A fish's flesh color starts with its diet. Best known for color of course is salmon. It would probably surprise you to know that the natural color of salmon is white. Salmon eat shrimp as part of their regular food source. Shrimp eat a large amount of algae and single-cell organisms that are full of a pigment called astaxanthin, a carotenoid akin to beta carotene which is contained in many fruits and vegetables. The shrimp store the pigment their bodies absorb from their algae meals in their shell and body flesh. When the salmon eat the shrimp in large quantities, the salmon fatty tissue absorbs the astaxanthin.

After large accumulations of the pigment, the salmon changes from its basic color as a white fish to a reddish color. However, many salmon these days are raised in large nets & tanks offshore rather than gathered in their wild habitat. Knowing that consumers would never buy white salmon, many salmon-farmers feed the fish astaxanthin in their diet.

These substances are added not only to salmon to create the pinkish color but also to hen eggs to turn the yolks bright yellow. Canthaxanthin also is used in tanning pills.

Both chemicals are from the same group of natural substances as beta-carotene. Both are antioxidants that give a reddish color to several animals, including lobsters, shrimp and flamingos. In addition to enhancing salmon color, the chemicals help farm-raised salmon reproduce.

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Flamingo feathers also obtain their wonderful rosy pink color from pigments in the same marine organisms that they eat. The flamingos' feathers, legs, and face are colored by their diet, which is rich in alpha and beta carotenoid pigments.

Flamingos in captivity require a special diet to ensure they preserve their striking colors. Zoos like the San Diego Zoo use special flamingo pellets enriched with carotenoid pigment to maintain their beautiful color.

The flesh of some swordfish can also acquire an orange-reddish tint from their diet of shrimp or other prey. Such fish are sold as "pumpkin swordfish," and some of our customers proclaim it to be the very best they have ever eaten while others consider the pink-orange color as suspect and undesirable.

It is interesting to note that in humans, carotenoids are not stored in the flesh but in the skin. That is the reason why eating excessive amounts of yellow-orange fruits can cause a person to develop a "jaundiced" look, and why astaxanthin is marketed for human consumption as the active ingredient in oral tanning pills.