You probably have seen your fair share of rainbow food items.

But what about sparkling rainbow meat?

Rainbow duck meat

Here's an example of what we mean, courtesy of pictures one of our colleagues took when she came across some recently.

Her family initially mistook the duck's greenish surface hue for mould, which to be fair, is not an insane thing to assume when you see greenish meat.

Another case of this was when a Facebook user bought some duck from NTUC FairPrice Extra.

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From the photos and video she took and put up in her post, you can indeed see 'shining shimmer green and pink thing' on some parts of the duck meat:

[video width="224" height="400" mp4="https://static.mothership.sg/1/2018/10/41688830_262010481116053_7036082713559826432_n.mp4"][/video]

Rainbow-ness explained

The 'rainbow-ness' is not because of mould or because the meat has gone bad. The chunks of duck meat, at least in these instances, are completely edible.

The colours on the duck meat are actually caused by iridescence produced as a result of light diffracting from the meat surface as light rays bounce off the surface differently due to its muscle structure.

Ducks are one of the few animals whose body structures and muscle fibres are conducive to these types of colouring.

This can be observed on some types of meat but not all. Other meats prone to iridescence include beef and mutton.

You can think of this as being similar to the reflection on DVD discs and iridescent clouds, which you might recall from some time ago when we wrote about the phenomenon:

So don't toss the meat, unless you are sure the meat has really gone bad, because food waste is bad.

Top photo collage from photos of Lynn Elieen Han Facebook post.