A recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports shows that the most dominant sense that guides our food choices is vision.

The fact that humans have developed such a complex visual system also shows that humans are visual animals, rather than relying mainly on smell like dogs or other animals.

It turns out that we are one of the few animals that can distinguish between red and green with our eyes.

Our ancestors lived in tropical forests and needed to find exactly what they needed from a large green background.

Most of the new leaves of tropical plants are red. These new leaves are more tender, easier to digest, and more nutritious than the old green leaves.

Without excellent red vision, it would be difficult to identify new leaves or fruits containing carotenoids and anthocyanins among all the green.

So leaves and fruits create our vision.

All in all, this is a society that values ??appearance, and the plant world is no exception. In addition to making themselves plump and beautiful, many plants try their best to make themselves colorful in order to send signals and tell people of all kinds to come to me for pollination or pollination.

This feeds.

Because beautiful colors enter our field of vision before shapes.

This picture is a painting by Ms. Eliot called "Vegetative Color."

This painting tells us that the colorful colors of plants are presented by different pigments.

Phytochromes are mainly divided into four major categories based on their structures.

Mainly include chlorophyll, carotenoids, flavonoids and betaine.

These pigments perform different functions in plant life and exhibit different properties during processing and storage.

The challenge for food scientists is to keep these remarkable molecules alive and attractive.

The first category is chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll gives the earth its green color. This molecule absorbs solar energy and directs it into the photosynthesis system, converting the energy into sugar molecules.

Chlorophyll gives the earth its green color. This molecule absorbs solar energy and directs it into the photosynthesis system, converting the energy into sugar molecules.

The leaves were mashed and chromatographed to obtain the chromatographic strips shown on the right.

It can be seen that the leaves are mainly composed of chlorophyll.

There are two main types of chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll a is bright blue-green, and chlorophyll b has a darker olive color.

Most leaves contain mainly type a chlorophyll, with a ratio of 3:1 to type b.

However, plants grown in shade have more balanced proportions, as do aging tissues.

Because type A will decompose faster.

Each chlorophyll molecule is made up of two parts.

One part is a ring structure (porphyrin ring), consisting of a group of carbon and nitrogen atoms surrounding a central magnesium atom. This part is responsible for absorbing light, usually green.

The second part is the lipophilic end composed of 16 carbon atoms, which is responsible for fixing the entire molecule to the thylakoid membrane. This part is colorless.

Please take a closer look at this ring structure.

This ring-shaped structure is very magical, and it appears very frequently.

Not only does it appear in the plant kingdom, it also appears in the animal kingdom.

The picture on the left is the iron porphyrin ring of animal heme, and the picture on the right is the magnesium porphyrin ring of plant chlorophyll.

The two rings look very similar, but their functions are different.

In animals, it exists in heme in the blood or myoglobin in the muscles, and its role is to transport oxygen or store oxygen.

In plants, this porphyrin ring is found in chlorophyll and absorbs light.

Therefore, this structure can be said to be the basis of life, because they act on the two most widespread free resources in nature, one is light and the other is oxygen.

These echoing places in nature often make people sigh with emotion and marvel at the magic of the Creator!

Let's take a look at this chlorophyll molecule. Which places do you think are weak and can degrade it?

Yes, one is to remove magnesium atoms, and the other is to remove long hydrocarbon chains.

Therefore, there are two situations that will cause the color of chlorophyll to change.

One is that under heating conditions, the long hydrocarbon chain at the end is lost.

Typically chlorophyllase catalyzes this reaction.

This long chain of hydrocarbons is often called the phytol chain.

The chlorophyll that has removed phytol is called chlorophyll, but it is still green.

One is that in an acidic environment, the magnesium atoms in the porphyrin ring are replaced by hydrogen atoms.

In other words, when the magnesium atom is gone, the chlorophyll turns into olive-colored pheophytin.

If both are removed, that is, the phytol is also removed, and the magnesium is also removed, the chlorophyll becomes the darker phytophytophytin.

Freezing, pickling, dehydration, and simple ripening and aging can also damage chloroplasts and chlorophyll, so we often see vegetables darken and turn to olive green.

Most city tap water remains slightly alkaline, and slightly alkaline water is best used to maintain the color of chlorophyll.

Therefore, sauces containing acidic ingredients such as lemon juice should be poured on when they are finally served. You can also consider drizzling a layer of oil on them first to protect the vegetables from discoloration.

? The so-called carotenoids are carotene.

Flavonoids are flavonoids.