I was happily sat watching some crap on TV the other night, when a Bird’s Eye advert came on and told me that most salmon, one of my favourite foods, is often artificially coloured. So much so that there is even a “Salmon colour wheel” used to measure the pinkness.
You see, the flesh of wild salmon is naturally pink because the fish consume large amounts of shrimps. However, almost 90% of the salmon sold in supermarkets is farmed. So farmed salmon isn’t fed on shrimps, and guess how it gets its pink colour? Chemicals of course! Our friends in the industry are feeding the salmon canthaxanthin, which is also fed to chickens to give their skin and eggs a brighter yellow complexion.
This depresses me. Perhaps it would have been better for me to be blissfully ignorant of all this. It seems that more and more foods are being pumped full of toxins just to sell them without regard to the long-term effects. At a time where Tescos posts record profits yet again, perhaps Jamie Oliver needs to get back on our TVs and save the grown ups this time.
