GMB

They say that we are what we eat. A good example of that is the flamingo, whose pink plumage is tinted with bright-red @astaxanthin.

Astaxanthin is a xanthophyll, a subclass of carotenoid similar to β-carotene but with oxidisedend-groups that make it more water-soluble. It is found widely in nature, synthesisedmostly in algae, and working its way through the feed chain to plankton, corals, crustaceans, fish, and birds, etc.. Shrimps, red salmon and flamingos are all good examples of astaxanthin-tinted organisms.

For flamingos, the primary source of astaxanthin is, a GREEN algacalled Haematococcus pluvialis. I capitalise the GREEN because these algae are@chlorophyta, more closely related to land plants than to the @rhodophyta (REDalgae ) and other algae.

Astaxanthin is a powerful antioxidant, much sought after as a food supplement and for skin-careproducts. As has slightly different chemical properties from other carotenoids, which may result in bioactivities that are particularly suited to addressingcertain health conditions.

Commercialastaxanthin is largely manufactured from petroleum, but it can also beharvested from natural sources. Synthetic and natural astaxanthin are chemically identical. A major use of astaxanthin is in fish feed to make farmedsalmon pink. Here, the use of petroleum-derived astaxanthin is particularlycontroversial, but the argument is ethical. The fish eating it don’t care andthe people dining on the farmed salmon can expect the exact same health benefits.

Nevertheless, with the growing preference for naturally produced ingredients, algae like lyprovide a good answer for producing carotenoids. For β-carotene, the green alga Dunaliella is already a major commercial source. For astanxan thin a good candidate is Haematococcus, the alga found in the lake-water that bathes the feet of the flamingo, one foot at a time.