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By: Rabbi Chaim Goldberg

To answer this question, it is important for one to understand exactly what carotenes are. Astaxanthin (the primary carotene found in wild salmon) is in the same family as beta-carotene, the chief anti-oxidant (and principal pigment provider) found in carrots, apricots, squash and sweet potatoes. But carotenes do much more than provide yellow, orange or red color. Carotenes are essential to the health of both humans and fish as they also eliminate free radicals and oxygen singlets from the blood, enhance immune functions, act as anti-mutagens and anti-carcinogens and are resource for the body’s manufacture of Vitamin A. Excess carotenes, which the body does not need for maintaining life functions, are stored in different parts of the body in different creatures, depending on their genetic make-up. In salmon and trout, carotenes are stored in the muscle tissue (i.e. flesh), making the flesh pink or red. (The skin on the other hand, in an Atlantic salmon for example, would retain a blue/silver color.)

Only fish such as salmon and trout retain natural carotenes in their reddish-pinkish flesh. Only fish that have the ability to store natural carotenes in their flesh can retain artificial carotenes, such as Hoffman-La Roche’s astaxanthin “Carophyll-pink”, in their flesh. Other fish are not red because they do not store carotenes whether natural or artificial in their flesh.

It is interesting to note that in humans, carotenes are stored (amongst other places) in skin (as opposed to flesh). 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 (though it does have the undesirable side effect of causing one’s perspiration to be orange). Astaxanthin does not change the skin color of farmed salmon and trout, nor does it change the flesh color of humans or other fish.

In conclusion, the OU Poskim maintain that red flesh is still a siman muvhak for a kosher fish, as only salmon and trout have a red or pink flesh , and that our policy of accepting reddish-pinkish fillets without skin is justified.