by Staff writer
Seeing a blood-like liquid oozing out of fresh or under-cooked meat when you cut into it is a pretty common sight.
Because a lot of people think this liquid is blood, the sight isn’t always appetizing.
Well, the truth is that you are wrong to think that it is blood.
The red liquid you see in fresh meat is actually myoglobin, a protein that’s only found in muscle tissue.
Myoglobin carries oxygen through the muscle and contains a red pigment – which is why muscle tissue is red.
As the meat is cooked, the myoglobin darkens – which is why the more “well-done” the meat is, the grayer it looks.
Interestingly, commercial meat packers sometimes treat raw meat with carbon monoxide to “lock” in the myoglobin and keep it looking as fresh and red as possible.
Nearly all blood is removed from meat during slaughter, which is why you don’t see blood in raw “white meat”.
Only an extremely small amount of blood remains within the muscle tissue when you get it from the store.
