One Dozen Trader Joe's Eggs, Each with a Double Yolk

Happy Easter! Let us proclaim the mystery of eggs.
This photo comes to us from Luca B., who says, "So we were making a batch of deviled eggs (yum) as an Easter hor d'oeuvre when we discovered that every egg we had hard-boiled then peeled contained a double yolk! (Purchased from the Trader Joe's in Brooklyn.)"
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68 Comments:
Double yolks are pretty common in jumbo eggs
Luther at 4:31PM on 04/12/09
@Luther: Come on. Maybe one or two, but ALL TWELVE? This is pretty crazy.
Adam Kuban at 4:50PM on 04/12/09
This is one of my greatest dreams. I love yolks, hate whites. I will search the land for double-yolked eggs!
verak at 5:12PM on 04/12/09
Isn't this a sign of the apocalypse?
DaveFaris at 5:18PM on 04/12/09
It is weird, but it's happened to me twice in about 30 years of cooking.
99203 at 5:28PM on 04/12/09
I dunno ... either this is really, really cool ... or the yolk's on SE ... ;-)
LunaPierCook at 5:48PM on 04/12/09
Were there "666" on the shells prior to boiling?
carriesmom at 6:03PM on 04/12/09
wow, how do they select for double-yolk ones?
hmw0029 at 6:06PM on 04/12/09
seriously weird!!! Might make think twice about eating them for some reason
Edwardkimuk at 6:07PM on 04/12/09
They come from first year laying hens. These girls are novices. Next year they will lay one yolk eggs. Talk to your local farmer and he should confirm this.
janaatwg at 6:08PM on 04/12/09
We've had this happen too, and it was Trader Joe's eggs. Hmm....
amanda0730 at 6:09PM on 04/12/09
Had to confirm my info and the first year laying hens are called pullets, like cows are called heifers when they calf for the first time.
janaatwg at 6:19PM on 04/12/09
I just bought a dozen jumbos from Food Emporium (Union Square), and the first 2 I cracked also had double yolks. I'm afraid to bust up any more of them!
drmoze at 6:19PM on 04/12/09
Don't be afraid to eat these eggs. It is common. Nothing freaky, nothing poisonous. It is what it is. I think of it as a sign of good luck.
janaatwg at 6:24PM on 04/12/09
Each egg was a twin...Twin baby chicks.
Cute and fuzzy.
I don't think I can eat eggs again...
paris221966 at 6:53PM on 04/12/09
Did you buy them on April Fools?? ;)
lg7788a at 7:01PM on 04/12/09
Here in London, I've seen six packs of double yolk eggs (labelled on the pack) being sold. So there must be a way of checking the eggs...
sulin at 7:04PM on 04/12/09
This happened to me once with a box of eggs from Earthbound, an organic food shop in Bristol (UK). As a few people have said, young hens lay double-yolked eggs.
Spielo at 7:16PM on 04/12/09
@sulin: I'm pretty sure most big egg producers use a computerized candling process to look through the shell to check for defects -- undeveloped chicks, blood, double yolks, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candling
http://www.ausagservices.com.au/hatchery-automation.html
Not sure why a TJ's dozen would have all double yolks though. Maybe their buyer gets them at a discount.
BrianPrestonCampbell at 7:20PM on 04/12/09
I remember seeing a show on egg producers and they check for the double yolk and remove them. I have eaten, cooked, openned 25 dozen each weekend day for a restaurant and have never seen a double yolk
DCLSweetspot at 7:22PM on 04/12/09
Pretty cool--perhaps a good omen, or a sign that twins may be in someone's future-- at least that's what my great aunt always said of double yolks.
dhorst at 7:27PM on 04/12/09
I think people arent qiuite getting things to add up. Here's the thing:
Hens lay on average, one egg every day.
When they are new to egg-laying, they do so less frequently, probably because their bodies arent quite in sync yet.
The egg production doesnt always happen at the same rate as shell production.
That means, if they arent laying (i.e. making shell) as fast as the egg part is being produced, their eggs are going to be double-yolk. This means they will lay bigger eggs.
Since eggs are sorted by weight, Jumbo eggs tend to have double-yolks more often.
If you don't buy/use Jumbo eggs, you probably wont see them. If an egg production place chooses to sort and pull all the double-yolked eggs and use them for other stuff, then... you'd never see them.
You should never find an chick in an egg (unless its purposeful like in balut) because the hens are kept separate from the roosters..
:]
My mom always told us that finding a double yolk was good luck.
engmcmuffin at 7:32PM on 04/12/09
You're very very lucky! Consider this a special Easter treat!
fuuchan at 8:13PM on 04/12/09
are these chickens on fertility drugs?????
pooch at 9:28PM on 04/12/09
Ooh that's kind of creepy.
24 yolks! Think of it as a good deal.
Baking and Mistaking
cool2bars at 9:30PM on 04/12/09
I had a double yolk today. Same deal - was making deviled eggs. Awesome.
shoneyjoe at 9:40PM on 04/12/09
Interesting mutation. I wonder if these double yolk eggs can actually produce live births if fertilized.
I mean, would there be room in the egg for two chicks? Aside from that, it could just a mutation that gives double yolk sacs but not two ova.
wunami at 10:39PM on 04/12/09
Does anyone understand that double yolks in eggs in the spring is a natural occurance? I am still reading comments that lend the idea that this is a freak of nature. We had eggs delivered each week for years from the local farmer. Pullets-first year layers is the answer. Not God, not Trader Joe's no matter how great their bean dips are.
janaatwg at 10:40PM on 04/12/09
@janaatwg: It's not so much that it's a freak of nature — it's not. It's that ALL TWELVE were doubled.
Adam Kuban at 10:43PM on 04/12/09
same exact thing happened to me a couple of months ago, bought from the brooklyn trader joe's...
sararose at 11:01PM on 04/12/09
I had a double yolk in one of the eggs i was cooking up at work for lunch the other day.
libbyk at 12:05AM on 04/13/09
A restaurant that was close to where I lived when I was a kid always had double-yolked eggs. So, if you got 2 eggs over easy, it looked like you were getting 4 eggs instead of two because of the yolks. I always thought it was kind of a cool thing.
I'd suppose that the double-yolked ones might be separated out if there were customers who specifically wanted them.
I wonder if the yolk-to-white ratio is different.
dbcurrie at 12:28AM on 04/13/09
creeeeepy!
dharmon at 7:21AM on 04/13/09
Adam-Still not that extraordinary. They came from the same supplier. There are huge production farms in lower De. for the purpose of supplying this type of product which is considered premium now. It used to just be a normal course of production of the farms out my way. Still is when I visit my local Amish farmer for my fresh eggs.
janaatwg at 8:14AM on 04/13/09
only the best at TJ's... yeah right
justcook at 8:17AM on 04/13/09
Eww. That's just too many yolks in one carton. One or two double yolks? A pleasant surprise. But all twelve? That's just too much of a good thing.
leeber at 10:15AM on 04/13/09
I think you should take this as a sign that you will have good luck for the rest of the year! :)
Martini Me at 10:15AM on 04/13/09
I buy my eggs at Trader Joe's (in Philadelphia) and have a double yolk in just about every dozen. Sometimes two or three. I always thought it was a sign of good luck, but the whole dozen! I dunno about that.
giantpinkdot at 11:16AM on 04/13/09
this is sick. really sick.
caperberry at 12:31PM on 04/13/09
This is so weird...I bought a dozen eggs at Fairway the other day from the same farm and they all came out with two yolks. There was no discernible difference in taste or texture.
asg749d at 12:36PM on 04/13/09
Maybe this is part of the stimulus package???! :)
asg749d at 12:37PM on 04/13/09
at this co-op that i shop at they sell fertilized and unfertilized eggs and the fertilized ones have double yolks, but the unfertilized ones don't....maybe you are eating fertilized eggs?
satchmo at 1:04PM on 04/13/09
Wow, I have never come across 1 let alone an entire dozen.
FrostyGhost at 1:15PM on 04/13/09
Chernobyl Egg Company...
Truff at 2:20PM on 04/13/09
This reminds me of my bell pepper teratoma:
http://www.artifacting.com/blog/2009/03/25/bell-pepper-teratoma/
iamhubs at 2:35PM on 04/13/09
At the farmers market I go to in Dallas one of the farmers seperates out the double yolked eggs and you can buy those by the dozen.
MixedByHand at 3:31PM on 04/13/09
I am getting a real chuckle from these comments. Kids, it really is just pullets, though Chernobyl has to be a great name for a company of something weird.
janaatwg at 3:32PM on 04/13/09
Kinda reminds me - new meaning for the term Octo-mom!
zina1017 at 3:38PM on 04/13/09
Dude that is really creepy. Verrryyy creepy.
avocadoboba at 7:02PM on 04/13/09
thanks to janaatwg for the enlightening info! I believe in scientific facts too :) well, janaatg, can you help me answer this question: my mom cracked an egg with the egg white part a neonish yellow!!!??? we didn't eat it because it looked kinda toxic...
Floodgate11 at 8:36PM on 04/13/09
that ain't right, and i'm from a chicken farm...
arobotar at 9:11PM on 04/13/09
Whenever I buy jumbo eggs at a local ShopRite, ALL of them always have double yolks, with a very rare exception. I'm not talking about one dozen here - every dozen I buy from there, and it's been this way for at least a couple of years. I don't understand what exactly is sick or creepy about it.
brooke29 at 11:27PM on 04/13/09
Echoing brooke29 here...why is this in any way sick or scary? The answer was given...first year layers often lay double yolked eggs. If the eggs all came from the same producer from a certain batch of layers at a certain time, this will happen.
All kinds of crazy things can be laid by inexperienced hens...try...shell-less eggs!
I guess we're all just too used to industrial, sterile food so that when things get back to nature and start looking a little less uniform we think its SICK?
Factory farms sort out all the eggs that don't meet the textbook image of what an egg should be. Eggs that are too long, too squat, too big, too small, unevenly shaped or colored are all picked out in order not to freak out the oh so fragile consumer.
Egg laying is a complex process...you can bet all the things coming out of the hens aren't picture perfect.
fuuchan at 3:11AM on 04/14/09
This just FREAKS ME OUT!
Hunnyoil at 3:32PM on 04/14/09
so they're twins right?
nindi_18 at 8:43PM on 04/14/09
Total jackpot! Thanks for all the info, guys. My SO LOVES yolks and so do I. I usually don't get jumbo or buy eggs at TJ's but you better believe I am going to do so from now. I have stumbled upon a few double yolks before and was always totally stoked. I would consider myself very lucky to find a whole carton of doubles. Nothing freaky here, just delicious!
malice88alice at 8:06PM on 04/15/09
Find me that rooster!
SpandTex Pants at 9:58AM on 04/20/09
It's a government plot to get everyone to switch to artificial eggs produced in a secret laboratory underground in area 52 next to area 51, using toxic waste. It's all so simple.
shipwreck at 12:38PM on 04/20/09
@shipwreck-It could happen. Keep writing those intrigue/spy novels.
@floodgate11-I think that was a "way too long at the coop" kind of egg.
janaatwg at 2:02PM on 04/20/09
I need to share my own double-yolk experience. I live in Paris. I often buy cartons of 30 eggs from our cheese/dairy vendor at the outdoor market. Two weeks ago, every single egg out of 30 had a double yolk. I couldn't believe it! The next time I talked to the vendor, I explained what happened & he said it was normal & that you'll find "twins" in the larger, longer eggs.
So, thanks to the previous comments for reassuring everyone that this is actually nature! And explaining why. Between you & my vendor, I feel no more fear with multiple double-eggs in the same carton! Not a freak thing after all.
girlcookinparis at 9:06AM on 04/21/09
I have never seen a double yoked egg! I remember first hearing about them in an episode of Little House on the Prairie and always wondering if they really exist... Funny how things stick in our memory.
ddvierra68 at 3:18PM on 04/21/09
Same thing just happened to me! I bought the eggs last night from TJs, but they're only large, not jumbo. Weird!
athom at 8:37AM on 05/06/09
This is so fun!! Lucky you! :)
CaseyJane at 11:15PM on 05/22/09
when i was a kid we had a chook (that's what we call chickens in AUS) that laid double-yolkers every time
jayavant at 11:25PM on 05/23/09
THE same exact thing has happened to me!One dozen double yolks in the same dozen.My purchase was from TRADER JOES in SAN DIEGO in May 2009.The eggs are jumbo.
MIKE987 at 1:29PM on 05/25/09
When I was young and impoverished I used to work in an egg packing factory, a horrible job, but it paid well. As people like their eggs uniform my job was to check that the eggs were all the same - they would pass in front of me on a metal grid and a bright light was shone through the eggshells.
Any non-uniform eggs - double yolkers, part fertilised, deformed shells, that sort of thing, were snatched from the line and thrown into a big vat, and taken off to be dried to make egg powder and used in cake manufacturing
Could the egg checker in this case have meant to put the double yolkers on one side for disposal, but made a mistake and packed them instead?
benjy657 at 5:28PM on 08/07/09
Whoa - I want that dozen of eggs!!! The yolk is my favorite part!
Giasbash6260 at 9:15PM on 10/07/09
We bought a flat (20) last week from a local organic market and had the same thing happen. All 20 eggs were double yolked. It was the weirdest thing.
dkek1 at 2:34PM on 10/11/09