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October 1, 2004

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES and RICH SONES, Ph.D.
    Special to the Journal

    Q.  Your taste for very rare steaks precipitates a ribbing from your tablemates:  "You vampire, you!"  To which you might rejoin...?

    A.  Sparing the gross details, there's almost no blood left in the animal after being professionally zonked and drained — except what's trapped in the heart and lungs, and they're unlikely to make it to the menu, says Robert L. Wolke in "What Einstein Didn't Know: Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions."  The steak on your plate is muscle tissue, not circulatory-system stuffs.  Blood is red from hemoglobin, an oxygen-carrying protein, muscle from myoglobin, which stores up energy for sudden action bursts. Different meats have varying amounts of myoglobin, more for beef, less for pork (those lazy pigs!), then chicken and fish.  "So there are red meats and there are relatively white meats.  Ask your friends to explain THAT in terms of bloodiness."


     
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