Rainbow colours on cured meats...

[ExpatCanadian]

I know something about this has been posted before, but I thought I'd update it as I just found another explanation that intrigued me and made more sense in my circumstances.

Background...  I just yesterday evening smoked up a couple of decent sized pork loins that I've had curing (Habs Canadian Bacon recipe) for the past 6 days.  As they were removed from the brine and soaked in the fresh water I noticed the "metallic sheen" that Hab talks about in the recipe and I recalled that someone here had posted about this before, referring to a harmless bacteria that creates this colouring.

Well...  It made sense to me being on the outer surface, but as I sliced the bacon for vac-sealing, I noticed this sheen was going all the way through on the surfaces of each slice.  The interior of non-ground meat products are for all intents and purposes sterile (unless they've been punctured or something, like with a Jaccard, which I didn't use)...  so the bacteria explanation didn't make sense any more.  So I started looking around and came up with this:

A natural phenomenon in cured meat (and some fresh meat) is the occurrence of iridescence or a rainbow appearance on the cut lean surface. Technically, this is referred to as birefringence. It is caused by the reflectance of light off of muscle proteins, and it is analogous to the color distribution produced by a prism. Muscle proteins are arranged in strands called myofilaments, which are bound together to form myofibrils. Myofibrils are bound together to form muscle fibers, which form together to form muscle bundles and finally whole muscles. When the myofilaments are cut at the appropriate angle, exposing a cross section of the myofilaments, the reflectance of light off the proteins produces the characteristic appearance associated with iridescence. Source: http://meat.tamu.edu/faqs.html#rainbow

Cool eh?

[pensrock]

I have seen the shiny colors before but never gave it a thought about what it could be or why. Thanks for sharing.

[Hopefull Romantic]

I have seen the shiny colors before but never gave it a thought about what it could be or why. Thanks for sharing.

Same here. Thanks again.

HR

[3rensho]

Wow, cool indeed!  Many thanks for the post.

Tom

[OU812]

I just thought it was from my serrated slicer blade

Interesting article, thanks.