If you have ever cooked a lobster, you might have wondered why the poor animal does not only die upon boiling, but also turns red.The answer is simple: the phenomenon is caused by the presence of astaxantine in its shell, a red pigment that resembles beta-carotene. However, as long as the lobster is alive, we cannot observe this red colour because the pigment is bound to beta-crustacyanine, a protein which is responsible for the typical dark colour of the shell. As you might know, proteins tend to lose their chemical structure upon heating (denaturation), which is exactly what happens to beta-crustacyanine when boiling the lobster. The protein is then no longer able to bind astaxantine and thus the lobster turns to its familiar delicious-looking red colour.
Good cooking always involves chemistry!
Fabienne Goethals
Fabienne Goethals
Hello, I liked your blog because it's easy to read and the subject is interesting for a chemist. I think there’s a grammar mistake in this sentence:
BeantwoordenVerwijderen… a red pigment that resembles [to] beta-carotene. But I am not sure about that.
Your conclusion is nice and I agree that chemistry is a lot like cooking.
Excellent work: clear flow, nice story and no grammar erors: something resembles something else.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenwell done,
olaf