--- title: Making Chicken Transparent Using Dorito Dust | daily.dev description: A hobbyist physics blogger replicates a scientific study on making biological tissue transparent using tartrazine (the yellow dye found in Doritos), soaking... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/making-chicken-transparent-using-dorito-dust-etrr3nyea twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Making Chicken Transparent Using Dorito Dust | daily.dev og:description: A hobbyist physics blogger replicates a scientific study on making biological tissue transparent using tartrazine (the yellow dye found in Doritos), soaking... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/making-chicken-transparent-using-dorito-dust-etrr3nyea og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ETrr3nYEA.png og:image:alt: Making Chicken Transparent Using Dorito Dust og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Making Chicken Transparent Using Dorito Dust **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 15 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A hobbyist physics blogger replicates a scientific study on making biological tissue transparent using tartrazine (the yellow dye found in Doritos), soaking chicken breast in various concentrations of the dye and observing partial transparency after 6-12 hour soaks. The piece then walks through the underlying physics: how refractive index mismatches between water and proteins/lipids cause opacity, and how the Lorentz oscillator model explains why tartrazine shifts water's refractive index closer to that of tissue without adding significant absorption, deriving the relevant equations from Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz model. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why does soaking tissue in tartrazine dye make it more transparent? Tartrazine shifts the refractive index of water closer to that of proteins and lipids (around 1.45 versus water's 1.33), reducing the scattering that occurs when light crosses boundaries between materials of different refractive indices. Using the Lorentz oscillator model, since tartrazine's absorption peak sits at 425 nm and visible red light is below that resonance frequency, the dye raises water's real refractive index without adding much absorption. _daily.dev surfaces experiment writeups like this for developers tinkering with physics-adjacent side projects._ ### What concentration of tartrazine was used to make chicken breast partially transparent at home? A roughly 0.19 M tartrazine solution (2g tartrazine dissolved in 18g tap water, about 10% w/w) applied to a 5mm chicken breast slice soaked for 6 to 12 hours at room temperature produced partial, gummy-bear-like translucency. A higher concentration of about 0.56 M caused the tartrazine to crystallize and fail, unlike the original paper's 0.62 M solution used at 40°C with mechanical shaking. _anyone replicating published protocols at home can track such experiment logs via daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 59 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-17). **TL;DR:** The discussion treats the experiment as a fun, well-explained novelty, with most energy going into jokes and tangents about Doritos, transparency, and food dyes, plus a side debate about how 'natural' processed food/chemicals are. **Sentiment:** 55% positive · 35% mixed · 10% skeptical **The case for** - People found the article well-written and genuinely informative about the physics behind the effect. - Several note tartrazine is a common, food-safe dye already used in things like Doritos, so the effect isn't mysterious or dangerous. - Some appreciate that the headline is technically a bit of an exaggeration but the underlying science is solid and fun. **The pushback** - Some point out the headline oversells it — it's thin slices becoming slightly translucent, not whole chicken breasts turning clear. - A few find the topic faintly unsettling or 'repulsive,' linking it to broader unease about processed/chemical-laden food. - Concerns raised about lab hygiene, like using uncleanable calipers directly on raw chicken. **By community** - hackernews (positive): Mostly playful jokes and genuine appreciation for the clear physics explanation, with the author participating, plus tangential debates about food dyes and naturalism. **Hottest debate:** Whether complaining about 'chemicals' like tartrazine in processed food is a legitimate concern or a naturalistic fallacy. **Open questions** - Could the technique work on living tissue for medical diagnostic purposes? - Would a sous vide-style long soak improve the transparency effect further? - What would the chicken look like after cooking post-treatment? **Highlights** > They use tartrazine that is a common dye for food, not crushed Doritos. They need a lot of dye to change the internal refraction index and make the meat transparent. So they choose it. From the research article https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11931656/ > It is a hygroscopic compound with a high solubility in water and minimal reactivity. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded that this molecule exhibits no adverse effects or systemic toxicity at doses up to 2 g per kilogram of body weight (14). As a result, it is widely used as an artificial food dye in products such as flavored chips (for example, Doritos). > — [gus\_massa on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50131866) > Vertebrate blood is one thing that is opaque due to hemoglobin, and it cannot be made transparent. The same is true for the pigmented retina of the eyes. So transparent frogs and fishes still have opaque eyes and blood vessels. Where pigments like the heme of the blood or the melanin of the skin or the visual pigments of the retina are absent, the opacity is due only to the variable refractive index, which causes light scattering, and in this case the tissue can be made transparent with methods like that described in the article which make the refractive index uniform (i.e. exactly like snow that transitions from opaque to transparent when melting). > — [adrian\_b on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132551) > Naturalism as an argument is a fallacy. Do you hunt down and beat wild pigs alive with your bare hands before carving them out? Oh, no? Well it seems like you're not "natural" enough. Do you drink milk from the udders of animals? Or do you treat it processes to clean it of pathogens, such as sterilization? Is the Rhode Island Red chicken which constitutes most of the worlds breeds, that has been bred for 100 years to exclusively stand in a single spot, peck and eat as much as possible and show as little interest in its surroundings to be easier to handle, natural? If you think a little bit about the origins of most sources of nourishment we have day-to-day you can find yourself in a very difficult space to draw naturalist lines > — [augment\_me on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132757) > Making very tiny thin slices of chicken very slightly transparent using *the dye most commonly found in dorito dust I mean this is fun, but let’s be honest, they didn’t exactly crush up a bunch of Doritos, shake chicken breast in the dust, and create some sort of clear chicken meat > — [mock-possum on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132229) > I tried to take a look. They have to match a refraction index of lipids of 1.43-1.53. A sugar solution from 0% to 80% has an index of 1.33 to 1.44 so it's too low. And 80% solution of sugar is a lot, they are using a 5% solution of tartrazine (that is also a lot). > — [gus\_massa on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132920) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50131213) · 195 points · 59 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [A new way to “paint with light” to create radiant, color-changing items](https://daily.dev/posts/a-new-way-to-paint-with-light-to-create-radiant-color-changing-items-mis3r5qdb) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Researchers Develops Carbon Quantum Dots From Organic Waste for Pest Repellent Research](https://daily.dev/posts/researchers-develops-carbon-quantum-dots-from-organic-waste-for-pest-repellent-research-speuoiso2) · The Quantum Insider · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Printing Micron-Scale Benchies With Resin And Turmeric](https://daily.dev/posts/printing-micron-scale-benchies-with-resin-and-turmeric-h4yuiuxxy) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Make Sparkly Glass-Like Apple in Blender](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-make-sparkly-glass-like-apple-in-blender-zoghhnxvt) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Researchers devise a full-color night vision goggle](https://daily.dev/posts/researchers-devise-a-full-color-night-vision-goggle-mdyl98oep) · Ars Technica · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#physics](https://daily.dev/tags/physics) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/making-chicken-transparent-using-dorito-dust-etrr3nyea) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Making Chicken Transparent Using Dorito Dust","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/making-chicken-transparent-using-dorito-dust-etrr3nyea","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/making-chicken-transparent-using-dorito-dust-etrr3nyea"},"datePublished":"2026-10-17T15:28:40.172Z","dateModified":"2026-10-17T20:14:39.043Z","description":"A hobbyist physics blogger replicates a scientific study on making biological tissue transparent using tartrazine (the yellow dye found in Doritos), soaking...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a78c553e00fa81c876bb9a37a9cc2466?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a78c553e00fa81c876bb9a37a9cc2466?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/making-chicken-transparent-using-dorito-dust-etrr3nyea","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"physics","timeRequired":"PT15M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Making Chicken Transparent Using Dorito Dust"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/making-chicken-transparent-using-dorito-dust-etrr3nyea#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why does soaking tissue in tartrazine dye make it more transparent?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Tartrazine shifts the refractive index of water closer to that of proteins and lipids (around 1.45 versus water's 1.33), reducing the scattering that occurs when light crosses boundaries between materials of different refractive indices. 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