Don’t be tricked by supermarkets. They’re selling you meat from... See more

 

The brightest package of beef in the supermarket case is not automatically the freshest one.

That may sound strange because most of us have been trained, almost unconsciously, to judge meat by color.

Bright cherry red?

Fresh.

Dark red or purplish?

Suspicious.

Brown?

Probably bad.

It feels simple.

Unfortunately, meat is not that simple.

The color of beef is influenced by chemistry, oxygen, packaging, temperature, storage time, and even the lighting above the display case. A perfectly safe piece of beef can look darker than expected, while a beautifully red package can still be approaching the end of its usable life.

The first thing to understand is that freshly cut beef is not always bright red.

Deep inside the muscle, before much oxygen reaches it, beef can appear dark red or purplish.

That color comes largely from myoglobin, a protein in muscle tissue that stores oxygen.

When beef is vacuum-packed, very little oxygen is present around the meat. Under those conditions, myoglobin remains in a form that gives the beef a darker purple-red appearance.

That can look alarming if you’re accustomed to supermarket meat glowing bright red beneath display lights.

But dark purplish beef inside an intact vacuum package is not automatically spoiled.

Open that package and expose the meat to air, and something interesting happens.

Oxygen begins interacting with the myoglobin.

Within a relatively short time, the surface can “bloom” into the bright cherry-red color shoppers typically associate with fresh beef.

Same meat.