Yes, eggs with blood spots are safe to eat. The USDA confirms that blood spots are normal occurrences in eggs and pose no impact on egg safety or quality. You don’t need to throw the egg away, though you can remove the spot with a knife tip if it bothers you.
What Causes Blood Spots in Eggs
A blood spot forms when a tiny blood vessel ruptures inside the hen during egg formation. If the rupture happens early, when the yolk is being released from the ovary, the spot shows up on the yolk. If it happens later, after the egg enters the reproductive tract, the spot appears in the white instead. Either way, the spot is simply a small amount of blood, not a sign of fertilization, contamination, or disease.
You might also find what’s called a “meat spot,” which looks brownish rather than red. Meat spots are bits of tissue or cellular debris that get picked up as the egg travels through the hen. They’re also harmless. Over time, blood spots can fade and start to resemble meat spots as the yolk absorbs water from the surrounding white, diluting the color.
Why You Rarely See Them in Store-Bought Eggs
Commercial egg producers screen eggs using a process called candling. Each egg is held against a bright light in a darkened room, which makes the interior visible through the shell. Workers or automated machines rotate the egg to shift the contents closer to the shell, revealing any blood spots, meat spots, bloody whites, or cracks. Eggs with visible defects get pulled from the batch before they ever reach a store shelf.
This screening is more effective with white-shelled eggs because light passes through them more easily. Brown shells are thicker and darker, making small spots harder to detect. That’s one reason blood spots slip through more often in brown eggs. The other reason is biological: brown-egg breeds are simply more prone to blood spots in the first place, with occurrence rates as high as 18%. White-egg breeds, after decades of selective breeding, have rates around 0.5%.
So if you’ve cracked open a brown egg and found a blood spot, you’re seeing something that the candling process missed. It’s not a sign that the egg is old, mishandled, or lower quality.
How to Handle the Egg
You can cook and eat the egg as you normally would. If the spot is unappealing, scoop it out with the tip of a knife or a spoon before cooking. It lifts off easily, especially from the yolk. The rest of the egg is completely unaffected.
The same basic food safety rules apply to eggs with blood spots as to any other egg. Cook eggs until both the white and yolk are firm, or until the dish reaches 160°F (71°C) internally. This isn’t specifically because of the blood spot. It’s the standard guidance for avoiding bacteria like Salmonella, which can be present on any raw egg regardless of whether it has a spot.
When an Egg Actually Isn’t Safe
A blood spot is cosmetic, not a safety concern. The things that do signal a bad egg are different: a sulfur or off smell when you crack it open, a slimy or unusually watery white, discoloration across the entire egg (not just a small spot), or a cracked shell that may have let bacteria inside. If the egg smells fine and looks normal apart from a small red or brown fleck, it’s perfectly good to use.