Page 32 - Barbecue Chicken Made Easy

Specialist at the University of Arkansas “The dark color next to the bone is even more pronounced in chicken that has been frozen.” The USDA says “This is an aesthetic issue and not a safety one.”
Sometimes the purple in bones can discolor the meat touching them and the meat remains pink even though it is safely cooked.
Sometimes the pink color can come from nitric oxide (NO) or carbon monoxide (CO) produced by the cooker. NO and CO can be byproducts of combustion in gas ovens and grills, as well as charcoal and wood grills. The USDA says “Often meat of younger birds [can be] pink because their thinner skins permit oven gases to reach the flesh. Older animals have a fat layer under their skin, giving the flesh added protection from the gases. Older poultry may be pink in spots where fat is absent from the skin.”
Pink meat can take the form of a distinctive band called a smoke ring right below the surface. It is caused by NO and CO in smoke locking in the pink color of myglobin near the surface when the meat is smoked. Because these gases cannot penetrate far there is a pink layer beneath the skin. Every barbecue restaurant can tell you about customers who send smoked chicken back because of the smoke ring and they think it is raw. Of course, if it was undercooked the pink would be in the center, not on the surface. Click here to read more about smoke rings and what causes them.
Another way meat can be pink is from nitrates and nitrites used when curing meats. That’s why hot dogs, bacon, corned beef, and Disney turkey legs are pink. These compounds can occur naturally in feed or water, causing a pink color.
The clear juices and pink meat rules may have been true once upon a time, but (ahem) clearly they are not true any longer!
You cannot
tell if poultry is safe by merely looking at the meat, at the bones, or