Egg Is Vegetarian Or Non-Vegetarian?
Some people will say that the answer is obvious. Eggs contain life a baby hatches from the egg. So, obviously, the egg is non-vegetarian. But the thing is, eggs are of two types. Haploid eggs are the unfertilized eggs which contain only the female sex cells. These eggs can never produce a baby. The other type is Diploid eggs, which are produced after mating. Here, male cells fertilize female sex cells and babies hatch from these eggs. And we often associate this process of fertilization with reproduction.
But do you know that there are many plants many plants and animal species that can reproduce without fertilization too? This is called Parthenogenesis and in these cases, even an unfertilized egg can give birth to a new life. It can become a new baby. We get to see this in plant species like pineapple and banana plants. And among animals in, lizards, zebra sharks, and rattlesnakes, we can see this parthenogenesis.
This word comes from the words Parthenos + Genesis, which means Virgin + Creation. A Virgin Creation taking place. Without sperm, an unfertilized egg is developing into an embryo. So the question here is, can we see parthenogenesis in chickens? The straight answer to this is no. An unfertilized chicken egg cannot give become a chick. And most of the eggs we eat are unfertilized.
