Why is there both white and dark meat on poultry? How does it get that way, and why is there always less dark meat than white?
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Anonymous
ANSWERS: 1
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White meat is white because of the chicken's chronic lack of exercise. Dark meat, which avian myologists (bird muscle scientists) refer to as "red muscle," is used for sustained activity--chiefly walking, in the case of a chicken. The dark color comes from a chemical compound in the muscle called myoglobin, which plays a key role in oxygen transport. White muscle, in contrast, is suitable only for short, ineffectual bursts of activity such as, for chickens, flying. That's why the chicken's leg meat and thigh meat are dark and its breast meat (which makes up the primary flight muscles) is white.
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