggs is very, very small in the United States (perhaps as low as one in 1,000). Eggs with blood spots (or other deformities) are marketed as grade B eggs, which are then sold to commercial manufacturing plants to be used as ingredient in manufactured items.

http://www.smm.org/buzz/blog/the_chicken...

Answer 2

No, they're unfertilized eggs.

Answer 3

No, they are not fertilized... it means that the hen was not around a rooster.

Don't worry, you're not eating chicks.

Here's some Wikipedia... the guy above me should learn how to read:

Most commercially produced chicken eggs intended for human consumption are unfertilized, since the laying hens are kept without roosters. Fertile eggs can be purchased and eaten as well, with little nutritional difference. Fertile eggs will not contain a developed embryo, as refrigeration prohibits cellular growth for an extended amount of time.

Answer 4

Sorry, but it is true!!! You are eating the embryos!!!!!!!!!

Answer 5

In short, yes.

Answer 6

Eggs from hens who are kept in cages are never fertilized, but strangely enough free range eggs often are. That's what I eat, and I almost always find a little red speck in mine. That's an embryo- although the eggs are refrigerated before too much development goes on.

Answer 7

whosafishy is correct.  the eggs you buy are unfertilized, so they do not contain an embryo