The Chemistry of Changing the Color of Egg Yolk

The Chemistry of Changing the Color of Egg Yolk Chickens and other poultry naturally produce eggs with pale yellow to orange yolks, largely depending on their diet. You can change the color of an egg yolk by changing what the chicken eats or by injecting a fat-soluble dye into an egg yolk. Egg Color and Nutrition Eggshell and yolk color are unrelated to the nutritional content or flavor of an egg. The shell color naturally ranges from white to brown depending on the breed of chicken. Yolk color depends on the diet fed to the hens. The shell thickness, cooking quality, and value of an egg is not affected by its color.​ Can I Dye Egg Yolks? The short answer is yes, you can dye them. However, because egg yolks contain lipids, you need to use a fat-soluble dye. Ordinary food colors can be used to change egg white color, but wont spread throughout an egg yolk. You can find oil-based food dyes at Amazon and at cooking stores. Simply inject the dye into the yolk and allow time for the color to permeate the yolk. Changing Yolk Color at the Source If you raise chickens, you can change the color of the yolks of the eggs they produce by controlling their diet. Specifically, you control the carotenoids  or xanthophylls they eat. Carotenoids are pigment molecules found in plants, responsible for the orange of carrots, red of beets, yellow of marigolds, purple of cabbages,  etc. Certain commercial pigments are available as supplements added to feed to influence egg yolk colors, such as  BASFs   Lucantin(R) red and Lucantin(R) yellow. Natural foods also affect yolk color. Yellow, orange, red, and possibly purple may be obtained, but for blue and green you likely have to resort to synthetic dyes. Yolk Color Ingredient nearly colorless white cornmeal pale yolks wheat, barley medium yellow yolks yellow cornmeal, alfalfa meal deep yellow yolks marigold petals, kale, greens orange to red yolks carrots, tomatoes, red peppers Foods That Naturally Influence Egg Yolk Color    Hard Boiled Green Egg Yolks You can get grayish green egg yolks by hard boiling eggs. The discoloration results from a harmless chemical reaction in which hydrogen sulfide produced by sulfur and hydrogen in the egg whites reacts with iron in the yolks. Few people consider this an attractive food color, so you may wish to prevent this reaction by immediately chilling eggs with cold water after hard boiling them.

Five Spelling Rules for Silent Final E

Five Spelling Rules for Silent Final E Five Spelling Rules for Silent Final E Five Spelling Rules for Silent Final E By Maeve Maddox Many English words end in the letter e. In an earlier stage of the language, many of these final es were pronounced. Now, however, unless the word is a foreign borrowing, the final e is silent. Although final e is silent, it usually has a job to do. Here are the five rules for the use of silent final e. 1. Silent final e makes the vowel say its name. Compare the pronunciation of the following pairs of words: con cone cut cute mat mate In cone, the e makes the o say O. In cute, the e makes the u say U. In mate, the e makes the a say A. This first and most common kind of silent final e makes the letter say its name. 2. English words dont end in v or u. The e at the end of have and blue do not affect pronunciation. The e is there because the words would otherwise end in v or u. Impromptu is one of the few exceptions to this rule. 3. Silent E after the letters C and G soften their sounds. The letter C can represent the sounds of either /k/ as in cat or /s/ as in cent. The letter G can represent the sounds of either /g/ as in gum or /j/ as in gym. Silent final e after C and G indicates that the sounds are /s/ and /j/. Ex. lance and charge. Without the silent final e, these words would represent the pronunciations /lank/ and /charg/. 4. Every syllable must have a vowel. In words like candle, pickle, and people, the final syllable can be pronounced without a vowel, but in English, every syllable must have a vowel. (Would we really want to write pebbl or littl?) 5. Sometimes the silent final e has no purpose whatever. In words like are, and ore, the silent final e does not affect the pronunciation or provide a missing vowel, or keep a word from ending in v or u. This is the e that Mrs. Spalding (Romalda Spalding, The Writing Road to Reading) calls no-job e. Like Everest, its there. The word resumà © is often spelled in English with the French accent aigu to indicate the untypical pronunciation. The final e at the end of the Italian musical borrowing forte (loudly, powerfully) is pronounced like a long a: /for-tay/. Ex. This measure is marked forte. The final e at the end of the French borrowing forte (strength, strong point) is silent, although many speakers pronounce this word the same way they do the musical term. Ex. Cooking is not my forte. Industrious critics will point out exceptions that Ive failed to mention, but in most cases, the five rules apply and are useful to know. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:12 Signs and Symbols You Should KnowHow to spell "in lieu of"Nominalized Verbs