Author: Jeff Savell
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Dark-cutting beef
To understand “dark-cutting beef,” it is necessary to understand how the bright red color of beef occurs. At death, the muscle attempts to maintain all normal activities. To do so, it must have energy in the form of ATP. To get ATP, it breaks down glycogen through postmortem glycolysis. A by-product of postmortem glycolysis is…
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Cause of shiny, rainbow appearance on some cured meats
A natural phenomenon in cured meat (and some fresh meat) is the occurrence of iridescence or a rainbow appearance on the cut lean surface. Technically, this is referred to as birefringence. It is caused by the reflectance of light off of muscle proteins, and it is analogous to the color distribution produced by a prism.…
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Possible causes for white film on beef jerky
White film on beef jerky occurs occasionally and can be of concern to customers. This was originally prepared by Dr. Jimmy T. Keeton in response to questions about this condition. Possible causes of white film on beef jerky include: Mold — The white film could be mold on the surface if the product is packaged where…
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Brown color inside packages of ground beef
One of the frequent questions we have received from consumers over the years is this one: “Why is my package of ground beef red on the outside, but brown in the middle?” We have had this question and answer on the Meat Science web page for years and have received many notes from retailers who…
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State FFA Meat Judging Career Development Event
The State FFA Meat Judging Career Development Event (CDE) was held on Saturday, May 5, 2012 at the Rosenthal Meat Science and Technology Center at Texas A&M University. The contest included 48 teams (180 total students) that qualified to come to the state FFA CDE by their ranking at their Area meat CDE. The State…
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“A Steer’s Not All Steak”
While I was cleaning out my files and trying to scan some of them for safe-keeping, I ran into this wonderful brochure entitled a A Steer’s Not All Steak, which was written by the Beef Industry Council of the National Live Stock and Meat Board decades ago. I am not sure when this brochure was…
