How Do You Stop Frozen Meat Bleeding When Defrosting?

Question

How Do You Stop Frozen Meat Bleeding When Defrosting?

3 Answers

Answer Question

Answer 1

When meat thaws it is not unusual for it to bleed. If it is cooked properly, it is not a problem at all. You should, however, be very cautious about getting the blood on food that you may not intend to cook, such as salad makings. When that happens it is called cross contamination and can make you sick. But, regarding the blood in meat...do not be concerned, just cook it until it is done.

Answer 2

What the others have failed to mention... I suspect because they aren't aware. But the red juice that results when thawing isn't blood. It is Myoglobin, essentially protein and water. There may be minute traces of blood but it is negligible.

There is no reason to "stop" the juice from producing.

When Joan said:

"... Just cook it until it is done."

I assume she meant well done, which is terrible advice, that only serves to dry the meat out and make it a tough unpleasant texture to chew. It still may be wise to treat hamburger this way, assuming you aren't confident in the quality of meat you are purchasing, so that you will be sure pathogens have been killed.

But assuming you have good quality meat - a steak for instance, should be cooked medium rare, because that is the point when the intramuscular fat renders to enhance flavor, and the meat fibrils are able to easily burst when chewed releasing the flavor.

The same applies to cooking it further to Medium etc. But all that achieves is more moisture loss with no added flavor enhancement, so is pretty pointless and, really, a disadvantage.

Answer 3

Well, to tell you the truth, it is good and bad that the bleed.

The good thing about it bleeding is that all the blood is out, so you are not eating the blood. Its not good because if the animal / chicken had some illness in its blood, you are eating it, therefore it may be contagious or you may get food poisoning.

The negative thing if it bleeds is that the blood wern't drained out when you brought it - which is bad. The blood should be drained out.

If the animal was killed with electric shock, or cut anywhere apart from its neck, chances are that there are blood in the meat.

If the animal was slaughted on the neck, it cuts a vein, which ensures all the blood from animal / chicken is drained out - so you hardly get blood from the frozen meat. But you should still wash it anyway.