Myths and facts on the color of meat and poultry

When buying meat, one of the things we check is its color. We want something that looks bright and vibrant, because we believe that this indicates freshness. But, there may be more to meat colors than meet the eye.

Meat and poultry often have different colors depending on the source, freshness, and other factors, and these colors change as time passes after the meat is purchased, stored, and cooked.

We’ll explain to you below some of the most common misconceptions of consumers when it comes to meat colors, and the truth behind each one.

Myth: there is one specific meat color per source animal

While it’s true that the type of animal affects the meat color (such as white for poultry, and red for beef), other factors such as the animal’s age, sex, diet, and exercise also influence the color of its meat.

This is also why different parts of the same animal can have different colors. Leg muscles are worked harder than the loin area, which makes them darker and tougher. When it comes to age, older animals have more myoglobin, making their meat darker or more purplish.

Myth: red or pink meat means it is fresh

When buying meat at grocery stores or wet market, we often see the same type of meat in different colors, and always opt for the reddest beef and lamb, or the pinkest pork and veal, thinking that these are the freshest batch.

Aside from the explanation on the first myth, another reason why meat can have different colors is exposure to air. Vacuum sealed meat, especially those that are wet aged, often appear purplish, while meat that is constantly exposed to air, moisture, and light can appear red or brown.

This is also why meat is often more vibrant on the surface and duller on the insides, which is especially obvious in pre-packed ground meat, which looks red but is actually a dull brown in the center.

Myth: when the meat changes color, it means it’s spoiled

There are many reasons for meat changing colors that have nothing to do with spoilage. While spoiled meat is often darker or not as vibrant as a fresh one, more reliable ways of checking the meat’s freshness have to do with its texture, odor, and the presence of foreign substances like slime and fungus.

One common reason why meat changes its color is because it gets exposed to air, moisture, and different temperatures. This is especially true when you store meat in the freezer, which alters its color, texture, and tenderness, and can cause shrinkage and freezer burn.
 

Myth: the meat releases blood while cooking

The red liquid you see oozing from the meat and poultry when you buy it, and especially while cooking the meat, is actually not blood. Although there may be some residual blood from the meat, especially when it is freshly butchered, more often than not, this red liquid is actually oxymyoglobin.

This comes from the meat’s muscle tissues, which contains a protein called myoglobin- a purplish substance that becomes bright red once it reacts with oxygen, meaning, when the meat is exposed to air.

This also does not mean that the meat is not yet fully cooked. Pinkish centers simply mean that air and heat have reached the center of the meat, and reacted with the myoglobin.

The answer to meat carcass yield and losses

Many local meat producers and processors sell meat by the quarter, half, or whole, to consumers who want a steady supply from their freezers, and to those in the food industry who always need large quantities of meat for their daily operations.

If you are a local producer who wants to partner with a local meat processor to cut, process, or sell your meat, or if you are an average consumer looking to purchase huge quantities of meat for your “freezer beef”, then it is important to understand exactly what you are paying for, and what you will get out of it.

When you go to a meat processor for their butchering services or to buy whole meat, you are paying for the live weight of a single animal where your meat will come from. Here is where the confusion starts, as the weight of the meat you get is considerably less than the one you were told when the animal was weighed.

The thing is, your butcher is not cheating you out of meat. Weight loss is a natural thing that happens from live weighing of an animal, to the delivery of retail (ready to cook) meat. Here’s why:

Dressing

Dressing the animal carcass, which happens during slaughter, results in an average of 37% weight loss, which is further affected by other factors such as whether the animal is a dairy breed, an immature female, fatty, or poorly muscled.

So, for example, if you purchase whole beef with a live weight of 1200 lbs, after dressing, you will get roughly 650 to 750 lb carcass weight.

Bone in vs. boneless

The second factor affecting the actual weight of the meat you will end up with is whether you want your cuts bone in or boneless. Bones on a whole beef accounts for around 15% of the total live weight of the animal.

This means that, after dressing where you end up with 750 lb, around 140 to 190 lb of that comes from the bones, so you will end up with much less weight for boneless cuts- but the same amount of meat, which is what’s important (unless of course, you are making bone broth, in which case you need the bones).

External, internal, and muscle fats

Animals have fat in multiple places- their external covers (beneath the skin surface), their internal organs, and their muscles. Normally, you wouldn’t want most of this fat, so the common practice is for butchers and meat processors to trim these fats from the meat, which is muscle.

Fats also weigh lighter than muscle, so if you happen to purchase an animal carcass with a large fat percentage, you will end up with both a lighter live weight and actual yield.

Primal and retail cuts

Finally, there is the issue of what kinds of cut you want. First of all, butchering the carcass into these primal cuts result in some weight loss due to reasons mostly explained above, not to mention discarding undesirable, unsaleable, and unusable parts, such as, for example, the head, tail, and organs.

Then, it must be noted that different primal and sub primal cuts account for different percentages of the meat’s total weight, which is an important factor, especially when you are not purchasing the whole beef. Given that, cutting these primals into retail cuts can also result in some minimal weight loss.