Do you Know That Most Gray Salmons Are Laced with Synthetic Pink Pigments?

5 min readJul 25, 2022

Let’s begin this article with a question.

Are you a fan of salmon? Would you consume it if you were given a gray salmon for free?

The answer will most likely be a NO! Not wrong, uh?

Now, what if I gave you a pink salmon? That is, a gray salmon that has been made pink using food dye? Would you eat it? You probably might. If you’ve been eating farm-raised salmon, I think you should reconsider. Farm-raised salmon and wild-caught salmon may be similar, but they’re not the same. And so, in this article, I will focus on one unique difference: the coloring.

Farm-raised salmon vs. wild-caught salmon: which is healthier?

Wild salmon is from natural environments like rivers, lakes, and oceans.

However, over half of all salmons sold globally come from fish farms, which breed fish via aquaculture.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, by 2030, over two-thirds of global fish consumption will be provided by fish farms (1, 2).

Wild salmon feed on other organisms that live in their natural environment. On the other hand, farmed salmon are red, a processed, high protein, and a high-fat diet that increases their size (3).

Their nutritional value differs

Farmed salmon are given processed fish feed. But conversely, wild salmon eat a whole lot of invertebrates found in their natural environment.

This explains why both kinds of salmon have varying nutrient content.

The nutritional differences in both types of salmon are compared in the table below. There is a vast nutritional difference between both, especially in the fat content (4, 5).