After reading so much about the inhumane treatment of chickens on egg farms, I decided a while back to spend the extra money on free-range, vegetarian-fed, etc., eggs. After several years of this, though, I’ve recently switched back to the cheaper, commercial ones, because I’ve found that the ‘humane’ versions are full of blood spots. I keep kosher, so I check all my egg yolks for blood spots (blood isn’t kosher) before using them, and toss any with a blood spot. I can go through many dozens of regular eggs before finding a blood spot, but I’ve found that several brands of humane eggs may contain six blood-spotted eggs out of twelve. The frequency of blood spots has been going up lately, as well, in the three different brands I’ve tried - a few years ago, it might be one per box (which I can deal with), but now it’s at least three or four.
Why would these eggs have more blood spots on them? Is it how the chickens are raised, or (as my father, raised on an egg farm in the fifties and sixties claims) is it poor quality control? Are they now selling more blood-spotted eggs because eggs have gotten so expensive?
These are really, really tiny bloodspots, mostly about the size of the periods on this page. If they are the result of fertilization, why do I see them (rarely) in factory-farm raised eggs? Presumably, those chickens never get out of their cages at all, and certainly never even see a rooster.
It is a mark of fertilization. I have never seen it on factory-farm raised eggs.
Are you sure you’re not mis-remembering? If not, the factory farm from which you are buying your eggs has a canny rooster on the prowl with a key to the cages.
Yup. I think the issue is that back in the day, when a blood spot really did tend to mean a fertilized embryo, which was definitely not kosher, you had to carefully check any egg and toss those with blood spots. Those raised in ‘modern’ conditions without any roosters around don’t have this issue, and any spot is either not blood, or is the result of the a slight leakage in some internal chicken blood vessel. (Not a phrase I ever thought I’d use.) Ashkenazi Orthodox Jews still check the eggs so as to catch the rare example of the latter (and seriously, until switching to the humane eggs, I’d checked every one of the eggs I’d ever used in about twenty years of baking and cooking, and found maybe four blood spots), so it can be removed. You can even still use the rest of the egg, as long as you take the tiny blood spot off, but it’s kind of a pain to do for half the eggs that you’re using. IME, every kosher cook I’ve ever known has been probably more careful about this than is strictly necessary nowadays, because you’re taught kashrus by your mom (mostly), who was taught by her mom, who was taught by her mom, and thus the chain of tradition may not have kept up with the evolution of modern factory farms.
This has been something like three or four eggs over the course of twenty years. It’s not exactly a common phenomenon. And I’m quite sure I’m not misremembering - finding one caused my mom and brother to gather 'round and ooh and aah over this rarity. My mother never bought free-range eggs, which wouldn’t have been sold in our suburban supermarket about twelve years ago when I was in high school.
I never buy free range chicken eggs, but always use the cheap commercial ones and I too have encountered the occasional blood spot. I always toss the bloody ones too, even though I’m not kosher…it just grosses me out. Not sure what causes it.
As was stated, the “blood specks” indicate fertilization. I have chickens that are “free range”, but I have no rooster. There are no problems with spots.
“Blood spots occur when blood or a bit of tissue is released along with a yolk. Each developing yolk in a hen’s ovary is enclosed in a sack containing blood vessels that supply yolk building substances. When the yolk is mature, it is normally released from the only area of the yolk sac, called the “stigma” or “suture line”, that is free of blood vessels. Occasionally, the yolk sac ruptures at some other point, causing blood vessels to break and blood to appear on the yolk or in the white. As an egg ages, the blood spot becomes paler, so a bright blood spot is a sign that the egg is fresh.”