Why is beef meat red and poultry meat white?

[cuppatea]

Why is beef meat red and poultry meat white? This one has me stumped and I don't know the answer. One of lifes great mysteries.

[nickmo]

Meat is muscle.

The most simple explanation is, if the muscle works, it gets more blood supply so is darker with use. As, for example, most chickens are kept in restricted conditions and can not exercise and are slaughtered at about 45 days they have no chance to develop breast or even thigh muscle. Free range birds get the opportunity to move about and so can gain in effect a 'better' meat.

Poultry can be red - think 'dark' meat on a turkey or pigeon breast, which come form parts of the bird that is 'used'

Animals meat can be very pale - veal, some pork etc. The muscle make up of fish differs from mammal/bird so we get white fish - but there are also dark meat fish; think tuna - dark 'cos that species is a very fast swimming predator, so their muscle devlopes with a colour in that species.

Meat that is hung allows the muscle fibres to relax and in fact start to break cown so you get a fuller flavour and more rounded taste. Intensive production precludes this essential action, so supermarkets tend to rely on meat that has been cut and packed without letting flavours develop, unless they charge a premium for hanging time.

[Kingaroo]

Nickmo - I believe you, but I don't think that's the whole explanation. Free range poultry meat may be darker than caged poultry, but it still doesn't look like steak. And it's not like feedlot cows get a lot of exercise. Pigs either.

[Noweia]

In addition to nickmo's excellent answer, there are two types of muscle fibre: darker, slow-twitch muscle fibres and lighter, fast-twicth fibres. The breast muscle in chickens is mainly fast-twitch and so is lighter in colour than, say, a rump steak of a cow. Chicken leg meat has more slow-twitch fibres and so appears darker.

[eash]

Just stumbled upon this question and found it quite interesting, i have learnt something new today!

[nickmo]

Hi kingaroo - fair point but the following reply re the type of muscle expands what I tried to keep basic.

You could get into the area of saying, well, tuna is dark - but marlin swims a lot so why isn't that dark meat as well, never mind the pork / beef issue. What about kangaroo or alligator for that matter - both fairly active animals but not a dark meat necessarily.

Beef kept in a vacuum pack will be actually be a 'purple' colour as once exposed to oxygen, enzymes present in the meat will turn it 'red' If it gets too old, it then gets 'brown'. Thats why you get a 'deeper' colour in the middle say of a pack of beef mince.

If you actually look at fresh poultry, the meat is in fact pink, and the white colour develops again on aging. Heres a little extract explaining some of the reasons for colour: 'Poultry meat colour is affected by factors such as bird age, sex, strain, diet, intramuscular fat, meat moisture content, preslaughter conditions and processing variables. Colour of meat depends upon the presence of the muscle pigments myoglobin and hemoglobin. Discoloration of poultry can be related to the amount of these pigments that are present in the meat, the chemical state of the pigments, or the way in which light is reflected off of the meat'

The cooking of meat results in a chemical 'change' reulting in flavours derived from sugar and amino acid interactions, lipid and thermal oxidation and thiamin degradation. The Maillard process is the reason food colours - i.e the natural sugars caramelise. (simple explanation: http://www.landfood.ubc.ca/courses/fnh/410/colour/3_82.htm and as meats have different constituents, you get different results. So there.

Hope that helps...