ontheedgeofeverything

I acknowledge that the topic of this post is positively arbitrary, but if you’ve been following my blog to any extent whatsoever and have additionally taken stock of the name of my website, random is nothing new around here. How can it be, really, when I write a post every day?

I will note that some topics are more random than others, and I do believe today’s is a bit more on the incidental side than not. I recently had a conversation with my sister about the different colours of various cuts of meat, though, and thus, our conversation inspired today’s post.

If you buy groceries, and meat is one thing you normally buy, it is reasonable to wager that at some point or another in your existence, you’ve noticed that the colour of said meat is not the same as its original colour when you initially purchased it. There is a reason behind this transformation, as explained in the following information from thebeefsite.com.

“Colour is important when meat is purchased, stored, and cooked. Often an attractive, bright colour is a consideration for the purchase. When safely stored in a retail or home refrigerator or freezer, it’s normal for the colour of meat and poultry to change, according to the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS).

“Meat colour is influenced by myoglobin, a protein that is responsible for the majority of meat’s red colour. Myoglobin doesn’t circulate in the blood but is fixed in the tissue cells and is purplish in colour.

“When it is mixed with oxygen, it becomes oxymyoglobin and produces a bright red colour. The remaining colour comes from the haemoglobin which occurs mainly in the circulating blood, but a small amount can be found in the tissues after slaughter.

“Colour is also influenced by the age of the animal, the species, sex, diet, and even the exercise it gets. As animals age, the myoglobin level increases, so the meat from older animals will appear … darker in colour. It’s normal to see variations in colour throughout a cut of meat because exercised muscles are always darker in colour,” the web page explains.

There ya have it, folks. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

Photo by Eiliv Aceron on Unsplash