What is the pigment that makes red apples red?
Green apples are green because they contain the green pigment, chlorophyll. Yellow apples start out green but the apple stops making chlorophyll as it matures. The chlorophyll it contains eventually degrades to reveal yellow carotenoid pigments that were there all along but being masked by the chlorophyll. Red apples follow the same pattern as yellow apples but start making a red pigment called anthocyanin.
