What does the supermarket put in ground beef to keep it looking purdy?

[t-bone tim]

Pit 4 brains and Pops , this is all very true .... having been in the retail meat business for 26 years , I have had numerous customers accuse me of putting "nice fresh meat on top of old meat " ....lol ...as if I would have time to do that ....lol ... truth is the packaging film we use allows oxygen thru to the natural enzymes in the meat therefore turning the surface a nice bright red ...the enzymes use up the oxygen at the surface , therefore leaving the center brown ...due too lack of oxygen .... this is especially apparent with ground meat that is made with "fresh only meat " ( not frozen ) .... put frozen beef such as the 60 # NZ blocks of cow meat into the mix and the burger will remain a nice red color throughout the meat into the center ... makes people happy cause of the redness .... but most don't understand or see the lower quality they are purchasing .... but hey they are happy ... it's a nice red .... lol

 

[smokingohiobutcher]

Oh Yeah!! EYE APPEAL IS BUY APPEAL!
I like that saying...its catchy! Just rolls off the tongue!

The redder it is ...the leaner it is...the quicker it will sell.
Doesn't really matter what the quality is. Especially at the first of the month!

We had a lady one day that said she "wanted to see that machine we had in the back. You know the one that seperates the brown meat from the red maet and puts it in the center of the hamburger packs."LOL Crazy misinformed people!

SOB

 

[roners]

one word: oxygen.  it turns the hemos in the blood bright red; otherwise the meat will be brown. nothing to worry about.   so why is all the meat in the supermarket bright red? I don't know; an old butcher I talked to decades ago told me how he would spray old, ugly meat cuts with a solution of water and bleach: the bleach combines with oxygen to make the cuts a nice healthy red color.  yum.

 

[big toe]

I have lots of experience with ground meats. Pops is right in an earlier post about the 60 lb frozen bull. This product will make much better tasting burger than the tubes that 95 percent of most grocery stores now use. There is no telling what is in the tubes nor no telling the shelf life. There is a reason that they run those through the grinder again. They will gas up in a hurry and need to tumble to air out. Back to the original question about beef turning brown on the inside it will always do so no matter how fresh the meat or grind. Its also the same with steak. If you cut two steaks and want them to sell never let them lay on top of each other. They will turn brown in three minutes. Dont know if this was a help or not but the most important thing to remember with meat is "the nose knows". If you find a local butcher shot or grocer who uses frozen bull use them for your ground meats. There is a difference.