Buy Eggs From Anywhere? Not So Fast!

Written by the team of Rabbanim from the Orthodox Union:

Rabbi Eli Gersten, Rabbi Yaakov Luban and Rabbi Moshe Zywica

Can I buy eggs from anywhere?

Eggs from a supermarket are not a problem since it is assumed that they are chicken eggs, typically grown in a commercial henhouse.

What about eggs from a local farmer? Could it be that the egg was hatched from a non-kosher bird or from a bird that has no clear mesorah (tradition) of kashrut?

The Shulchan Aruch (YD 86:2) writes that the custom is to purchase eggs from any farmer without questioning the source or inspecting the shape of the eggs, since typically only the kosher variety of birds are raised for their eggs.

Rama, however, adds that this only applies to eggs that have the appearance of regular chicken eggs. If they look different than regular eggs they should not be bought, even if the farmer insists that they are chicken eggs.

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OU Kosher

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The OU (Orthodox Union) Kosher is the world’s largest and most widely recognized kosher certification agency, certifying close to 1,000,000 products produced in over 9,500 plants located in more than 100 countries around the world.

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