[PapaBear]

Eric brought up Spirulina as a potential "ideal food" candidate which was dealt with pretty well, but it got me thinking a bit about some of the other nutritional information, winter feeding/fasting threads we've had in the past, and the way we approach winter.

Chris Neaves has written some excellent posts on nutrition, digestibility, low protein/high carb winter diets, etc... that I thought very valuable. Long story short, low protein/high carb diets provide no real benefit in cool water since Koi utilize protein for energy anyway.
JR has written excellent info on the way Koi not only utilize stored fats and undeveloped eggs to carry them through winter fasting, but also the long term health and polishing benefits to the Koi in terms of fatty disease prevention and color cell consolidation and skin cleansing.
Taking this information together it would draw one to the conclusion that higher protein foods in appropriate quantities are fine at all temperatures where feeding is called for AND that the fasting period allows shiroji to clean itself up and build greater depth to sumi and beni cells.

So why bring this up?

Many ponders tend to modify their feeding regime as cool weather approaches as though we are switching our goals from a body builders diet to a "grapefruit and cheese" weight loss program followed by strictly enforced anorexia... Seems a bit off kilter and counter productive to me.
My winter feeding/fasting is aimed toward IMPROVEMENT over winter so that when the fast is broken they have obtained the maximum benefit from a fast. With that goal in mind, would it make sense to use high protein, color rich foods like spirulina and crustaceans during the fall season. My thoughts are that the natural color enhancement would be packed into the fatty tissues immediately before the fast, making it available to build color depth in the hi plates during the fasting period. If a Kohaku were fed in this fashion before the fast began, would it not emerge in spring with cleansed shiroji and stronger beni?
What are your thoughts on my logic (or illogic) as the case may be...?