WEBVTT - Ep. 227: Red Cutter 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.760 This is a meat eating podcast coming at you shirtless, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:17.680 severely bug bitten in my case, underwear listening Hunt E podcast, 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:22.440 You can't predict anything presented by on X. Hunt creators 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.120 are the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters. Download 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.960 the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google play store. 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:35.800 Nor where you stand with on X. All right, everyone, 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:40.240 we're joining today by our first ever We should have 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.320 done this a long time ago, our first ever genuine 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:51.199 meat scientists, Chris Calkins. Do you go by? Is that right? 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:55.000 Meat scientists? Is that cool to say? Yeah, absolutely, that's 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:56.760 the right way to do it. Let me test your 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.279 knowledge to find out if you're legit. Do you know 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.400 what a Warner? I think it's called a Warner Bruntler 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:13.000 sheer force test is well, it's a Warner Bratsler Chan 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:20.000 Warner and Lyman Bratsler decades ago created an objective tenderness 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:24.640 machine and it was that share force machine you're referring to. 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.040 So you passed, But let me ask you this question. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.039 How many holes does that thing punch into the steak? 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.600 That's uh, it's up to the operator, but typically we 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:43.600 would expect to get six cores from a regular beef steak, 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.840 for example, in smaller animals, you have to get by 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:52.720 with fewer cores and more steaks. Okay, good, we'll proceed now. No, now, 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:54.800 I have faith that that Karen found us the right 0:01:54.840 --> 0:02:00.280 meat scientist. Uh what is the first? Off? Tell us? Like? What? What? 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.640 What is a meeting? What is uh? What is meat science? 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:09.840 And how does one you know get there? It's been 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.080 an interesting journey to become a meat scientist. I was 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.560 involved in agriculture as a high school student in the 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:21.600 state of Washington. Had a really cool high school agg 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:26.040 teacher who is a lifetime mentor for me, and I 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.240 was lucky enough. As a senior in high school, I 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.480 served as a State Future Farmers of America President State 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.960 f f A president, and that same time he went 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.680 to Texas and m to work on a Master of 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.400 Science in meet science. And I always thought it was 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.800 going to be a veterinarian. But I packed everything in 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.520 a car, drove to Texas, and the day I got there, 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.160 I got a job in the meat lab and I 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.280 liked it well enough. Apparently I've never left since then. 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.680 So eventually went on and got a like what is 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.200 your You have a PhD? Like what is it? What 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.400 is it? What was your dissertation? Like what sort of 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.560 like how do you narrow in on this super broad 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:15.399 meat science category and find your personal you know, expertise. Well, 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.679 that's a that's a great point because the field of 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.359 meat science is really quite broad. That is, everything from 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:25.000 the live animal all the way through to the products 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.680 that we eat. And my dissertation had to do with 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:33.720 the enzymes in meat that break up proteins in other words, 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.280 the tenderization process. And I have built my career looking 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:45.880 at quality, particularly eating quality characteristics of meat. How much 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:54.680 how familiar familiar are you with um kind of like 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:59.120 layman perspectives about meat? Right, Like you have to in 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:05.360 conversation with people or in restaurants or backyard barbecues, you 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.240 have to hear a lot of like theories about why 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.640 this is that way, that that our way off And 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:14.160 if you don't know if you hang out with hunters 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:18.120 or not, but you'd probably get inundated with screwball theories 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.760 about what is the way it is or why certain 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.760 things are this way and why they're that way. Yeah, 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:30.159 it becomes a compulsion related to try and set the 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.280 record straight, make sure everybody understands what we're talking about. 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:38.680 So I'm I'm in addition to having ah of my 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:42.200 time is spent on research, but the other thirty percent 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:46.880 is spent on teaching. So I teach both undergraduate students 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:52.880 as well as master and doctoral students as well. Yeah, 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.440 let me hate you with Okay, Spencer's gonna hit Spencer 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:58.640 new Hearth, our very own and special Spencer new Hearth 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.599 is now going to hit you with um. This is 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:05.640 probably the question we get the most, and this is 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.039 a wild game question, but I'm sure it has so 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.200 many parallels to domestic production that you'll know exactly what 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.960 we're talking about. But this is sort of the leading 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:22.440 hunter based wild game problem question. How would you put it, Spencer? 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:28.520 Do stressed out animals taste worse? And can that stress 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:30.760 be a factor of something like the rut for a 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.280 white tailed deer or an elk um or from a 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.120 bad shot where a deer is hitted then it runs 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.039 a mile and it lays there for four hours and 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.760 slowly dies. Can a stress like that toward the adrenaline 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:51.360 make them taste worse? That initial burst of adrenaline does 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:55.279 not have a real big impact, but if it's around 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.839 for very long. In other words, if we have a 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:03.440 longer term stress like the run, for example, then absolutely 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.559 there are metabolic changes that take place in the meat 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.599 that will impact the eating quality of that product. I'd 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:12.880 be happy to explain that further, but we do not 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.000 want to go no dig in man. We want to 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:20.280 go way deep awesome. So think about what we know 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.880 is the way the body stores energy um is through 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:29.880 glycogen initially, and then that turns we also store energy 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:35.039 as fat, but that glancogen is used to provide the 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.039 short term burst of energy we need when an animal, 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.039 for example, is running. Now it turns out that once 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:46.039 that animal has been harvested, that glycogen gets converted to 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:49.960 acid in the muscle. It becomes more acidic. We would 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:54.239 say it has a lower pH that's normal, that's good. 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:56.640 That's what we're all used to with all of the 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.880 muscle foods that we eat. Is that normal h decline 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:05.039 that occurs when an animals harvested. The problem is when 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.840 you get that burst of adrenaline, or you spend five 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.360 days at the runt running around acting like a teenager 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.360 and not eating and all the rest of that, we 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:18.720 exhaust the glycogen stores in the animal, and when that happens, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.800 that pH does not drop, it does not become acidic, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.560 and we get all kinds of weird, strange flavors, and 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.640 the texture is different. It's dark, it's sticky. Most people 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.600 find that kind of product not very desirable. And the 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.800 time course of that really depends on how much stress 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.160 the animal has and how long it takes place. So Spencer, 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.600 your question about four hours and a long, slow death, 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.360 that's probably long enough to have an impact on that animal. 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.240 If that animal is injured in a while, say it 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.720 breaks a leg or something, then all of those kinds 0:07:55.760 --> 0:08:00.480 of things will give long enough stress. Glycogen is houstag 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.560 pH stays high, meat doesn't taste very good. You know. 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.160 A good extreme of this that I think about is 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.280 the um. One time, my brother rancher that my brother 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.560 and his friends know, told them about a bull that 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.880 he had that had broken its leg down in the 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.160 bottom of some coolie and it'd been down there while 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:24.320 and he couldn't find it, and eventually found it, and 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:26.320 he told those guys, if you want to go get it, 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.280 you can have it. This thing is huge, you know, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.760 And they went down and got it and my brother 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:35.559 comes home and makes a steak out of it, And 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.760 I mean, it was probably already a bull. It was 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:40.560 already a bull. So that's probably a couple of strikes 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.360 against it. But I mean, I'm not exaggerating when I 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:48.640 say that it was unchewable. Yeah, it's um. Most of 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.160 the stress related response has to do with taste, has 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.760 to do with flavor. The fact that it was a 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.400 bull and an older animal, that's what makes it tough. 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.960 But we have people who contact us regularly with a 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:06.800 very similar situation. An animal is injured, been hanging around 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.080 for quite a while, and they wonder can they turn 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.040 it down to a steak or ground beef, And uh, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:16.080 it's it's just a different taste. And so that's a 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:21.800 pretty common complaint that people have homes. So the toughness 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:27.120 is toughness isn't related to stress, not so much that 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:31.120 the stress has a far bigger impact on flavor than 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:35.080 it does on toughness. All right, So one of the 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.800 things that makes certain things, like what makes certain animals 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:43.199 inexplicably tough, like you know, I mean you could sometimes 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.120 you'll have guys get whatever, like you get you know, 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.840 a box or someone will get you know, ten bull 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.120 elk and they're all great. In the eleventh one, it's 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.440 just chewier in hell umkay wolf off and say like, 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.079 oh he must have been stressed. Would be our be 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.240 like a thing that we would say when you encounter 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:07.520 that super tough animal. There's there's really three things broadly 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:12.040 that impact toughness. One has to do with how contracted 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.160 that muscle cell is, how much integrity there is in 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:20.240 the muscle cell. The second thing has to do is 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:25.120 something called connective tissue. That's that white, silvery tissue on 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.200 the outside of the meat. And then the third part 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.000 is fat. And so anything we do to impact any 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:37.960 of those three things can impact tenderness. Uh, let me 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:39.520 ask you one more than Spencer's gotta ask you a 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.000 good question. Uh, have you ever have you ever had 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.480 occasion to eat like soup, like to eat deer meat 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.240 right away or any kind of meat, Okay, so whatever, 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.640 Like if you if you get an animal and then 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.719 cook it within a couple of hours, it's like it's 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.640 kind of like a divisive taste, Like some people like it, 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.880 some people don't like it. It definitely has a different texture. 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:07.160 There's something in it that seems almost like a metallic taste. 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.360 That then that's gone in a day or two. Right, 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:16.680 So we know that once you once you shoot an 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:21.880 animal and enough time passes, it gets rigid, it gets stiff. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:27.240 We call that rigor mortis, right, And that process is 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.319 the process of all of the energy and the muscle 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:35.520 dissipating once the heart stops meeting and to stop blood flow. 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:41.960 And that is actually a toughening process. In fact, once 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.880 you get to that point that's about as tough as 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.679 that meat is going to be. We can then hang 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.520 it longer in a cooler outside and cold air, and 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.960 that allows the meat to become more tender. But if 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.920 you get ahold of that meat before it's into rigor mortis, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:03.280 and you cut it, that cutting stimulates contraction. You put 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.240 it on a hot pan or a hot grill that 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:10.240 stimulates that contraction, and you can get meat that's literally 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.360 too tough to chew. You know, every now and then 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.960 somebody says, I love to shoot an animal, then immediately 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.559 go kind of steak and go eat it. To me, 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:24.760 that's disrespectful of the animal because you are you are 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.640 eating that meat in the worst possible conditions to have 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:32.360 a good eating experience. If you'll at least let that 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:36.200 animal go through rigor mortist to get stiff uh, then 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.640 you're gonna have a far better eating experience. Okay, Spencer 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.040 whole type. Alright, I don't understand what you're saying, because 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.400 I would like explain the rigor mortis timeline. I would 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:54.080 think that when it's in rigor, it's all stiffened up, right, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:13:00.640 But before rigor it has the potential to contract. And 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:06.320 if you stimulate the animal by um by, by cutting 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.240 the meat, or more importantly, by putting it on a 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:13.320 hot skillet, it will stiffen up. It will shorten more 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.720 than usual. And if you wait till the animals Okay, 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.680 so let's say there's an animal, whatever you're in a 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:22.760 slaughterhouse or whatever, you kill an animal. There's an animal 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:24.679 that just dies, Okay, struck by I don't want to 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.079 say struck by lightning. It just dies. At first, you 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.200 can wiggle it all around, you can grab its arm 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.520 and shake it. Yes, Then a while later you can't. 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.840 Then a while later you can. So during the period 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:42.520 when it's stiffened up, that is more tender than before 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.440 it stiffens up. If you could cook it without allowing 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.840 it to contract, it would be tender, but you cannot 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.800 do that. The when we cut the steak, we remove 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.680 all the muscle bone connections, and so that muscle is 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:03.359 free to contract, and so before riggor mortis is complete, 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:08.440 that is a very dynamic muscle that can that can 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.920 shorten and toughen as you handle the product. Once you 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.640 once it goes into a rigger, then you're at a 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.440 certain level of tenderness. And from that time on beyond 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:24.320 where rigger happens, it will just get more and more 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:29.000 the longer you keep it in the cooler. Okay, I'm 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:35.560 mostly good on that one. So far. Your answers have 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:37.720 a lot of conviction, which is like what I would 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:42.240 want out of meta Year's official Meat Scientists, right, But 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:46.160 I wonder if you lack any confidence in what you're saying, 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.160 um knowing that like a lot of the studies that 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.440 have been done in the literature that you're referencing has 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.520 been on like domestic game cattle that was you know, 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.200 ben dean cicado over the last ten thousand years, versus 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.520 something like a white tailed deer or an elk, a 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.400 wild animal. They're just wired differently. And so my question is, like, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.560 when they're talking about stress, how is how is do 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:15.800 we know that stress is the same to a dear 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.040 versus cattle? And then you know all the rest of 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:21.680 your answers if they lack any confidence, no way that 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.520 we're talking about b versus wild game. You know, muscle 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.440 is muscle. I do not lack confidence on the science 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:36.720 and and Spencer we could get in an argument. You 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.080 got him all wrong. He's not trying to be pugnacious. 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.080 He's just trying to He's trying to people at home 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:47.000 or so there's people at home in the future listen 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.880 to this. They're at home thinking, yeah, what does he know? 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:53.600 We're talking about deer? So he's just trying to clear 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.800 that up. Yes, no, I'm just getting the artime. I 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:01.720 totally understand you're the point that you're saying, Uh have 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.480 I have studied a variety of different species. I have 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.640 studied product from around the world, and muscle responds the 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:15.040 same way that some of the timelines are different. And 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:19.880 so for example, uh, poultry, for example, a chicken, it 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.200 will go into rigor mortis in an hour and a half. 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.200 A beef animal might take eight or ten hours before 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.560 it's fully into rigor mortis. If you take a goat 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.400 or sheep there and there in four to six hours, 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:37.960 that's about That's about what I'd anticipate for deer as well. 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:42.480 So the biology of muscle contraction and rigor mortis and 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.280 all of that that's fixed. It's it's gonna happen in 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.040 all all of the different species that we're talking about. 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.360 Now we have to think about most of the time. 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:57.320 When you think about that beef steer, for example, uh, 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.440 that animal has been neutered, and so it doesn't have 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:06.359 uh the access to all of those hormones that uh 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:09.199 uh uh and intact mail would have. And so the 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:13.400 sensitivity to hormone fluctuations might vary a little bit from 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:17.399 species to species, um, and depending on what sex or 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.120 gender you're dealing with. But at the end of the day, 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:27.480 the biology says, um, all muscles go through the same sequence, 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:32.160 the same kind of process as what I've tried to describe. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.600 Can you you tell us explain the term I hear 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.719 now and then I thought it was a red cutter, 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.840 but Spencer convinced the otherwise that that's not actually a thing. 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:47.760 And he was saying do you mean a dark cutter? Like, 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:52.399 what is a dark cutter? So when we talked about 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:57.119 the drop in pH that happens normally when rigor occurs, 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.920 that gives us the normal call or that we're used 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:05.840 to sing inside the muscle. If the pH stays high, 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.560 then the meat is very dark in color. And so 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:13.399 in beef cattle they call it a dark cutter. Have 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:18.760 you heard red cutter? I've never heard red cutter until 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:23.359 about two minutes given up on that one. But it's 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:25.520 the it's the same way you can get that same 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:29.120 condition in pork. If pork or stressed for too long, 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:31.560 you can get in that case, we call it d 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.200 f D dark firm and dry. And so they're all 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:40.160 just descriptions that you just described wild. You just described 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:44.520 wild pig, a lot of wild pig pretty well. Yeah. 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.560 So that when you have a dark cutter in the 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:55.000 in the slaughter world or commercial slaughter world, is it 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:59.200 attributable to a specific thing that happened to that animal 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.800 or is it just some percentage will come out that way? 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:08.240 Now that's uh, it is it is a response to 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:14.159 sustained stress. But just like people, some animals are pretty 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:20.359 chill and some animals are really tightly wired. The ones 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.639 that are high strung, high stress, those are the ones 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.560 that are gonna be more likely to have the problem. 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:32.440 So the same set of conditions, whether it's UH duration 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.760 or shipping or hauling or whatever, the same set of 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.200 conditions will have a different impact on every animal depending 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.720 on how that animal responds to the situation. Yeah, I 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:47.520 got you there. There's a product these guys were selling, 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.080 maybe maybe Spencer, maybe remember the name of it. It was, 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:54.119 um it was a contraption where you could shoot a 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.080 deer and then run over real quick and hook this 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.639 thing up to your car battery and appit like how 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:08.480 youse app them in a in a slaughterhouse? Can you explain, uh, 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.720 why they do that in a in a plant? Why 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.959 they's app them with electricity? And then can is that 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.960 even can? Can? Is it realistic that you could replicate 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:20.879 that in the wild? Whatever the hell you're trying to 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.840 get when you do it? Yeah, So let's let's first 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:28.399 talk about what happens when you apply electricity. You cause 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:33.119 the muscle to contract. And and by the way, a 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.719 car battery doesn't work very well because that's a constant, 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.720 continuous electrical field. What you really want is alternating current. 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:47.200 So the muscle contracts, relaxes, contracts relaxes. As you do that, 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:53.160 you're using up glycogen, you're producing acid. You are hastening 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:57.879 the rate at which rigor mortis occurs. That makes me 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:03.959 more tender. And so from the from the mechanism standpoint, 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:08.120 it works. Can we create something like that that could 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:10.560 be used in the field. Again, as long as you 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:16.960 have pulses of electricity rather than a continuous contraction, then 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:21.280 you're gonna have, uh, some improvement is possible under that scenario. 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:26.120 The other thing I would point out is, um, when 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:31.240 when when we when we shoot a deer, the heart 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.840 stops right and that's how blood is pumped through the body. 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.720 So when the heart is no longer beating, we can't 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:46.600 pump blood out. So um, some electrical impulse will help 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:50.120 get a little bit of that blood out of the system. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:55.280 And so that's the other side benefit. So what is 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:59.720 the ideal shot placement for a hunter in the head, 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:02.800 in the neck, in the heart, in the lungs, in 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:08.520 the spine, Like what would be your top choice? Yeah, 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:12.240 so just in terms of meat, just limit this to like, 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:14.680 in terms of meat quality, and get out of the 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.600 and not bog it down with room for air, right, 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.600 margin for air and all that. I appreciate that because 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.000 that is a bit of the question. At the end 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.760 of the day, you want the animal to go from 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.920 being alive to no longer being alive, and heart shot 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:36.480 ahead shot, any of those will will affect that same consequence. 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:41.800 And so from a meat quality standpoint, um, other than 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:44.800 damage to tissue and those kind of things, there's probably 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:49.919 not real a real big difference among those locations. Do 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.120 you have you ever seen? Um? I can't really it's 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:57.760 hard to even explained this. Sometimes when you're when you're 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:03.600 skinning a deer, you'll find that there's like a you 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:07.600 know that foam, there's like a foam between the like 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:10.720 like a bubbly foam that forms between the hide and 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:15.000 the meat. Right, What is that stuff? Well, that's part 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:19.120 of that connective tissue that I talked about again, That 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:23.080 is a protein based structure that goes between the muscles 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.800 and also between the muscle and the hide. Uh, no 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.600 no damage, no risk, no concern on that standpoint. I 0:23:31.040 --> 0:23:34.440 might mention though that um, we we think about, well, 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.159 if you've got that silver tissue on the outside of 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.240 the muscle, you can always trend that off. But if 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:43.800 you get a microscope and look at that muscle, that 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:48.680 tissue actually goes throughout the muscle. And and that's why 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:54.360 muscle from the leg, for example, is inherently less tender 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:57.439 than a muscle that's from the loin or the backstrap, 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:01.920 because those are muscles of support versus the legs, big 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:06.600 muscles of locomotion. They need more of that connective tissue. So, 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:08.879 by and large, if you've gotta you've got a piece 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:10.760 of meat with a lot of connective tissue in it, 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:16.040 you know, uh, slow roasting, uh, putting in a pot 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:18.240 and stewart that kind of a thing is how we 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.320 tend to cook that. Whereas you get the muscles that 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:25.720 don't have very much connective tissue that tenderlins, the backstraps, 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:28.600 all of that. We can make sticks out of those, 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:30.359 throw them in a skellet throw them on the grill, 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:35.119 and have a very nice eating experience. What a what 0:24:35.280 --> 0:24:38.440 happens when well, first let me ask you this. Have 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:44.040 you have you had exposure to to your your possiverous 0:24:44.160 --> 0:24:48.200 uh counterparts like fish, fish meat? Is that a thing 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:51.320 I'm not much on fish meat. I can't tell you 0:24:51.359 --> 0:24:53.600 too much about that. Are there people that specialize Are 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:57.040 there people in the meat science word to specialize in fish? Yes, 0:24:57.200 --> 0:25:00.359 there are people specialize in fish. People specialize in pork 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:04.600 or beef or poultry. Uh, yeah, we're we can be 0:25:04.680 --> 0:25:08.800 a pretty specialized group. So because this one, this question 0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:11.440 about bleeding, let's just let's just if you know about 0:25:11.440 --> 0:25:13.360 the process of bleeding fish, you can speak to that. 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:19.239 But what are you trying to achieve when what are 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:21.920 you trying to achieve when you bleed something? When people 0:25:21.960 --> 0:25:24.200 talk about like needing to bleed it out, like, what, 0:25:24.200 --> 0:25:27.960 what are you really getting? That's that's a that's an 0:25:28.000 --> 0:25:31.640 awesome question because a lot of people run around saying, 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:36.040 there's all this blood in the meat um muscle, which 0:25:36.080 --> 0:25:45.600 is true. Muscle is sent water, right, So all you 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:48.400 have to think about what's the function of blood. And 0:25:48.920 --> 0:25:51.880 one of the main things is we carry oxygen through 0:25:51.920 --> 0:25:56.800 blood right on hemoglobin molecules inside the meat is a 0:25:56.840 --> 0:26:01.960 molecule that also binds oxygen, bind better than hemoglobin actually, 0:26:02.080 --> 0:26:05.240 so it draws the oxygen out of the blood into 0:26:05.280 --> 0:26:09.520 the meat and it binds to mild globin. And so 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:12.200 when you look at meat, and that meat is red 0:26:12.320 --> 0:26:16.440 in color. That's myad globe. There's very very little hemo 0:26:16.480 --> 0:26:20.320 globe and very little blood in the meat itself. But 0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:24.600 because meat water, everybody goes, oh my gosh, look at 0:26:24.600 --> 0:26:27.480 all the blood that's in that meat. But most of 0:26:27.600 --> 0:26:31.800 that is myo globin and water that's inside the muscle. 0:26:32.200 --> 0:26:34.720 So when you bleed, you're just trying to get rid 0:26:34.760 --> 0:26:39.920 of the bloods that's there. And probably the biggest real 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:44.040 reason for that is um It's a great nutrient for 0:26:44.240 --> 0:26:47.960 bacterial growth and spoilage, and so we try and remove 0:26:48.080 --> 0:26:49.880