We have all seen the prices of meat these days and you want the best buy, but have ever wondered why ground beef is brown in the middle, when it is bright red on the outside and is it safe? The reason might surprise you! We have all done it… bought a package of ground beef at the grocery store. It looks nice and red in the package. You take it out of the package to make hamburger patties or to brown it in a skillet and… it’s brown on the inside, even though it is a beautiful red on the outside.
What’s going on? Is brown ground beef safe to eat? YES, it is safe to eat. It’s all about science.
Beef is muscle. And muscle has a pigment called myoglobin. This is very similar to hemoglobin, the pigment in your blood that makes your blood red. Both myoglobin and hemoglobin contain iron. Because so much of the meat is exposed to air when ground beef is made, the myoglobin gets saturated with oxygen. The enzymes that use the oxygen turn the myoglobin brown. When ground beef is packaged, the outside of the meat is exposed to air again, so it turns that pretty red color. The air can only penetrate so far through the meat, so the inside stays brown. It’s complicated science, but all is normal with red on the outside and brown on the inside…Ed
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