Do eggs have iron — and how much is in one egg?

Do eggs have iron? Yes — about 0.9 mg in a large one, essentially all of it in the yolk. That's a thin slice of a day's target, and it's non-heme iron, the form the body absorbs least efficiently.

Do eggs have iron? How much is in one egg

USDA data puts a whole large egg — 50 grams, raw — at roughly 0.9 mg of iron. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements rounds a hard-boiled large egg to 1 mg, or 6% of the 18 mg Daily Value. Entries land between about 0.8 and 1 mg — normal spread, since hen diet and egg size shift it. The short version: under a milligram apiece, and the usable share is smaller still.

Iron in egg yolk vs iron in egg white

The split isn't close. Iron in egg yolk accounts for essentially the entire figure, while iron in egg white is a rounding error — USDA lists raw white at 0.08 mg per 100 grams, about 0.03 mg for one large egg's white. An egg-white omelet is a reasonable way to cut cholesterol and a pointless way to chase iron.

Yolk is the embryo's nutrient store, and phosvitin — a phosphorylated yolk protein — binds much of that iron. The white does the opposite job, carrying ovotransferrin, a protein that sequesters free iron so bacteria can't use it.

Why egg iron underperforms its reputation

Eggs are an animal food, so people shelve them next to beef and liver. The chemistry disagrees: heme iron comes from hemoglobin and myoglobin — blood and muscle — and an egg has neither. Every milligram in a yolk is non-heme iron, the same category as lentils and spinach, absorbed at a fraction of the rate.

Phosvitin compounds it: the protein holds iron tightly enough that much stays unavailable through digestion, and eggs have a reputation in absorption research for lowering iron uptake from the whole meal, not just their own. An egg beside a lentil bowl isn't neutral.

How an egg compares with common iron sources

Per-serving amounts as the NIH iron fact sheet rounds them:

Food	Serving	Iron	Iron type
Egg, hard-boiled	1 large	1 mg	Non-heme
Beef, ground (85% lean), patty	3 oz	2 mg	Mostly heme
Beef liver, pan-fried	3 oz	5 mg	Mostly heme
Lentils, boiled	½ cup	3 mg	Non-heme
Spinach, boiled	½ cup	3 mg	Non-heme
Fortified breakfast cereal	1 serving	up to 18 mg	Added, non-heme

A three-egg scramble comes in under half a cup of lentils, and roughly a sixth of one bowl of fully fortified cereal.

What an egg covers against the daily target

NIH sets the RDA at 8 mg a day for men 19 and older and for women 51 and older, 18 mg for women 19–50, and 27 mg in pregnancy. The gap is menstrual iron loss. NIH also suggests aiming for roughly 1.8 times the RDA when meat is off the plate, which catches ovo-vegetarians counting eggs as their animal-source food.

Two large eggs bring about 1.8 mg. For a man on 8 mg that's roughly 22% of the daily target; for a premenopausal woman on 18 mg it's about 10% — before absorption takes its cut. Eggs contribute; they don't anchor.

That arithmetic is easier to believe once you watch it. Iron Tracker is an iron intake tracking app for iPhone, and logging two eggs against your daily target corrects the assumption faster than any table does.

Making the iron in eggs count

Vitamin C is the strongest lever: ascorbic acid reduces ferric iron to the ferrous form and keeps it soluble in the gut, so what sits beside the eggs matters as much as the eggs. Half a cup of chopped raw red bell pepper carries roughly 95 mg of vitamin C; a medium orange, around 70 mg. The pairing has to share the meal — an orange three hours later does nothing for breakfast.

Running the other way: calcium inhibits both heme and non-heme iron, so the milk and cheese in the omelet are drags. Coffee and tea polyphenols cut non-heme absorption sharply when they land near the meal — exactly when most people drink them. Moving the coffee an hour later costs nothing.

Cooking method doesn't matter for the mineral itself — iron doesn't break down with heat, so scrambled, poached, and boiled all deliver the same iron.

FAQ

How much iron is in an egg?

About 0.9 mg for a whole large egg, which NIH rounds to 1 mg, or 6% of the Daily Value. Size scales it — a jumbo egg carries proportionally more, a medium one less. Cooking method barely moves it.

Does egg white have any iron?

Almost none — roughly 0.03 mg per large egg, from a USDA figure of 0.08 mg per 100 grams of raw white. The white also carries ovotransferrin, a protein that binds iron rather than supplying it.

Do eggs have as much iron as red meat?

No. Three ounces of beef holds about twice the iron of a large egg, and most of it is heme iron. The gap in absorbed iron is wider than the gap in listed milligrams.

Are eggs a good iron source for vegetarians?

A modest one. Egg iron is non-heme, so it buys no absorption advantage over plant foods, and lentils, beans, tofu, and fortified grains carry several times more per serving. Eggs are better read as a small daily contribution than a substitute for meat's iron.

Does eating eggs block iron from other foods?

It can. Yolk phosvitin binds iron in the gut, and eggs are known in absorption research for lowering the iron taken up from a shared meal. When a plate is built on plant iron, a vitamin C source alongside matters more than usual.