Can You Really Hatch A Chick From Trader Joe's Eggs?

Eggs are classic kitchen staples, something everyone has hanging around somewhere in their fridge. But they're also the only kitchen staple that contains something that could have been a living, breathing organism: Flour and sugar were never going to get up and walk around. So does that mean the eggs you have on hand could turn into a fully functional chicken?

Strangely, multiple people have attempted to definitively answer this question recently on TikTok. A kindergarten teacher in California and a mom somewhere else in America both recently claimed to have hatched chickens from eggs they bought at Trader Joe's. The teacher, Alice Bowie, decided to do it as an experiment while incubating eggs for her class, while the mom, Rachel Dornik, seems to have just done it for fun.

But despite the video evidence, are the two telling the truth? Can you actually hatch chickens from commercial eggs? Turns out, the answer is a little more complicated than simply "yes" or "no."

We're not dealing with simple answers here. Can any old supermarket egg hatch a chicken? According to Michigan State University, the answer to that question is no. It is "generally not possible" to hatch eggs from the supermarket because eggs need to be fertilized in order to have the possibility of hatching. Most grocery store eggs come from poultry farms where hens are induced to lay eggs using specific nutrients. Most of these hens have never been near a rooster, and you couldn't hatch their eggs given all the technology in the world.

Trader Joe's, though, sources its eggs from a company in New Hampshire called Carol's Eggs, which produces its eggs naturally — without the use of artificial egg farming techniques. As such, these eggs are fertilized as normal. So in all likelihood (especially considering they have video evidence), both Bowie and Dornik are being truthful: They did, in fact, hatch chickens from Trader Joe's eggs.

Perhaps the strangest thing in all of this is just how many people seem horrified by the concept that their eggs could grow chickens. "Now I'll never eat eggs again," read one comment on Bowie's video. "I ran to my fridge to make sure I didn't buy fertile eggs" and "Welp, I [was] already on the fence about eating eggs. That was it for me," claimed two people on Dornik's. Considering that producing new chickens is the entire reason for the existence of eggs, it seems odd people would have a problem with it. Do people believe steaks grow from supermarket shelves?

It's important to note that there are no health hazards whatsoever from eating eggs that could theoretically have become a chicken. You are not going to eat a McMuffin and wind up with a rooster in your stomach. Eggs are eggs, and fertilized eggs are not unhealthy. Even if an egg was partially fertilized, you would know when you cracked the shell and found a partially-formed bird inside. If it looks like an egg, it's an egg, and you should feel free to enjoy it as normal.