# A rare steak is is off limits for observant Jews? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 6, 2008, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232 "2008-04-06T21:46:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/1 "2008-04-06T21:46:58Z")
I knew about pork, and no milk-meat mixing, [but this was a surprise.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood#Hemocyanin) > [@](#): > > In Judaism, blood cannot be consumed even in the smallest quantity (Leviticus 3:17 and elsewhere); this is reflected in Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut). Blood is purged from meat by salting and soaking in water. > > Other rituals involving blood are the covering of the blood of fowl and game after slaughtering (Leviticus 17:13); the reason given by the Torah is: “Because the life of every animal is [in] his blood” (ibid 17:14), although from its context in Leviticus 3:17 it would appear that blood cannot be consumed because it is to be used in the sacrificial service (known as the korbanot), in the Temple in Jerusalem. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/2 "2008-04-06T21:50:09Z")
Steaks generally don’t have blood in them, no matter how rare. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/3 "2008-04-06T21:56:09Z")
[QUOTE=Snarky\_Kong] Steaks generally don’t have blood in them, no matter how rare. [/QUOTE] And doesn’t ‘rare’ refer to how long it’s been cooked, not whether it’s ‘bloody’. (Are you sure that steaks don’t have blood in? What’s the dark-red juice that inevitably is part of a rare steak?) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/4 "2008-04-06T21:57:44Z")
[QUOTE=Snarky\_Kong] Steaks generally don’t have blood in them, no matter how rare. [/QUOTE] Yeah, that’s ummm, uh, not true. As was pointed out there is a red juice, and blood resides in your muscles, there are capillaries that bring nutrition to the fibers. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/5 "2008-04-06T21:57:55Z")
[QUOTE=Snarky\_Kong] Steaks generally don’t have blood in them, no matter how rare. [/QUOTE] So that delicious juicy red stuff that comes out of the steak when sliced, and puddles on the bottom of my plate waiting to be sopped up with some bread is what, if not blood and meat juices? ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/6 "2008-04-06T22:02:53Z")
[QUOTE=astro] So that delicious juicy red stuff that comes out of the steak when sliced, and puddles on the bottom of my plate waiting to be sopped up with some bread is what, if not blood and meat juices? [/QUOTE] Blood is not meat juices. From [http://www.fsis.usda.gov/fact\_sheets/Beef\_from\_Farm\_to\_Table/index.asp](http://www.fsis.usda.gov/fact_sheets/Beef_from_Farm_to_Table/index.asp) > [@](#): > > Many people think the red liquid in packaged fresh beef is blood. However, blood is removed from beef during slaughter and only a small amount remains within the muscle tissue. Since beef is about 3/4 water, this natural moisture combined with protein is the source of the liquid in the package. If you’re being a pedant, yes, there is blood. There is only trace amounts though, that’s like saying you’re eating feces when you eat hamburger, sure there’s some in there, but very little. Also, the amount of cooking doesn’t change the amount of blood so a rare steak would be just as permissible as a well done one. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2008, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/7 "2008-04-06T23:36:43Z")
Orthodox Jew here, and great lover of rare steaks. Juice of rare meat is not blood, it’s something called myoglobin. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/8 "2008-04-07T14:59:41Z")
Before those of us who keep kosher can eat meat, it has to be soaked and salted to remove any blood. After that’s done to your steak, you can cook it any way you like, or even eat it raw if that’s what you’re into. You can eat the meat juices that come out onto the plate, or not, according to your personal taste. There’s one exception to this: liver. Liver is considered to have too much blood in it to get it out by soaking and salting. Therefore, liver from any land animal must be broiled to be kosher. But for all cuts of meat except liver, assuming no dairy products or non-kosher meat products are involved, the cooking method doesn’t make a difference as to whether meat is kosher or not. I converted as an adult, and have had kosher and non-kosher meat. It doesn’t make much difference to the texture of the meat as far as I can tell- the cut and quality of the meat and how it is cooked makes a much bigger difference. It doesn’t make much difference to the taste, either- the salt is washed off before you cook the meat. I eat my steaks rarer now than I did before I converted- in my family when I was growing up, medium was the rarest that any of us would ever consider ordering meat, and my college dining hall didn’t serve rare meat, either (probably for food safety reasons). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/9 "2008-04-07T15:14:26Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] There’s one exception to this: liver. Liver is considered to have too much blood in it to get it out by soaking and salting. Therefore, liver from any land animal must be broiled to be kosher. . [/QUOTE] Interesting. I wonder if that’s why people tend to overcook liver. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rare-steak-is-is-off-limits-for-observant-jews/444232/10 "2008-04-07T16:30:32Z")
A lot of popular steaks are very hard to find if you’re shopping for kosher meat. Any meat from the hindquarters of the cow has to undergo an elaborate procedure (called porging) to remove the sciatic nerve before it can be sold as kosher meat. This is difficult and time-consuming to do, and isn’t done much except in Israel. Most hindquarter meat from kosher slaughtered cows is sold as non-kosher meat. That means you’re not likely to find kosher T-bone, porterhouse, strip, sirloin, filet mignon, or chateaubriand steaks unless you’re in Israel. Kosher steaks in the US are more likely to be chuck steaks or rib steaks. You could probably find those kosher steaks in Israel. But on my trip to Israel, it didn’t strike me as so much of a steak place. Most of the places where we ate were more into lamb and chicken. I imagine those cuts are quite expensive, though- maybe if we’d been eating at more upscale places we’d have seen kosher steak from cuts we can’t get in the US. [QUOTE=RealityChuck] Interesting. I wonder if that’s why people tend to overcook liver. [/QUOTE] Could be. If you keep kosher and want to cook liver in any way other than broiling (I can’t understand why anyone would want to cook any kind of liver in any way other than how the dog or cat likes it, but it takes all kinds to make a world), you have to broil it first for it to be kosher (then you can cook it any other way you like, as always assuming no dairy products or non-kosher meat products are involved). I could see how that might lead to overcooking. OTOH, there’s a general tradition of long cooking of meats in Ashkenazic Jewish cooking (probably having something to do with a lot of the more tender cuts not being kosher), and that could account for it too.