Chlorophyll

__ Definition: __
= The green coloring matter of leaves and plants, essential to the production of carbohydrates by photosynthesis .=

= Examples of Food: =

(1)

(2)

(3) (4)

=**Effects on Pigment Color**:=


 * **Pigment ** || **Vegetable Used ** || **Color in Acid ** || **Color in Alkali ** || **Cooking time (acid) ** || **Cooking time (alkali) ** ||
 * **Chlorophyll ** || ** Broccoli ** || ** Olive color, browning, mushy, broken up ** || ** Bringt green, mushy, plastic texture ** || ** 4 minutes ** || ** 7 minutes ** ||

After chrolophyll is exposed to an alkali, it turns into cholophylin, thus turning it into a bright green color.


Here, rather than cooking the broccoli plant in an acid or base, broccoli juices were extracted. In the first bowl they were left untouched as the control, in the middle it was mixed with vinegar and in the last bowl it was mixed with baking soda. However, the change in pigment color is still apparent (9).

[|Effect of heat on chlorophyll] **Why do cooked vegetables change color … and can you control that change? ** ** [|Sunset], [|May, 1992] by [|Linda Lau Anusasananan]  ** **Cooking is an everyday application of science. ** When you understand why something happens, you can more readily count on a predictable outcome. You'll get better results when altering recipes or making up your own, and can also evaluate the significance of contrary directions in similar recipes. This month we begin Why?, a feature for you to shape. Share with us questions, puzzling observations, contradictory information you've encountered about recipes and foods. We'll try to set the record straight. To do so, we'll call on the collective efforts of Sunset's food editors and the expertise of food scientists, primarily Dr. George K. York, extension food technologist in UC Davis's Department of Food Science and Technology. If you have questions you'd like us to answer, write to Why?, Sunset Magazine, 80 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, Calif. 94025. **__So--why do green vegetables change color when cooked? __** At the first blast of heat, in hot water, steam, or fat, green vegetables get brighter, but with longer cooking the green fades. What happens? Heat forces the gases surrounding the vegetable cells to expand and escape. As a result, you can see the green pigment, chlorophyll, more clearly. It's rather like fog fading away to let light reveal the color. <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Fried vegetables, as in tempura, cook so quickly they stay quite green if eaten hot. <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Boiled or steamed (including microwaved) vegetables like green beans, peas, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, and leafy greens are ready to eat (tender to tender-crisp) while still brightly colored. But if you want to serve vegetables cold or reheat them later, you must stop their cooking with a shock to arrest color change. Drain vegetables and at once immerse them in ice water until cool; this stabilizes the chlorophyll. When reheated, the vegetables don't fade as rapidly as when first cooked. (This is why frozen green vegetables keep their color longer when cooked.) <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Vegetables that take more cooking, like artichokes, lose their bright color. **__<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Why do green vegetables turn grayish yellow? __** <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Heat is rough on chlorophyll, which is very unstable. One reason recipes direct you to boil vegetables uncovered is so that color-destructive gases surrounding the cells can dissipate rapidly. If you cook vegetables in lots of boiling water, rather than just a little, heat is distributed faster, and vegetables have better color because there is less time for chlorophyll to fall apart. <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Green vegetable color fades to olive, then to grayish yellow, as heat displaces the magnesium atoms in the chlorophyll, shifting its chemical structure and the color. <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Acid has the same visual effect on chlorophyll as heat does. But another factor is at work. The acid's hydrogen atom replaces the magnesium in chlorophyll, turning the color to a yellowish graygreen. This is why green vegetables turn drab if they stand in a tart dressing for more than a few minutes. To minimize the color change, dress vegetables just before serving. **__<span style="background: lime; color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">What do baking soda and copper pennies do to green vegetables? __** <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">In the past, cooks often added baking soda or copper pennies to cooking water because they made green vegetables stay brightly colored. <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Baking soda is alkaline (acid's opposite), and because it prevents hydrogen from replacing magnesium in chlorophyll, the pigment gets brighter. The negative: soda rapidly breaks down pectin that holds cell walls together, making vegetables mushy. <span style="background: lime; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Copper coins and unlined copper pans contain free copper or zinc ions that also replace magnesium in chlorophyll, giving the green color a bluish cast. The vegetable texture is not affected, but you might be: eating too much copper sulfate can make you sick. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Why does red cabbage turn blue when cooked? <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Red cabbage and other blue-red vegetables are a war zone for two color pigments, anthocyanins (red) and betacyanins (blue). The red color needs acid (lemon juice, vinegar) to anchor it; otherwise red vegetables get the blues. For a little drama, cook red cabbage in a little water. Then add acid to taste and cook further, watching the unappetizing blue-purple color shift rapidly to red.



Chlorophyll is composed of " several highly complexed molecules" consisting of "a ring structure with a central magnesium ion and a long hydrophobic side chain." This picture shows the two common naturally formed structures of Chlorophyll (7).

Dark leafy greens contained Lutein which works in accordance with zeaxanthin to keep eyes healthy and reduce the risk of cataracts. They are also a great source of Vitamin B to help reduce the risk of birth defects (8).

_ =<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 12pt;">References = Picture 1 [|http://www.thetype2diabetesdiet.com] Picture 2 [|http://www.anaturalday.net] Picture 3 [|http://egoscueportland.files.wordpress.com] Picture 4 [] Picture 5 [] Picture 6 [] Linda Lau Anusasananan " [|Why do cooked vegetables change color … and can you control that change?] ". Sunset. FindArticles.com. 16 Feb, 2011. [] Picture 7 with caption: [] (8) [] Picture 9 with caption: []