Pantone Protein

What if the color of your food isn’t telling you what you think it is? Most of us rely on visual cues to judge freshness, quality, and nutritional value. Bright coral pink salmon, golden egg yolks, rich yellow chicken skin, these signals feel intuitive, almost instinctual. But in our modern industrial food system, color is often less a reflection of natural variable processes and more the result of careful calibration.

Producers understand that consumers “eat with their eyes,” and they adjust animal feed accordingly to match expectations. In many cases, what looks lush, vibrant, and natural has actually been engineered to meet a visual standard shaped by culture, marketing, and habit.

If color can be calibrated independently of how an animal was raised, how can we accurately decipher the quality of our food to decide what’s truly best for the health of our families, the animals, and the planet? Are these practices safe? Can we no longer trust our instincts? Let's dive in starting with poultry.

A Colorful Illusion

Chicken skin can range from pale to deep yellow depending on feed composition and the specific breed. Chickens raised on a diet rich in corn or feed supplemented with carotenoid containing additives (marigold) produce a deeper golden tone. In many markets, consumers equate yellow skin with a more “natural”, pasture raised, and healthier bird, which may or may not be true.

Eggs take this one step further. Since hens lay every day, yolk color can easily be monitored and fine tuned using specific feed ingredients like marigold (lutein), turmeric, paprika, or synthetic carotenoids like yellow apo-ester. Producers often rely on standardized tools like the YolkFan™ to dial in a precise shade.

A deep orange yolk might signal a healthy pasture raised hen to consumers, but the same color can be achieved in fully confined systems with the right feed additives. When color is removed as a cue (blindfolded), most people can’t reliably distinguish light from dark yolks based on taste or texture alone. While yolk color does reflect the hen’s diet, the USDA Agricultural Research Service confirms that it is not a reliable indicator of overall egg quality or nutrient density. The egg's nutritional profile remains largely consistent regardless of yolk shade.

Farmed salmon faces similar scrutiny, especially over labels reading “color added through feed.” All salmon, both wild and farmed, start with pale gray flesh. Wild salmon develop their signature coral pink color from eating carotenoid rich prey like krill, shrimp, and zooplankton (which themselves have consumed pigment laden microalgae). Raised in confinement, farmed salmon would stay gray without human intervention, so producers add carotenoid pigments (primarily astaxanthin) to their feed. Like egg yolks, producers use the SalmoFan™ to get precise shades.

The digital color fan works by using highly sensitive LED sensors to objectively measure the color of salmon fillets, eliminating human perception bias.

Though it's a common global practice to enrich animal feed with astaxanthin, the United States is the only major country that mandates the disclosure of “color added” (or similar phrasing) on labels for farmed salmon and trout (which also receives astaxanthin). Interestingly, farmed shrimp are supplemented with astaxanthin too, but the U.S. does not require “color added” disclosure on those labels.

Labeling laws aside, let's dive into the nuance of color perception. Color itself isn’t meaningless, but it’s not what we often assume. In wild or forage based systems, rich vibrant coloration correlate with diverse diet, greater movement/fitness, and natural environmental exposure, all of which positively influence nutritional composition. But in todays modern industrial systems, which often rely on confinement, vibrant color can be replicated without implementing the original conditions behind it.

That distinction matters.

Adding carotenoids to feed doesn’t inherently make meat, eggs, or seafood less healthy. But it does allow producers to recreate a visual cue that we instinctively associate with quality, even when the underlying production system is very different. Take wild salmon, for example: the same wild diet that provides pigment also comes packaged with a host of synergistic nutrients that positively contribute to its broader nutritional profile. This is something that color alone can’t capture. In other words, mother (nature) knows best.

Evolution has wired us to associate bold, vibrant colors with nutrient density and vitality. In whole, unprocessed foods, that instinct generally serves us well. But in a system where color can be engineered independently of environment, diet diversity, and animal lifestyle, that visual shortcut becomes less dependable. Color isn’t useless, but it’s no longer a reliable proxy for quality on its own.

Separating Safety from Perception

If safety is the concern here, it helps to separate what carotenoids do in the body from what their presence signals visually. Carotenoids like astaxanthin, lutein, and beta-carotene, are not viewed as foreign contaminants by the body. They’re a well studied class of plant and algae derived compounds that humans regularly consume in the form of fruits, vegetables, and animal products. Carotenoids act primarily as powerful antioxidants to neutralize free radicals, reduce chronic inflammation, and protect cells from damage. They are also crucial for maintaining eye health, providing UV skin protection, and bolstering the immune system.

When animals are fed carotenoid rich diets (via wild forage or supplemented feed), the pigments deposit in their fat, skin, yolk, and flesh. In turn, when we eat those animal foods, our bodies handle the carotenoids through normal pathways. They're viewed the same as if we'd consumed them from plants directly.

The viral claim circulating on social media that “color added” salmon is bad/nasty/toxic simply because of the added pigment just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The carotenoids used in animal feed, whether naturally sourced from marigold petals, paprika, or algae (Haematococcus pluvialis), are already regular parts of the human food supply. We consume these same compounds daily through carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, squash, leafy greens, and meat - probably without even realising that carotenoid pigments are being consumed in the process. Moreover, the levels permitted for use in animal feed are strictly regulated by bodies like the FDA and EFSA, and they fall well within established safety thresholds for human consumption.

Even so, the human body is very familiar with processing these pigments, even in much higher amounts than we could ever possibly get from eating pigmented animal products. A classic example of this is carotenemia (also called carotenoderma), a harmless condition that occurs when someone consumes very high amounts of carotenoid rich foods or takes supplements. The skin develops a subtle yellow/orange tint, most noticeably on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. It’s purely cosmetic, completely reversible once intake drops, and surprisingly common - especially in babies and vegetarians/vegans that "eat the rainbow".

This phenomenon perfectly illustrates the broader point here: diet can visibly alter our appearance without necessarily reflecting (or harming) overall health status. The color change is just excess pigment depositing in the skin’s outer layer. It's not a sign of any underlying health problem, toxicity, or vitamin A overload. Vitamin A toxicity (Hypevitaminosis A) isn’t caused by carotenoids. It comes from excess preformed vitamin A found in liver or supplements. Because the body controls carotenoid conversion, overconsumption shows up as harmless skin tinting, not toxicity.

Think Beyond Color

In today’s industrial food system, context - production methods, feed quality, and animal welfare - matters more than color alone. We must dig deeper. Prioritize labels that say "wild caught" or look for third party certifications that address production practices. Independent verification provides real assurance that producers are actually meeting meaningful standards for safety, quality, and ethics. That's your best shot at obtaining high quality food.

Check out our blog article "Deciphering Meat & Egg Labels" to learn more about identifying credible certifications on labels.