The Color of Beef

5 days are the limits unless you are freezing your meat.  Not sure about you but the colors have always thrown me.  So today's blog will be a short educational lesson on why the color is important.

When the meat is first cut it is exposed to oxidation, which turns the meat a bright cherry red color. I always knew that the red was a good color for beef.  But for me the confusion came in when it was not red.  Apparently the different shadings, which you can see above, do not mean that they are not edible.   

Don't tell my husband after all these years I have been throwing away brown beef...shh.

What is happening is all in the packaging.  If you are an efficient person, with the vacuum seal machine, you can suck all the oxygen out of your beef and keep it pretty fresh looking. But, as soon as the wrapping is taken off, boom, oxidation.  You could shop at lidl where they have vacuumed sealed beef. Otherwise, your beef will be changing shades by each day. So the shades of brown seem to, by the end of the week, return to a reddish shade.  Although at this point you need to check the smell.

Brown is not necessarily bad.

The lesson learned today was at 5 days of unfrozen meat, it is time to go. 

I hope this helped everyone understand the color of beef a little bit better.  For more information about getting ServSafe certified please contact me through the form on the blog or shoot me an email at ParksServSafe@gmail.com.