How does an egg feed its baby chick?
Comparative proteomic analysis of hen egg yolk plasma proteins during embryonic development.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Ovalbumin moves from egg white to yolk only in fertilized eggs after day 14.
Everyone assumes nutrients stay put in the yolk—this study shows proteins actively migrate across egg compartments, which was previously unknown and contradicts the passive-nutrient model.
Practical Takeaways
If you're into sustainable eating, choose fertilized eggs for their more dynamic nutrient profile—some believe they're more nutritionally optimized.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Ovalbumin moves from egg white to yolk only in fertilized eggs after day 14.
Everyone assumes nutrients stay put in the yolk—this study shows proteins actively migrate across egg compartments, which was previously unknown and contradicts the passive-nutrient model.
Practical Takeaways
If you're into sustainable eating, choose fertilized eggs for their more dynamic nutrient profile—some believe they're more nutritionally optimized.
Publication
Journal
Journal of food biochemistry
Year
2019
Authors
Yaqi Meng, Haohao Sun, N. Qiu, F. Geng, Fangli Zhu, Shu-gang Li, Y. Huo
Related Content
Claims (6)
Bird eggs have all the nutrients a baby bird needs to grow from a tiny cell into a fully formed chick inside the shell.
As a chick grows inside the egg, the egg slowly releases more vitamin B2 to help the baby bird grow, and this happens because a special protein that holds the vitamin gets used up after day 14.
When a chicken egg is fertilized and starts to grow, something special happens after day 14: a protein called ovalbumin moves from the egg white into the yolk, but this doesn’t happen in unfertilized eggs. It’s like the growing chick is pulling nutrients from the white to help itself grow.
Scientists found that as a chicken embryo grows inside the egg, the proteins in the yolk change a lot—13 of them become more or less common—showing the yolk is being used up and transformed to feed the growing chick.
In chicken eggs, the yolk changes a lot around day 14 of incubation — that’s when the baby chick starts growing its organs and using up the yolk for food.