Why do Lobsters Turn Red When You Cook them?

Don’t believe the picture of a red-necked, free-ranging sea monster that you see on cookbooks isn’t true? Did you know lobsters and other crustaceans are actually not red?

They’re typically brown, gray, olive-green, or dull blue before they hit the boiling pot to make their way onto your dinner plate. This is because they live in muddy areas or rocky ones, and they need to blend into their environment and avoid other creatures that enjoy a good lobster for dinner.

Far removed from the image you’re used to seeing in books, when these amazing creatures live out in the wild, roaming around the oceans, they have an entirely different look. So, why do lobsters and crustaceans suffer this dramatic color change during cooking? It’s all about the astaxanthin and how it reacts to heat. Astaxanthin is a carotenoid pigment that crustaceans have in their shells.

This pigment absorbs the blue light and makes the shell appear red, orange, or yellow. When the lobster is alive, the astaxanthin is safely wrapped inside a membrane that is hidden in the shell called crustacyanin.The pigment is held so tight inside the shell that it can not flow freely, meaning that its light-absorption properties are changed, making the crustaceans give off the dark color that we are not used to seeing.

As for when the lobster gets cooked, that’s a different story.

Once the crustacean comes into contact with boiling water, its body chemistry changes and the astaxanthin separates from the crustacyanin, or in simpler terms, the pigment bids farewell to the membrane, changing it into the red-flavoring lobster we are so used to seeing.

Now that you’re getting the idea, maybe you’re thinking of the case of the shrimp, which are usually a boring shade of grey too and turn pink when the pigments in their shells come into contact with heat!

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