On Food and Cooking

member of this large family to be chemically
isolated came from carrots. These pigments
absorb blue and green wavelengths and are
responsible for most of the yellow and orange
colors in fruits and vegetables (beta-carotene,
xanthophylls, zeaxanthin), as well as the red
of tomatoes, watermelons, and chillis
(lycopene, capsanthin, and capsorubin; most
red colors in plants are caused by
anthocyanins). Carotenoids are zigzag chains
of around 40 carbon atoms and thus resemble
fat molecules (p. 797). They’re generally
soluble in fats and oils and are relatively
stable, so they tend to stay bright and stay put
when a food is cooked in water. Carotenoids
are found in two different places in plant
cells. One is in special pigment bodies, or
chromoplasts, which signal animals that a
flower is open for business or a fruit is ripe.
Their other home is the photosynthetic
membranes of chloroplasts, where there is one
carotenoid molecule for every five or so