Would dinosaurs be white meat or red meat?

Alchemy@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 260 points –

Could you eat one tartare?

55

They're related to chickens so I would imagine white meat. Or taste like alligators do today, which also taste like chicken lol

So are ostriches and their meat looks like this (image stolen from American Ostrich Farms)

I thought you were full of shit, so I reverse image searched that and can confirm that delicious looking steak is ostrich meat.

It tastes somewhere between beef and turkey imo

Two of my favorite meats. If I could get some cheap-ish I'd definitely try it. However, nobody sells it locally and all online retailers want around $30 a pound, so that's not happening.

Well, it's basically beef without fat, so equivalent to a high quality lean steak. In addition, ostriches have more narrow climate requirements than cattle and can be considered more aggressive than cattle. It makes sense that it is expensive.

Gator didn't taste like chicken when I tried it. It was slightly fishy and had a chew texture. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed in the experience.

When I tried it was like slightly fishy, chewy chicken. Not as bad as a bite of all gristle, but almost. I had it fried and breaded, it might do better in a stew or something to break it down.

They wouldn’t be red meat because that’s a mammalian thing.

Depending on the dinosaur and how they move they would either be white meat like poultry or dark redder meat like game birds (geese, ducks, cranes, etc).

A lot of the theropod dinosaurs would have very dark meat legs and white meat breast since they don’t do much flying. Sauropods would likely be very dark meat since they did a lot of walking around grazing.

Duck is considered red meat essentially. It's certainly cooked medium rare and such.

Culinarily yeah they’re basically red meat. At least according to the USDA though, only mammalian meat can be considered “red meat”. Duck would be dark meat.

That’s kinda splitting hairs though at this point since plenty of fowl have darker red meat than plenty of mammals. All pork is considered red meat even though plenty of it is culinarily white meat.

The meat is totally dependent on what that body part was used for! Generally speaking: red meat = constant usage White meat = short burst of energy Chickens run a lot, therefore their legs are considered red meat; Ducks fly, walk and swim, so they are completely red meat. Crocodiles and snakes for example do not do much, besides that one kill for the day or week, so they have white meat, like the chicken breast - because the chicken only does a short burst of flapping.

Having that in mind, T-Rex arms would be like giant chicken wings.

Surely you mean 'light meat' and 'dark meat'? Cows don't do much, where's the white meat on them? I've never heard of a chicken leg being called 'red meat' -- are we trying to play games on baby gen z-ers or something?

Meat is generally classified as light and dark. Red meat is part of the dark classification. It's just that beef has a higher concentration of myoglobin than chicken legs so it appears redder. Pork is in-between which is why it appears pink.

And while cows don't move much, just standing requires them to use a lot of muscles. Which is why you'll hear about veal farms doing horrible things like chaining calves to the ground so they don't develop their muscles. Which in turn causes less myoglobin which makes their meat whiter.

This is not right at all. Chicken is white meat. Cows are red meat. What you are talking about are fast vs slow twich muscle fibers; light versus dark meat on a white meat chicken.

We truly have some sophisticated conversations over here. Love you lemmings

Rather or not meat is red is based on the concentration of myoglobin. Larger vertebrates and especially mammals have a high concentration. I suspect some would, others wouldn’t.

Would probably depend on the dinosaur.

That.

Looks on the second most diverse class of vertebrates ever, point at them and ask "those were all the same, right? what would they taste like?"

it would depend on the precisely muscle, and the distribution would depend on the species and stage in its lifecycle.

It seems like dinosaurs were generally big on changing niches with age, so for example a young tyrannosaur might be an active predator while an adult might be a scavenger, which would probably mean the young ones have more white meat.

Just came here to declare my belief that Texas Style Bronto BBQ would be fucking delicious, and the Jurassic Park movies missed a rare opportunity to dive into the delights of discovering prehistoric cuisine.

There actually is a Dinosaur BBQ originating in upstate New York. Sadly, the only actual dinosaur they have on the menu is the chicken.

No Komodo? No crocodile? No iguana?

I'm sadly disappointed, but you've got my upvote anyway.

Their bones and meat were similar to birds today, who dinosaurs became. So white meat.

As a Counterpoint: ostriches are birds, are close to some dinosaurs in form and they have red meat.

So do ducks. It depends on what the animal is doing. Cows stand around and walk for miles this they are red meat. Ducks migrate 100s of miles thus are red meat. A chicken on the other hand only needs it's muscles for short flights and such and even then it's legs and thighs which support its weight all the time are considered dark meat aka approaching red meat.

Well, reptiles and avians are both considered white meat I believe, so probably white.

I've had gator before. It's closer to chicken than beef in appearance and texture. Taste wise, it's fairly unique. I didn't care for it.

I've had it before as well, but it was ground up into a type of fritter or hushpuppy and deep friend. Served with a tangy mayo side sauce, almost like a tarter. It was good.