What Happens When Beef Turns Brown

May 27, 2022 Post a Comment

A few evenings agone, I was consulted past a friend of mine about the color of meat and how to tell if information technology's bad. She sent me this photograph….

Dark Meat Back story… this adult female bought these steaks, opened them upwardly, turned them over, and establish this…. She assumed they were bad and threw them out! She and then went ahead to mail the photo on Facebook with a comment about how upset she was her steaks were bad. Although I don't know this adult female, I wish I would accept been able to allow this woman know her steaks were perfectly fine. And it makes me sad that nobody on those 20 comments told her that either.

Huh!? Brown meat!? That's correct. Dark-brown meat is OKAY to eat.. And then what makes meat scarlet in the beginning identify? The nearly common respond people give me is claret. Well I hate to break it to you but in that location is actually no blood in muscles. All the blood is removed from the creature when information technology is slaughtered. That red liquid you see is really water mixing with a protein that gives meat its red color, myoglobin. Myoglobin is a poly peptide that stores oxygen for aerobic metabolism in the musculus. All mammals contain this poly peptide in their meat tissues and is very like to hemoglobin which stores oxygen in our red blood cells. This protein is normally a dark grayish-purple but when it comes in contact with oxygen, it becomesoxymyoglobin and reacts by turning a deep red color. That is why most of the meat we see has a bright red colour.

But this color can vary, as we have seen before, from light cerise to an intense red to an nigh royal color. Colour in meat can change depending on the historic period of the animal, the species, sex, diet, and even the practice it gets. The meat from older animals will be darker in color because the myoglobin level increases with every bit animals age. Exercised muscles are always darker in color. Considering muscles differ greatly in activeness, their oxygen demand varies which in turn means the same creature can have variations of color in its muscles. Also myoglobin levels vary by species which is why beefiness has more of a carmine color than pork or lamb. So why does meat turn chocolate-brown?

Both myoglobin and oxymyoglobin take the ability to lose their oxidation which results in a brown colour called metmyoglobin. This substantially ways that meat tin plough from a bright ruby-red color (which many acquaintance with fresh) to a brown colour from a lack of oxygen. Meat tin can besides turn brown if any sort of contagion that would crusade a chemical reaction comes in contact with it. For example, cure (sodium nitrite) turns raw meat a brownish-grey color (retrieve of a cured, uncooked salami) if it comes in direct contact with a meat surface, but if that aforementioned meat is then heated, the sodium nitrite turns the meat a pinkish color (much similar ham). In order for meat to maintain that bright red color we are familiar with, oxygen must exist available at a sufficient concentration. That is why grocery stores utilize a small picture over their products versus a vacuum package. Browning of meat can also occur with meat that has been chilled for a long period of time (most 5 days), ie: taken home from the grocery store and placed in your fridge for some time. This happens because as meat is chilled/frozen for long periods of time, enzyme activity decreases so the myoglobin and oxygen quit mixing together to keep meat that bright red color.

Browning of meat can also occur when oxygen fractional force per unit area is low or basically when meat is stacked on top of ane another. This is more than likely the case from the photograph above. This is also the reason why your ground beef from the shop may be cerise on the outside but brown on the inside. Oxygen tin't readily brand its way through or penetrate the footing beef and then it begins to lose its red color on the inside afterward fourth dimension. The changing from cherry to brown and even the purplish color to ruby occurs quite hands in meat, the contrary is much difficult. In one case meat has browned, it is hard to get it enough oxygen to contrary the process. Also, this same process is the reason meat does indeed turn brown when you lot cook it. Merely once meat is cooked, it denatures the proteins so at that place is really no going back! All of the protein is not affected at the aforementioned time which is why y'all become unlike variations of a reddish color at unlike temperature points. Basically this is what gives us rare, medium rare, medium, well done, etc. Those colors associated with meat temperatures are basically denatured metmyoglobin!

So we've established once meat turns brown, information technology's hard for it to turn back to that red color. One myth I see commonly brought upward is that quondam meat is dyed reddish. This is not annihilation any of us in the meat industry have heard of nor have nosotros found data to supply this so-chosen do. Since we are dealing with an enzymatic reaction hither, I don't think any dye could mayhap work equally effectively as the reaction itself. When you run across red meat in the grocery store, information technology's because it is a. actually fresh and b. allowed oxygen to proceed it that red color.

So if color isn't an indicator of spoiled meat, what is…? The number one indicator of spoiled meat is in fact smell. An off olfactory property volition be prevalent to your senses and the most constructive way to diagnose spoiled meat. Another indicator of spoiled meat is tacky or sticky to the touch. Slimy meat (not juicy) is also a great indicator of spoilage. This especially occurs if meat has been temperature abused. Raw meat that has been heated up (non cooked) and and then re-cooled will often times become sticky or tacky along with possibly a color change. Use these 3 factors in diagnosing spoiled meat: does information technology smell, is it sticky, AND does it have color change? If all three or at least two of iii are nowadays (fifty-fifty with NO color modify) than it'south probably alright to toss it rather than gamble getting sick.

So if you happen to open a package of meat looking like the photograph above, please don't throw it away simply because of its color. Use the three indicators given to diagnose if it's spoiled or not. If information technology is not spoiled, feel free to indulge without worry!