Crustaceans lights the way. Strange but true!

Whilst taking an inventory of the fridge contents at work yesterday I noticed a very strange thing.

I opened the fridge door and in the half light I could see blue staining on the raw shrimp.

I grabbed the container and as soon as I removed the shrimp from the fridge the staining was gone.

"Are these things glowing in the dark", I wondered!

Well after testing by putting head in the fridge door and closing it, the results were in....

...The raw shrimp was glowing in the dark.

Trying to convince people was hard so many demonstrations were needed and most people turned right off at the idea of eating them.

Something was telling me it was , when I arrived home I did some research.

According to this article by Patricia N. Sado for the FDA in July 1998:

"Several consumers thought their "glowing" seafood was due to phosphorescing phytoplankton, or even fluorescence. The consumers' seafood products "glowing" in the dark were not due to radiation or to fluorescence, which requires an ultraviolet light to trigger the reaction. These seafood products exhibited luminescence due to the presence of certain bacteria that are capable of emitting light. Luminescence by bacteria is due to a chemical reaction catalyzed by luciferase, a protein similar to that found in fireflies.

The article also goes onto say;

"Luminescent bacteria occur naturally in seawater, fish, shellfish, and marine animals (5). These bacteria may be present on raw seafood products in the grocery store. They should not be present on cooked seafood products, since cooking destroys these bacteria and other pathogenic bacteria. Employees should follow good manufacturing practices and sanitation in fish markets and grocery stores to prevent cross-contamination of cooked seafood products such as seafood salads, cooked and peeled shrimp, and imitation crabmeat. Good sanitation practices would probably have kept the cooked seafood from being cross-contaminated in most of the incidents where P. phosphoreum and V. logei were isolated."

So if you see any glowing seafood, the official verdict is that it is safe and the unofficial verdict from me is that it is extremely cool to look at!

Have you ever experienced or even heard of such a thing?