Page 30 - March2022 Barbecue News Magazine

Meathead, AmazingRibs.com
Meat is cut from the muscles of mammals and birds. For some reason, fish muscle is not con- sidered meat by some people, but it should be. It is fish mus- cle tissue.
On average, lean muscle tissue
of mammals typically breaks
down like this: Water (about
75%), protein (18%), fats (5%),
carbohydrates, salt, vitamins, sugars, and minerals (2%).
Muscle cells
Muscle cells are more frequently called muscle fibers because they are shaped like tubes. Muscle fibers bundled together are called sheaths, and sheaths bundled together are called muscle or meat.
The fibers, about the thickness of a human hair, contain several types of protein,
among them
myosin and actin
which bind up water and act like living motors by contract- ing and relaxing on command by nerves. As an ani- mal ages, grows, and exercises, its muscle fibers get thicker and tougher.
Myoglobin is another important protein in muscle fibers. Myoglobin receives oxygen and iron from hemoglobin in blood, fuel necessary for muscles to function. Myosin and actin are not water soluble, but myoglobin is water solu- ble, and myoglobin is the protein in meat that makes it appear red.
That’s right, the reddish color in meat and its juices is not caused by blood. It is myoglobin dissolved in water, called myowater. Myoglobin is found only in muscle, not in the blood stream. The blood is pretty much all drained out in the slaughterhouse. If the stuff on your plate when you sliced a steak was blood, it would be much darker, like human blood, and it would coagulate, like human blood. If the fluids were blood, then pork and chicken would
be dark red. It’s mostly just water.
So let’s stop grossing out our kids, and just call it juice. OK? Every time you call meat juices blood, a bell rings and a teenager be- comes a vegan.
On average, beef has 8 milligrams of myoglobin per gram of meat, according to the meat scientists at Texas A&M University’s De- partment of Animal Science, making it one of the darkest red
meats. Lamb has about 6 milligrams per gram, pork about 2 mg/g, and chicken breast about 0.5 mg/g. If pork is the other white meat, lamb is the other red meat. When warmed, meat juices con- taining myoglobin lose their red color, become lighter pink, and eventually tan or gray.
Most of the liquid in meat is water. When animals are alive, the pH of the muscle fibers is about 6.8 on a scale of 14. The lower the number, the higher the acidity. The higher the number, the more alkalinity and less acidic. At 6.8, living muscle is just about neu- tral. When the animal dies, the pH declines to about 5.5, making it acidic. At this pH, muscle fibers form bunches and squeeze out juice, called purge, and that is the juice you see in packages of meat that is absorbed by the diapers that butchers put under the meat.
Muscle fibers also contain other proteins, notably, enzymes. En- zymes play an important role in aging meat.
Connective tissue
Connective tissue is most obvious in the form of tendons that connect muscles to bones and in ligaments that connect bones to other bones. It is also visible as the thin shiny sheathing that wraps around muscles called silverskin or fascia. These tougher, chewier, rubberband-like connective tissues are mostly collagen and elastin (as opposed to the muscle, which is mostly myosin.) We call them gristle and they shrink when heated and become hard to chew. As with muscle fibers, connective tissues thicken and toughen as an animal exercises and ages.
BarbecueNews.com - 30
MARCH 2022
Meat Science