Why is duck meat red meat and can be consumed medium rare and chicken meat white meat which should be cooked thoroughly even though they’re both birds?
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Ducks are regarded as red meat in culinary tradition because the breast meat is darker in color. This is thanks to higher levels of myoglobin in their breast muscles. Both should be cooked to the same internal temperature in the thickest part to eliminate most food borne pathogens. That’s 165 ºF / 74 ºC. The appearance and texture will be different due to the difference in myoglobin and fat content. The higher fat content in duck meat makes it juicier and more moist compared to chicken. The higher myoglobin content will make it look more like what we associate with medium rare from steaks.
The chance of chickens carrying food borne pathogens like Salmonella is higher than that of ducks because of how chickens are farmed compared to ducks. Much more extensively and in more crowded conditions. That means the meat has a higher chance of being contaminated when the bird is slaughtered.
*Bonus ELI5: Myoglobin is an oxygen-binding protein similar to haemoglobin. It’s predominantly found in muscle cells and serves as a short-term store of oxygen. Birds that fly long distances would have lots of these in the breast muscles to help supply the oxygen needed for flight.*
Edit: Thank you for the awards, kind ELI5 friends!
Duck meat is considered red meat because it’s literally red. It’s also higher in fat and cooked medium rare often so from a culinary standpoint it makes sense to group it with red meats like steak.
The reason why you can eat it medium rare is due to better slaughtering practices. Ducks are a luxury meat so farmers slaughter them with more care which prevents contamination. They don’t care with chickens though so it’s necessary to cook regular chicken from the store all the way through. Technically if you slaughter it right you can cook chicken medium rare as well.
I think this is the same as pork being the other “white” meat. You’re confusing biology and culinary arts. A duck is white meat biologically speaking, but cooks treat it differently because of its properties. Pork is red meat biologically speaking, but their marketing campaign has confused everyone.
So fun fact, you can cook chicken and turkey to 136° which is more medium to medium rare, **but** you have to hold it at that temp for over an hour to kill the bacteria. People say 165° because that is the point where bacteria is instantly dead once it’s reaches that temp so you know if you cook it to 165° it’s safe to eat.
https://www.canr.msu.edu/smprv/uploads/files/RTE_Poultry_Tables1.pdf
As others have said, duck is less likely to be contaminated with salmonella due to farming practices. And the breast meat is red due to the duck using it’s breast muscles to fly
Because chickens, for the most part, do not fly.
Ducks fly — and very long distances too; they’re migratory birds. But unlike the tiny little perching birds who also migrate, ducks are heavy! If you watch a duck trying to get airborne, look how hard and fast their wings have to flap. All that hard flapping requires tons of energy, which also means the muscle cells need oxygen. Muscles that work hard are darker because they contain more myoglobin, a protein that stores oxygen.
Ducks have dark meat in wings and breasts because they go flap flap. Chickens don’t go flap flap. However, chickens and turkeys *are* heavy and have to walk around carrying all that weight, which is why their dark meat is in the legs and thighs.
You can eat raw/rare chicken if the source is clean enough. There is a lot of raw chicken in Japan where they don’t use factory farming.
How we handle food is a product of how we farm.
You can eat chicken at like 140°, it just has to be held at that temp for like 50 minutes or so. 165° is for 5 seconds to kill pathogens. I’d have to get out my sous vide chart to see the exact time, but chicken cooked to 140° is delicious and juicy!
Red meat like cow is dense. Bacteria lives on the surface, but can’t really penetrate into the meat. They get direct exposure to the heat, killing them.
White meat like chicken is much more porous. Bacteria gets into and lives inside it. So you have to heat it up enough internally to kill the bacteria that is deep 8n the meat.
I actually raise ducks as a backyard animal. They have an internal body temperature of 107°F so parasites (ticks, lice, fleas) die before they can become an issue. The duck you by in large quantities for food preparation are generally domesticated and don’t/can’t fly (Peckin.) Depending on the breed, they don’t have the right wing shape or you can clip certain wings so that they can’t fly. Generally infections are killed off by the higher body temperature which makes the risk of salmonella low.
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