What causes a lobsters color to change?
This weekend my father treated the whole family by taking us out to go eat seafood. Naturally I ordered the shrimp, as I always do, and my mother ordered herself lobster. As they served her the lobster, I could not help but think how can the lobster go from a darkish almost black color to this bright red color. I knew that the lobsters color change was caused by the heat used to cook it, but I recently found this article that states that the heat accounts for only 1/3 of the change of color. In The New York Times article, Claiborne Ray states that researchers have conducted studies yielding results that the lobsters true pigment is red, but these red pigments are enclosed in a protein that absorbs all wavelengths of light. Which includes red, blue, and green; which explains why the lobster appears black before it is cooked. Researchers have also found that these red pigment molecules can be found in the protein crustacyanin, which is located on the carapace of lobsters. As for why the lobsters turn red, apparently the red molecules form together in groups, crossing each other in an X formation which causes them to interfere with one another and cause a shift in their quantum energy states, which ultimately changes the wavelengths of light that the protein absorbs. Now I can eat lobster without that the thought lingering in my head as to how the lobsters color changes and truly enjoy it.
Katty Molina
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