Why Is Some Trout Meat Pink and Some White?

March 25, 2010

Question: I have caught trout in many different lakes and streams and found that sometimes there may be one trout that has really pink meat while the others are white. Can you tell me why some trout will occasionally have pink meat? (Sam M.)

Answer: The main reason for any differences in flesh color is due to the food they eat. According to DFG Senior Hatchery Supervisor Judy Urrutia, astaxanthin and canthaxanthin are naturally occurring carotenoid pigments found in crustaceans that fish eat. Some private growers add these naturally occurring pigments to fish feed over the last few weeks before fish are stocked. Most hatchery fish feed has no color in the formula, so their flesh is white.

Reminded me that I wanted to find out why lings were blue sometimes

on a related note:
Blue lingcod: Though usually white-hued like halibut or cod, lingcod, a West Coast bottom-dwelling species, occasionally looks as though it's been marinated overnight in a tray of Blue No. 2 food dye.

Love writes in his book that a bile pigment called biliverdin seems to be responsible for turning the blood serum of these fish their stunning color — but how this pigment gets into the tissues and flesh of the fish, or why only some lingcod turn this striking shade, is a mystery to biologists.

Lingcod — a member of the greenling family — isn't the only West Coast species to turn up with blue-green meat. Its cousins, the rock greenling and the kelp greenling, are sometimes tinted turquoise, as is an unrelated sculpin called the cabezon, which shares the same habitat.

Worthington says the rare turquoise individuals taste the same as their white brethren. And during cooking, the blue color vanishes entirely. Those lucky enough to encounter a blue fillet at the fish counter may be drawn to it for its aesthetic appeal; Worthington says turquoise lingcod fillets always sell faster than their white counterparts.

Are there any fish we've left out? Let us know if you have other brilliantly hued suggestions for the fish rainbow.

Alastair Bland is a freelance writer based in San Francisco who covers food, agriculture and the environment.

Eagle lake strain have pink meat (at least in Eagle Lake) and have been planted all over the state.

Farmed salmon also are white fleshed until just prior to harvest when the pigments mentioned above are included in the diet to color up the flesh to create the visual appeal of wild caught salmon and to keep costs down. Imagine going to the market and buying white colored salmon filets...no market there.

About five years ago I caught and kept a dime-bright steelhead from the Mad River.  He still had sea lice on him and everything.  Much to my surprise, when I filleted him the flesh was a pale pink/white.  Hardly what I was expecting!  Still tasted good though.  I theorized that particular steelhead was more of a “fish eater” than a “krill eater”, and that was why he had such pale-colored flesh.  He even still have a mostly-digested baitfish in his stomach, showing that he’d only been in the river for a couple days at the most.

The majority of the rainbow and brown trout I’ve kept from Lake Almanor had pink- or orange-colored flesh.  I’ve attributed this to the lake’s abundant freshwater shrimp (scud) and crayfish populations.  You eat the scuds, ingest the astaxanthin, excess astaxanthin is stored in the muscle tissue, and voila: red/pink/orange flesh.  Eagle Lake has a ton of scuds in it, so just about every trout caught from there will invariably have red/pink/orange flesh.

About five years ago I caught and kept a dime-bright steelhead from the Mad River.  He still had sea lice on him and everything.  Much to my surprise, when I filleted him the flesh was a pale pink/white.  Hardly what I was expecting!  Still tasted good though.  I theorized that particular steelhead was more of a “fish eater” than a “krill eater”, and that was why he had such pale-colored flesh.  He even still have a mostly-digested baitfish in his stomach, showing that he’d only been in the river for a couple days at the most.

The majority of the rainbow and brown trout I’ve kept from Lake Almanor had pink- or orange-colored flesh.  I’ve attributed this to the lake’s abundant freshwater shrimp (scud) and crayfish populations.  You eat the scuds, ingest the astaxanthin, excess astaxanthin is stored in the muscle tissue, and voila: red/pink/orange flesh.  Eagle Lake has a ton of scuds in it, so just about every trout caught from there will invariably have red/pink/orange flesh.

Thanks!  It's handy to have a fisheries biologist around that can shed light on these things. Much appreciated.

The Steelhead from Lake Sonoma have Red/orange meat but they are often only eating shad......soooo? wtf??? I  wonder is there scuds in the lake as I have never seen any and if not is the nice looking meat attributed to the fish eating crayfish at times?