# Eggs are not chicken? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2003, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eggs-are-not-chicken/161952 "2003-03-17T07:22:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Davebear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@Davebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Davebear)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eggs-are-not-chicken/161952/21 "2003-03-18T00:47:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by emacknight \* > **At which point along that path did the oocyte stop being chicken meat?** There’s the nub of your problem. The oocyte NEVER WAS meat OR a chicken. It had the POTENTIAL to BECOME a chicken, which would have had the POTENTIAL to become meat (most civilized people not considering chickens “meat” until the chickens are dead), but that potential was lost when the egg failed to be fertilized. It lost the POTENTIAL to become a chicken when it passed the point at which it could have been fertilized. At that point, it became, now and forever, JUST an egg. > [@](#): > > **And like you said, a pebble isn’t part of the granite mountain, but it is still granite. If you were told not to build with granite and slate at the same time, would it seem right to say, “this piece of granite fell off, so its not granite any more”? If the chicken’s wing fell off, would it be considered chicken meat?** If I’m understanding this correctly, it’s irrelevant. We’ve moved on from the “parts is parts” argument. > [@](#): > > \*\*I’m not saying the egg is A chicken, I’m saying it IS chicken, or at the very least chicken meat. \*\* We know. We’re saying you’re mistaken, in both a religious sense and a scientific sense. You just don’t want to hear it. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2003, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eggs-are-not-chicken/161952/22 "2003-03-18T00:56:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by **emacknight** > … Shijinn, I like your point that egg white is very much the analogy to milk, it is just protein, produced by the chicken, to feed its developing young, and very liquid. But the yolk, is pure and simply, one big chicken cell, haploid as it may be, it is still a chicken cell, and hence meat. … my point is simpler. don’t know about the jewish diet, but there have been vegetarians from a long way back (BC), and it’s my WAG that there’s three camp. camp A - chicken egg = chicken baby, no eat camp B - meat is wild game that is dead; egg is like milk, can eat camp C - i want my egg, yum yum. no egg = no vegetarians i guess the majority won… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2003, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eggs-are-not-chicken/161952/23 "2003-03-18T02:11:04Z")
> [@](#): > > it is still a chicken cell, and hence meat Is the skeleton meat or bone? Is cartilage meat or gristle? Is blood meat? For the majority of people, _meat_ is _flesh_, which an egg is not. (And, yes, in English “meat” has had a number of different meanings over the years, including as a generic synonym for “food” (meaning celery and ice cream in that instance would be meat), but for the purposes of every dietary law with which I am familiar, meat translates a word meaning flesh–skin or muscle–neither of which are components of egg.) ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2003, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eggs-are-not-chicken/161952/24 "2003-03-18T09:15:07Z")
But one can also eat fertilised eggs, without realising it. IIRC ultra free range eggs (eg from people’s hens living in their back yard, or small individual farmhouses) could be fertilised. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eggs-are-not-chicken/161952.md?page=1)