Are farmed fish artificially colored?
No, though some people have used the word ‘artificial’ to try to disparage the method that is used to produce the red color of farmed salmon. This is done by adding a pigment, or a combination of pigments to salmon feed. These pigments are manufactured replicas of pigments that salmon obtain from their food in the wild. In this respect they are like many vitamins that are produced by biological manufacturing processes to be used in nutritional supplements. This includes, for example, most Vitamin C that is used in vitamin supplements for animals and humans. It is not considered to be ‘artificial’ but neither is it ‘natural’ in the sense that it has been extracted from oranges or lemons. It is simply a manufactured replica of the natural compound and performs the same biological function.
