WHY THE SALMON IS PINK.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17553, 7 September 1922, Page 5

WHY THE SALMON IS PINK.

Men of science were long puzzled tn know why the various salmon and trout have red or pink flesh. Now they be lieve that the colour comes from the food they eat (observes the "Youth's Companion'?). All of the salmon family are particularly fond of and trout eagerly feed on fresh-water ehrimpa. It is well known that when lobste.s, prawns, and shrimps are cooked the flesh turns pink; similarly the process of digestion turns shelMish p nlc. When a shrimp is found in the stomach of a salmon or a trout the gastric juices of the fish have turned it almost as red or pink as if it had.been boiied. Therefor©,, even if we had no definite proof, we might believe that the colour of the flesh of salmon and trout resulto from the. considerable quantities ol various small* shellfish that the fishec eat. But there is definite proof. ; Several years ago Professor Leger/of the Piskmltural Laboratory at Grenoble, France, made experiments with trout to determine what gave their flesh -its colour.' Ho separated the eggs from one trout into two lots and hatched tfoem in different troughs. Ho red one lot of young fish exclusively on fresh-water shrimps ; to the other lot he gave no shrimps whatever. At the end of the second yen.r the trout tha*. had fed on shrimps nad silmon-cdoure: flesh, but the flssh of the other trout was perfectly white. But someone may ask—Why is the flesh of shellfis! red or pinkP That is a hard question to answer. Perhaps the colour corner from the food the shellfish eab. Not long ago chemists of the Department of Agriculture at "Wnshingtan exam ined some pink oysters that had been found in Long Island Sound, and declared that' they were delicious. Th" chemists suggested that possibly the bright hue of the flesh was caused h food that contained wildyeast bacilli and other similar micro-organisms.