While good diners may believe that ordering a steak “bloody” is the proper method to do it, the remark is wrong. Blood is not the crimson liquid that seeps out of meat and soaks into its tiny packing diaper. It is a natural byproduct known in the industry as “weep” or “purge,” according to the American Meat Science Association. While it is easy to visualize blood seeping from a severed muscle, the red liquid is really a combination of water and myoglobin. It was released because of the most popular method of transporting meat, which entails freezing and defrosting it.
Myoglobin is a protein present in the cardiac and skeletal muscles of most vertebrates and nearly all mammals that binds to iron and oxygen. Cows, pigs, and sheep are among the most extensively eaten animals on the planet. When meat freezes, the water inside it condenses into ice crystals (remember, our own meat is 76% water). Water swells and acquires spiky edges as it switches states of matter, slicing muscle cells in half.
When the ice crystals stated above melt, water pours out of the flesh, along with some myoglobin. Myoglobin is a protein that binds iron and oxygen, giving it the blood-red color we associate with blood. This also explains why steaks shrink as they cook because the proteins lose their ability to contain water, allowing more myoglobin-touting water to escape.
While fresh slices of meat from a farmer’s market or market may have a little quantity of genuine blood oozing out, animal corpses bled after death, eliminating the vast bulk of the blood from the body.
Meat purchased from bigger retailers frequently travels some distance, and to ensure that it survives the voyage without spoiling, it is frozen then defrosted. This is why meat packages frequently include a little towel to mop up the myoglobin liquid.
However, not everyone is worried about the freshness of meat consume. Have you heard of high meat, a “trend” in which people eat meat that has already started to decompose?
