Dunaliella Algae

Long before anyone understood the biology behind it, salt harvesters around the world noticed that the richest, most productive salt pans often turned a startling shade of pink or red in the summer heat. That color was Dunaliella salina, quietly proving itself one of the most carotenoid-rich organisms on earth. Once scientists identified the algae in the early twentieth century and later realized just how much beta-carotene it could hold, coastal communities and salt works that had lived alongside these rosy ponds for generations found their old observation had a name. Today it is cultivated deliberately in sun-drenched saline ponds and valued as one of nature's most concentrated natural sources of beta-carotene, prized in ways that echo the old folk trust in "the pink water that makes good salt."