Why do different types of meat taste so different?

First of all, comparing turkey to chicken isn't like comparing apples to spinach. It's more like saying a Rome apple (that's a kind of apple) tastes like a Golden Delicious apple.

All meats have the same basic protein and muscle structure. So, only slight variations cause flavor changes.

The No.1 taste tickler is fat. There are two kinds of fat -- saturated and unsaturated -- and every kind of meat contains various amounts of each. (Fats combine the chemicals carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Saturated fats have more hydrogen than unsaturated fats.)

Meats like chicken, turkey, pork, ostrich, frog or rattlesnake taste similar to each other because they all have about the same amount of unsaturated fats. But if you compare chicken to beef, the flavors don't taste like each other at all. That's because beef has more saturated fat than chicken.

Every meat also has slightly different chemicals that give it a unique flavor. These chemicals change during cooking, which is why cooked meat doesn't taste like raw meat.

The way people prepare food effects flavor, too. Remember summer cookouts? Grilled food definitely tastes different than fried or baked food. So, if you're eating something that has the same kind of fat as chicken, and is cooked like chicken, it's no wonder it tastes like chicken!

Scientifically yours,

Twig

http://extension.osu.edu/~twig/food/html/112496.html

Primarily, the flavour of a meat is a function of what the animal consumed in life.

For the same reason that dfferent fruits taste so different, they are genetically different.

they are from different animals. i hear squirel and rabbit taste like chicken.

Fats give animals their flavour (as do some other chemical constituents) and it is the differing proportions of different fats (not just saturated and unsaturated, but also fat different carbon length fatty acids) that give animal meats their different tastes.

Because, they all come in different packages that taste like a certain type of plastic. But, they are all delicious! :D