Doping your food for beauty? Carbon Monoxide
Posted on Dec 07 in issuesby nikaPrint
Carbon monoxide treated meat is pink and remains so, seemingly indefinitely. This is a treatment that does NOT prolong freshness or quality, it only gives the meat a permanent blush.
These are things you likely know. You likely also may have noticed that this same gas kills people every year when the winter season sets in. (40,000 people per year seek medical attention for carbon monoxide poisoning in the United States)
Often times what happens is a home is not being heated with approved systems (power goes out, owner/renter didnt pay bills so gas/electricity is cut off, etc) and someone decides to heat the place with a grill, inside, with no venting. What you get is dead people who are a very bright shade of red.
Why is it that your meat and those poor carbon monoxide victims are the same shade of red?
When hemoglobin has no oxygen, it is not red. When it has oxygen as a co-pilot, its a bright red. The same thing happens when CO kicks out that oxygen and it hogs the ride. Not only that, it doesnt know when to leave, it stays bound to the hemoglobin long after it’s welcome has worn out.
What that means to us carnivores eating unlabeled meat in the store is that meat (and blood), which would turn brown as oxygen releases from hemoglobins with time, remains permanently doped with CO. Humans, for 100s of thousands of years, have known intuitively when their meat has gone bad. Meat has a handy freshness indicator – the color red. When this is circumvented (not for safety or quality reasons but to fool you into thinking that the meat is fresh) we can not decide if meat is fresh or not.
As with many poorly understood legacy foodways, the use of red as an indicator of food quality may not be sufficiently appreciated.
Studies may have been done on the supposed safety of CO in meat but they did not assess real world realities like the importance of red as indicator to the consumer of product safety.
[Just FYI - the metric in these studies for safety was CO toxicity as it outgases from the meat upon opening the package and during cooking of the meat - dont take too close a whiff of your meat when you open it, let it out-gas for a few minutes before you figure out if its nice red AND slimey. Also try not to hover over your meat as it cooks, again with the outgassing.]
Studies by various meat industry positive researchers has suggested that CO treated meat doesnt go bad sooner or later than untreated meat. That is not the problem.
The problem liesin the fact that ALL MEAT will go bad, eventually. If you can not tell by using the color red then you have to wait until the putrefaction has advanced to the slime and stink stage.
There are no studies that I have been able to find that evaluate the advantages to the consumer of detecting early stages of putrefaction (and thus early significant health issues) through the red color indicator.
Putrefaction should be a consentual experience. If you want to age your meat, fine. You will also treat that meat differently than you would fresh bloody red meat. That is how you ensure your own health and safety.
If you have “fresh” bloody red meat and its actually several steps toward putrefaction further than you know, you might be in for a whole world of hurt when your GI tract reaps the benefits of poorly prepared aged meat.
The best way to get meat that has been treated the way YOU want it treated is to use an actual butcher who can tell you what you need to know about your meat (where its been and why).
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Good post. I’ve been thinking about looking into this in Australia. I’m told that preservatives are put into mince to maintain the colour and that butchers usual special lamps to maintain the red colour in their displays.
I just got very sick after eating some tilapia that was processed with carbon monoxide. There sure going to hear about this at Walmart.
I eat a lot of tilapia lately which I buy frozen and in small filets. It has bright red and pink parts in it as I begin its thaw. While it thaws I add a generou amount of seasoning: seasoned salt, bay season and especially lemon/pepper. By the time I fry it in a little olive oil some three or four days later it has lost the red and pink color. I don’t know whether this means the CO has been removed and would like to hear what others might think. I’ve had no negative results from eating this tilapia.
I am ok with the special lamps .. thats just smoke and mirrors. You will be able to tell once you get it home (if you do not like it, take it back to the store). The preservatives, *sighs*, yeah and who knows.. If I ask the meat guys at my local store about the meat they usually can not answer any of my questions – very little if any training and education.
Stella: I am so sorry to hear that! I fear buying fish at my local grocery store.. would not buy it at WalMart… but if that is your only source then thats what you have… WHat sort of “sick” were you? Was it perhaps some food poisoning?
IF its been CO treated then you are likely creating a situation that allows it to (oxidize) de-couple from the molecules that are red and pink in your fish. If its just “fresh” then you are oxidizing the tissues over that marination period.
There is only way to KNOW tho, test the tissue.. sounds expensive!
Which is EXACTLY why I only eat Tilapia from Regal Springs, farmed in Indonesia and Honduras. They have been fighting the use of CO for a long time. I came across them, and LOVE what they are doing for the environment and communities. http://www.regalsprings.com (I think)
As a chef, there is another concern with fish and CO. Many “Quality Discount Sushi” places use tuna that has been treated with CO. This will give the red look of a high grade fresh tuna, though it has been sitting around for a while. My biggest fear is in the possable time/temperature abuse if you can not “look and see’ if iti has gone a little long.
Another is in the defrosting of this fish and others. One brand of tuna had dire warnings to opening the package while defrosting. Lest the areobic package produce botulism. Great, if spoilage wasn’t bad enough, now we have fresh fish with botulism. Sure small chance, but hand me a reel- I’m going fishing.