What makes salmon pink

In terms of variety, the best salmon is Chinook or king. However you can easily find it now in Lake Michigan and New Zealand as well. When your salmon is done, it should still be somewhat orange-pink, and not completely white. Salmon needs a light sear on both sides, it does not needs to be cooked for long.

It will separate on its own if you pick at it lightly with a fork, separating each section. Salmon skin is perfectly edible, just remember to remove any and all scales. You will need a kitchen knife and a sink that can be plugged. Hold the fish firmly and direct the knife, at a angle, against the grain. The pigment at the centre of the scare, canthaxanthin, is also fed to chickens to give their skin and eggs a brighter yellow complexion; the maximum authorised levels for poultry will also be cut.

However, three quarters of the eggs sold in the UK do not contain the chemical at all and the levels fed to poultry are said to be well within the EU's new stricter limits. The flesh of wild salmon is naturally pink because the fish consume large amounts of shrimps.

Salmon farmers feed large doses of the additive to their fish because, they argue, consumers expect salmon to be pink and find the greyer shade which farmed salmon would naturally have to be a turn-off. But using canthaxanthin carries a risk. What would salmon flesh look like if this important pigment was left out of their diets? As the picture above of a salmon smolt fed a non-carotenoid diet shows it would look much more like haddock, white with a pink hue.

In the wild, 1 in 20 Chinook also known as King salmon, found in the northwest Pacific, is unable to process Astaxanthin which results in its flesh staying white. Until recently the white-fleshed chinook salmon was considered less desirable. These are the core obsessions that drive our newsroom—defining topics of seismic importance to the global economy.

Our emails are made to shine in your inbox, with something fresh every morning, afternoon, and weekend. Wild salmon get their ruddy shade by eating krill and shrimp, which contain a reddish-orange compound called astaxanthin. That shrimp-heavy diet is also what turns flamingos pink. Salmon further south—Coho, king, and pink, for instance—eat relatively less krill and shrimp, giving them a lighter orange hue.