WHETHER one cuts into a medium or medium-rare steak, 'red juice' seems to appear from it. Some say that the liquid oozing out from the meat is blood.
Is this true?
VERDICT:
FALSE
What you are seeing is myoglobin, the protein that delivers oxygen to an animal’s muscles. Myoglobin looks like blood when you cut into the meat because the iron in myoglobin turns red when exposed to oxygen.
And heating the protein turns it into a darker colour - making it look 'bloody'.
This is similar to haemoglobin in our body - the protein in our red blood cells which carries oxygen into our body's organs and tissue.
So, when meat is cut, you are not looking at 'blood', but Instead, a combination of water, which makes up about 75% of meat, and myoglobin.
According to Steak School by Standbroke, most mammals have myoglobin in their tissue, which is why meat that comes from mammals, including beef, lamb and pork, is known as 'red meat'.
This is in contrast to 'white meat', which comes from animals with low levels of myoglobin (poultry) or no myoglobin at all (some sea life).
So, be assured that the next time you see a steak being cooked, it is bloodless.
References:
1. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-is-the-blood-in-steak_n_57fc0219e4b0e655eab6eb36
2. https://steakschool.com/learn/red-liquid-steak-plate-not-blood/
