Why There Is A Green Ring Around Your Hard Boiled Egg?

Eggs are something that everyone from kids to elderly love and eat in the world. They are extremely healthy for you, since they are full of Vitamin A, D and E, lecithin, iron, Sulphur and proteins. Boiling eggs are actually one of the fastest ways to eat a quick snack.

But sometimes, boiling them becomes tricky. You don’t know the exact time to boil them in order to cook them perfectly. And if they are not cooked perfectly, the results are seen only after you cut open the product. You also get to see something horrific and greenish, sometimes when you boil the egg.

Let’s find out what that greenish thing is and how to cook the egg perfectly.

1. The greenish ring

You just have sat down for your breakfast of a nice boiled egg and you crack it open. Immediately you see a green ring around the yolk and think that your egg has gone bad. Well technically that is not true. But the greenish tinge is due to the result of the egg not being boiled properly.

The discoloration is due to the egg being cooked for too long. So essentially the egg is not bad, it is your fault that you have cooked it for too long. It is like when meat is overcooked, it dries out; rice gets burned and similarly egg gets discolored.

2. The scientific explanation

Though the eggs are perfectly edible and taste good, they just look gross when they have that greenish tinge. The greenish gray color is evidence of the formation of iron sulfide in the egg yolk. This happens when the yolk and the white parts meet. The iron from the yolk reacts with the hydrogen sulfide part of the white part of the egg, when it gets overcooked.

3. How to avoid the green ring?

The best way to avoid that greenness on the yolk of the egg is to know how to properly cook and boil an egg. If you overcook your egg, you will find the discoloration on it. Here is one such way to boil the eggs perfectly, a way that has never failed anyone.

First of all, you need a sauce pan that is big enough to hold all the eggs in a single layer.

Next, put the eggs in the pan and cover the eggs with water. Bring them to a boil and turn off the heat. Now cover the saucepan using a lid.

• Let the eggs sit in the boiled water for 15 minutes, without disturbing them.
• Now run the eggs under some cold water. This will stop the cooking process and will save your eggs from damage.
• That’s it folks, remove the outer shell and enjoy your perfectly boiled eggs.

4. Other ways to hard boil an egg

For hard boiled eggs, you must remember that the eggs should not be cooked for more than 12 minutes. Otherwise the whites will turn soggy and the yolk with crumble. Cook the eggs in cold water and bring them to boil, instead of putting them straight into boiling water.

Try and cook the eggs on low temperature as the proteins in the egg toughen and the whites coagulate with heat. But the best way to cook the eggs to hard boiled ones is to cook them in low temperature and bring them to a boil.