On preliminary inspection, it seems like the main difference is size. Here is a list of the animals I know along with what I define their meat to be:
Red
Cow
Bison
Ostrich
White:
Chicken
Turkey
Alligator
Snake (I’ve never tried it, but the “It tastes just like chicken” is pretty prominent even if it doesn’t)
Quail
Pig seams to be an anomaly that I can’t quite categorize. Of course that really demonstrates the issue with this question. There is likely a spectrum from white meat to red meat and the divisions may not allways be agreed upon. Then, of course, there is fish meat which is different from both.
Diet is important because various minerals in the food affect the color of the meat. Pork is so white partly because of a corn-based diet. A wild pig would have meat with a darker color. Lamb and beef are dark red, at least in part, because they tend to eat grasses.
Probably more important is the composition of the muscle itself. Myoglobin provides much of the color. It stores oxygen for use in muscles, so it is more common in muscles that are expected to work long periods of time (endurance vs. sprinting). Chicken breasts are whiter than their legs because they suck at flying and count on running around for locomotion. Ducks, on the other hand, have very red breast meat.
If myoglobin is the only distinction, then the answer is uninteresting. So myogolbin is responsible for the color, but why do some animals have it and others don’t. I can assure you, I don’t need a chemistry lesson on the color of meat. Why is it that large animals tend to have red meat, but small animals have white meat? Why do fish have, “fish meat”?
I’m not looking for chemistry, I’m looking for biology.
The amount of myoglobin found in muscle tissue is determined by how much is needed. Myoglobin’s role in oxygen transport makes it more important (and more plentiful) in slow-twitch muscle fibers than in the largely anaerobic fast-twitch fibers one would expect to see in small, fast animals, in flight muscles, etc.
It’s also more plentiful in muscles that get used; crate-raised veal is whiter than free-raised veal, pastured beef is darker than stall beef, etc. Larger animals have more myglobin in their muscles, possibly for this reason; animals with higher metabolism are also known to contain less myoglobin in ther meat.
Finally, an animal’s aging darkens the meat, possibly due to 'time of use."
That is the sort of thing I was looking for. I wonder why pig meat is so white then. They aren’t particularly fast twitch IMO.
I thought rabbit meat was more like pork. I’ve never had squirrel or thrush. It surprises me that thrush is red meat. I would have assumed that thrush would be white like chicken.
Cattle are not raised in the feed lots for their whole lives. They’re just fattened up before sale. Despite the large amount of corn, cattle still “tend to eat grasses.” I used those words specifically because I know that corn is a component of their diet.
I suppose ham is red, but I generally think of red meat being also partly texture. Also, I really don’t like ham, so it never occurred to me. Nevertheless, parts of a turkey are colored red, but I wouldn’t call a turkey red meat. Of course, this becomes a definition thing. I don’t think I would call duck red meat. It tastes like dark meat on a turkey, and I can’t make a steak out of it.
Basically, myoglobin is more prevalent in slow-twitch muscle fibers used for endurance feats like standing, walking, etc. and it’s presence makes meat redder. It’s less present in fast-twitch muscle fibers used for things like jumping, brief flight, changing body position, and other short movements.
Different species do different amounts of these task, and carry different amounts of myoglobin genetically, as well, so the range of red (dark) to white will be different in each beastie.
