Should You Eat Parrot Eggs? Reddit Is Debating The Topic

A Reddit user recently ate an egg from her pet parrot, and the internet has been squawking about it ever since. Redditor asatoaf, who Newsweek later identified as Bety Asato from Mexico, started off the post by saying "my parrot laid an egg, it's unfertilized so I ate it." She accompanied this statement with pictures of her green bird, as well as the egg being boiled and broken in half on a plate before she ate it. When a user asked how it tasted, she replied: "Texture: A little bit softer than a hard boiled egg Taste: just like a hardboiled egg, not bad."

The polarizing post has accumulated more than 3,500 comments. "This might be the worst thing I've ever seen on the internet," said adm0210. "Why does this gross me out even though I know full well that there's no reason it should?" wrote Sanguiluna. After the news spread to The Takeout, reader I Miss Splinter said: "I don't see a problem here. Eggs are eggs."

The fact that we're used to thinking of parrots as pets and not as food producers like other fowl might be behind some of the sensitivity to Asato's Reddit post. "I'm thinking this is probably some variation of the Uncanny, where you have a blend of something familiar with something unfamiliar and the result ends up being disconcerting," said Sanguiluna. "It's a hardboiled egg which we're all familiar with, but it came from an unfamiliar source that we don't associate with eggs the way we do with chickens or ducks."

In the Reddit thread, CaveManta wondered: "You cooked the egg? How did you pre parrot?" Turns out you can cook parrot eggs just like chicken eggs, according to Parrot Website. You can boil them, like Asato did; you can also fry them, poach them, or use them to make omelets. Because parrots are small, it takes about three to five parrot eggs to equal one chicken egg. That's one of the reasons parrot eggs aren't a common source of food, according to a Quora discussion. 

Plus, they're not very productive. Some chickens can lay about one egg a day for much of the year, according to K&H Pet Products. Compared to poultry, parrot's production is much more paltry. They only lay two to four eggs a year, says All About Parrots. So although you can eat their eggs, they're probably better off as pets.

If you're going to eat parrot eggs, make sure to prepare them in a way that reduces the risk of food poisoning, just like you would with any other type of egg. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends keeping eggs refrigerated, cooking them until the yolks and whites are firm, and washing your hands after handling raw eggs. While parrot eggs aren't likely to poison you, if the internet is any indication you still may have to deal with grossed-out friends and family. Now, we have to wonder: did Paula Deen ever eat her parrot's eggs?