Is this beef ok?

my cat mellow · Dec 17, 2007

I bought a huge packet of ground beef from Costco yesterday and I have just opened it up ready to cook, and the inside of the beef is almost a brown colour, not pink like i think it should be, is this ok still to eat or will it make us sick. its only discoloured on the inside

trouts mom · Dec 17, 2007

Does it smell okay? What is the BB date?

my cat mellow · Dec 17, 2007

this is a picture of it:

its the same cololur as if its cooked but it feels raw...

my cat mellow · Dec 17, 2007

its with in date and it smells normal, I have never seen it before.

rapunzel47 · Dec 17, 2007

You'll often see that and as long as it smells and feels OK, you needn't worry about it. See the explanation here. Now, if you run into meat that smells "off" or is slimy to the touch, then you have a problem, but not just this colour thing.

natalie_ca · Dec 17, 2007

Originally Posted by My cat Mellow

this is a picture of it:

its the same cololur as if its cooked but it feels raw...

I wouldn't eat that!

What they did was take old beef and put some new stuff around it to make it look new!

Take it back and get your money back!

Beef will turn brown on the outside if left too long, but the inside is still red. If the inside is brown and the outside red, they have duped you to buying it by adding on fresh to an old package of meat.

And ground beef is not something you want to chance eating if it's bad. You can get really sick and die from rancid or under cooked ground beef.

We had an incident of a meatshop doing that where I live. Needless to say the Health Department got involved pretty darn quickly!

rapunzel47 · Dec 17, 2007

From the USDA site, and here's the pertinent excerpt...

Why is pre-packaged ground beef red on the outside and sometimes dull, grayish-brown inside?
Oxygen from the air reacts with meat pigments to form a bright red color which is usually seen on the surface of meat purchased in the supermarket. The pigment responsible for the red color in meat is oxymyoglobin, a substance found in all warm-blooded animals. Fresh cut meat is purplish in color. The interior of the meat may be grayish brown due to lack of oxygen; however, if all the meat in the package has turned gray or brown, it may be beginning to spoil.

If I threw away all the sweet-smelling meat that looked like that, we'd never eat ground beef. It's safe, unless there are other signs of spoilage.

my cat mellow · Dec 17, 2007

Ok thank you, I just googled it some more, and it seems in Europe (i am from England living in the US) they use a pink die to mask the brown, so that explains why I have never seen it before.

I was going to freeze the remainder, it was packaged yesterday and the sell by date was today, do you think i can freeze the remainder raw or should I cook it?

mbjerkness · Dec 17, 2007

Originally Posted by My cat Mellow

Ok thank you, I just googled it some more, and it seems in Europe (i am from England living in the US) they use a pink die to mask the brown, so that explains why I have never seen it before.

I was going to freeze the remainder, it was packaged yesterday and the sell by date was today, do you think i can freeze the remainder raw or should I cook it?

You can freeze it, stores quite often they freeze the meat that doesn't sell by the best buy date.

rapunzel47 · Dec 17, 2007

You should be fine to freeze it. But you'll need to use it up, when you thaw it. You might want to make up patties before you freeze it, so that you can take out only what you want to use at any one time.

Another excerpt from that page...

What is the significance of the "Sell-By" date on the package?
"Sell-By" dates are a guide for retailers. Although many products bear "Sell-By" dates, product dating is not a Federal requirement. While these dates are helpful to the retailer, they are reliable only if the food has been kept at proper temperature during storage and handling. USDA suggests that consumers cook or freeze ground beef within 2 days after purchase for maximum quality.

And another pertinent one...

How should raw ground beef be stored at home?
Refrigerate or freeze ground beef as soon as possible after purchase. This preserves freshness and slows growth of bacteria. It can be refrigerated or frozen in its original packaging if the meat will be used soon.

If refrigerated, keep at 40 Â°F or below and use within 1 or 2 days.

For longer freezer storage, wrap in heavy duty plastic wrap, aluminum foil, freezer paper, or plastic bags made for freezing. Ground beef is safe indefinitely if kept frozen, but will lose quality over time. It is best if used within 4 months. Mark your packages with the date they were placed in the freezer so you can keep track of storage times.

There's lots of good information there.

my cat mellow · Dec 17, 2007

Thanks everyone

EnzoLeya · Dec 17, 2007

I didn't read what everyone else wrote but pink is NOT how it should look unless it was just cut off the cow. The reason we think our meat should be pink is because of all the chemicals that are put into the meat. The news had a thing on this just the other day. They had pink meat that was expired 4 years ago and it was STILL pink! Yuck!!!!!!

mzjazz2u · Dec 17, 2007

As long as it smell ok you're good to go. Naturally, beef will look brown fairly quickly. The red/pink comes from oxygen and is not an indicator of bad beef.

Is this beef ok?

my cat mellow

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