Is Meat Juice Blood?

[JNAProductions]

See title. I work at a grocery store, and when bagging, we always put raw meat inside extra plastic bags, so the meat juice doesn't leak.

So is meat juice just blood? Or is there some combination of other fluids that constitute meat juice?

[tyckspoon]

Animals are bled out pretty thoroughly as part of the slaughter and butchering process; there should be little to no actual blood left in a cut by the time it makes it to retail level. The 'juice' is mostly water and a protein called myoglobin, which is involved in oxygen transport. The more of it there is, the redder the meat/leaking fluid will appear.

[SirKazum]

See title. I work at a grocery store, and when bagging, we always put raw meat inside extra plastic bags, so the meat juice doesn't leak.

So is meat juice just blood? Or is there some combination of other fluids that constitute meat juice?

I was curious about it too but didn't want to wait around for a reply, so I googled it. According to the first couple results, commercialized meat doesn't have practically any blood in it, maybe except for very small residue, since the animal is drained of blood before being cut. The redness of raw red meat comes from myoglobin, a protein that's a key component in most animal muscle structures and which is similar to the hemoglobin that makes blood red. And the red juice that tends to ooze out of raw or rare meat is just myoglobin-infused water, since meat has a significant amount of water in it.

edit: http://ninja.davidsen.cc/ninja.png

[JNAProductions]

Thanks for the answers, guys!

[pendell]

Animals are bled out pretty thoroughly as part of the slaughter and butchering process; there should be little to no actual blood left in a cut by the time it makes it to retail level. The 'juice' is mostly water and a protein called myoglobin, which is involved in oxygen transport. The more of it there is, the redder the meat/leaking fluid will appear.

This is correct. Everyone and all major meat-eating traditions bleed their meat, because of this little thing called "blood-borne disease". Don't let anyone tell you that blood-drinking is cool; that only works in vampire movies. IRL it's very inefficient food and is reeally good at transmitting sickness.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[sktarq]

Also the composition will be somewhat different depending if the meat was plumped up with water

Also organ meats (esp liver) will contain more blood parts in their juices.


And yeah - only consume fully cooked blood/blood products.

[Rynjin]

The easiest way to tell is with chicken. Chickens don't have tan blood. =)

[Aedilred]

This is correct. Everyone and all major meat-eating traditions bleed their meat, because of this little thing called "blood-borne disease". Don't let anyone tell you that blood-drinking is cool; that only works in vampire movies. IRL it's very inefficient food and is reeally good at transmitting sickness.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

But there are foods like blutwurst and black pudding which are made from blood.

[Gnomvid]

But there are foods like blutwurst and black pudding which are made from blood.

And blodpalt = Blood dumpling? (wikipedia calls it blood cake but that can't be right) blood soup etc.

[sktarq]

But there are foods like blutwurst and black pudding which are made from blood.

it is fine if you cook it properly.

So thus things like sausage with first would get salt poisoning/cure to various bugs and then heat treatment is fine. So is the blood used to thicken various sauces as they are taken to high heat.

Lots of tasty foods but none with free flowing red stuff you may notice..

[Aedilred]

it is fine if you cook it properly.

So thus things like sausage with first would get salt poisoning/cure to various bugs and then heat treatment is fine. So is the blood used to thicken various sauces as they are taken to high heat.

Lots of tasty foods but none with free flowing red stuff you may notice..

Oh, sure. Blood is fine to eat so long as you prepare it properly. Which could be said for every other type of food. I just thought it was worth making the point since Pendell's post suggested that blood was necessarily toxic and bad.

[Razade]

Oh, sure. Blood is fine to eat so long as you prepare it properly. Which could be said for every other type of food. I just thought it was worth making the point since Pendell's post suggested that blood was necessarily toxic and bad.

Which in and of itself should be easy enough to discard since you have blood inside of you and you're all doing just fine. :smalltongue:

[DataNinja]

Which in and of itself should be easy enough to discard since you have blood inside of you and you're all doing just fine. :smalltongue:

Or it just takes (roughly) between sixty and one hundred years to do its work. :smalltongue:

[Razade]

Or it just takes (roughly) between sixty and one hundred years to do its work. :smalltongue:

Well, you are slowly oxidizing.

[SirKazum]

Well, you are slowly oxidizing.

Yeah, it's not the blood itself, it's the oxygen it carries that's poisonous (over a very, very long term) :smalltongue:

[Spacewolf]

There is the Maasai tribe in Africa who have blood as a major part of their diets so apparently humans can drink unprepared blood.

[sktarq]

Yeah - they mix it with milk and that is their dietary staple. With a moderate addition of veg.

They also don't put their cows in western style feedlots and stockyards and fatten them up on grain.
They also don't store it for more than a couple of hours.

Pure blood is actually so rich in iron it can mess with the stomach in large quantities-but that's what the milk is for.

We have done everything we can to make blood far less healthy in the west....we do need to cook it solidly.





People are amazing omnivores. We can live off of just about anything the Maasi and Inuit are nearly carnivores but Vegans and Jains also do just fine.