# Why do white people like to eat bloody meat? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 20, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021 "2015-09-20T23:08:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/61 "2015-09-21T12:01:37Z")
I’m a white guy and I like my meat (beef, lamb, pork, fish) rare or raw. When my brother returned to the US after living in Germany for a few years he made me a German dish of raw pork and onion (mett), it was delicious. I also _love_ watermelon but _hate_ grape soda. Isn’t life interestingly? ---
**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:** [September 21, 2015, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/62 "2015-09-21T12:20:03Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that blood tastes ‘nothing like’ the juices of raw meat. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s fairly similar. (Mind you, that might just be my perception. When I eat eggs, I can taste that they came from a chicken) > > The red juice that comes out of meat is (mostly) not blood, but it’s foolish to imagine that every last blood cell is somehow removed from meat at the slaughterhouse. > Capillary vessels are so small that blood cells have to go through them in single file, under pressure. They’re not all going to drain out. There is \*some \*blood in meat. Yeah, and there is some dinosaur piss in the coffee I’m drinking, but it’s clearly ridiculous to say that’s what I’m drinking. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/63 "2015-09-21T13:08:43Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Cuz we’re Neanderthals, crackin’ cows over the head with clubs!!! So _that’s_ why we’re called crackers! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/64 "2015-09-21T13:23:38Z")
> [@Tammytulip](#): > > As a black person, I know why black people eat their meat well done… So, why is it? Inquiring minds want to know! ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/65 "2015-09-21T13:46:16Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Well done meat was a necessity when the nation’s meat supply was questionable. All of my older relatives insisted on well done meat. > > There was a short period in the 60’s-mid 80’s when meat inspections ensured safe meat. A lot of families began eating rare or medium rare meats. Even steak tartare. my parents and I enjoyed medium rare steaks and medium roasts. > > Thats all changed now. The meat supply has e coli and several bad recalls. Theres at least one E coli outbreak every year. I order my meat “medium well” now. I have for at least 15 years. Ever since the Jack in the Box deaths in the early nineties. Any burger that is pink gets rejected and I ask for a well cooked one. You can still have rare steaks with little to no risk; almost all of the beef recalls are for factory-packed ground beef where one contaminated piece will spoil hundreds or thousands of pounds of otherwise fine ground beef. Your steaks, briskets, etc… generally speaking any solid cut of meat doesn’t have bacteria on the INSIDE of the steak, and I suspect if they did, you’d know it as soon as you opened the package. And usually a rinse, drying and searing the outside (or braising/slow-cooking) will take care of any external bacteria (heating above 165 will kill them, as will longer cooking at lower temps). It’s probably a good idea to get your burgers cooked to well-done though when they’re not made from meat you’re confident about. It’s what I do anyway. But I don’t sweat a medium-rare steak. It’s probably pretty low on the list of risky things I commonly do. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/66 "2015-09-21T13:46:24Z")
People who don’t like steak order it well done or medium well whenever they occasionally order it just to see whether they still don’t like it. Inevitably it turns out that yep, they still don’t like steak. People who actually like steak have at some point been given a piece of meat they thought was under cooked, but they didn’t realize it until it was too late and they had already taken a bite or two. Those are the people who realized that steak is FUCKING GOOD! They ask how to order a steak to get it as good as the one they’re eating right now, and if they’re lucky there’s someone around who knows what they’re talking about that can tell them “medium rare”. In this person’s mind, they’ll usually tell themselves “I like this steak a lot but I don’t like seeing all the blood, so I’ll just order medium instead.” And the next steak they got was shitty again, like all the others before that one gloriously delicious steak. They’ll wonder why nobody can make steak like that one time that was so goddamned good, not realizing that they’re ordering it wrong. Nobody likes a well done steak. Some people have convinced themselves they prefer it that way, but that person has never considered steak to be one of their favorite foods. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/67 "2015-09-21T14:10:07Z")
> [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](#): > > I’m carefully poking at what I fear to be a landmine here, but I believe that it’s because pork and chicken are never eaten less than well-done. Until quite recently, fish was always served well done. You might be having shrimp, salmon, ribs, or chicken at a restaurant, and right at the next table I might be having steak or prime rib. Those I would eat medium or medium rare. If I were to be eating a burger or chopped steak, it’d be cooked well done. And of course, if I had BBQ ribs, they would also be well done. > I suspect it’s more of a food choice issue than a doneness issue. And I, too, want to know why this is connected to race. If it’s true, which I wonder about but let’s assume it is, it’s not a question of RACE, but of culture. People enjoy foods they are familiar with, so if African-Americans, say, are used to medium and well done beef, they will tend to prefer that, just as Chinese people enjoy cuisine I would find weird and Norwegians enjoy lutefisk and Russians like borscht. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/68 "2015-09-21T14:11:13Z")
> [@jimbuff314](#): > > ::cough:: never coming back to this thread ::cough cough cough:: > > Did people not read the OP? I swear, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel around here. There was a long period of time where long- time posters would come here (of all places) to ask presumably sincere questions about the preferences and actions of black people. Like [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=579519)one. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/69 "2015-09-21T14:54:56Z")
> [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](#): > > I’m carefully poking at what I fear to be a landmine here, but I believe that it’s because pork and chicken are never eaten less than well-done. > [@RickJay](#): > > If it’s true, which I wonder about but let’s assume it is, it’s not a question of RACE, but of culture. Might I suggest class as a major, perhaps preeminent, factor? As Umlaut says, chicken, pork and ground beef are much cheaper sources of protein than (non ground) beef. Cheap cuts of meat that are safe/tasty to eat rare/medium rare are uncommon. As others have suggested, the cuts of meat that are worth having rare/ medium rare are expensive. Hence, people who 1) are currently 2) come from 3) mainly know people who are in the lower economic strata will tend to eat meat well done and have less experience with rare/medium rare meat. Since they have little experience eating good cuts of meat, the idea of eating a medium rare steak is as repulsive to them as eating medium rare pork. My impression as a non-American is that quite a few aspects associated with the black American subculture have to do with their overrepresentation in the lower income quintile. Any white people who grew up lower class here? Any black people who grew up middle or upper class? Tell us how steak tended to be cooked. Anecdotally, I can say that my white father’s side is upper middle class and bloody meat wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. When having steaks, it was common to request how you’d like to have them cooked. On my white mother’s side, which is lower class, meats are cooked well done. Seriously, when she cooks a steak, you’d think she was strictly adhering to Genesis 9: 3-4: 3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/70 "2015-09-21T15:01:28Z")
Throw my steak on the grill till it quits mooing. That’s done enough for me. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/71 "2015-09-21T15:04:33Z")
I’m white and even if I preferred my steak well done, I would be reluctant to order it prepared that way since well done meat is generally considered to be prole food. Other prole foods you may wish to avoid include hot dogs, crawfish, fried foods, fast food, sodas, sweet tea, beer from domestic megabreweries, blended whiskey, bologna sandwiches, etc. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/72 "2015-09-21T15:16:50Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > Other prole foods you may wish to avoid include hot dogs, crawfish, fried foods, fast food, sodas, sweet tea, beer from domestic megabreweries, blended whiskey, bologna sandwiches, etc. Aren’t most of these foods associated with the Southeast and Midwest of the US, irrespective of race? Also, you can have my Jameson Whiskey when you pry it from my moist, drunken hands. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/73 "2015-09-21T15:19:32Z")
> [@Omega\_Glory](#): > > There was a long period of time where long- time posters would come here (of all places) to ask presumably sincere questions about the preferences and actions of black people. Like [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=579519)one. It’s too bad nobody thought to post that link 50 posts ago. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/74 "2015-09-21T15:24:19Z")
My mom is seriously repulsed when _anyone at her table_ cuts into pink meat. It doesn’t have to be right in front of her, and it doesn’t have to be blood rare, either. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/75 "2015-09-21T15:25:38Z")
Well for starters in the USA if you’re at a steak restaurant where you can order your steak rare, you’ve already passed a economic barrier in that it tends to be pricey, that eliminates a lot of racial and ethnic minorities right off the bat who can’t afford to eat there often. It would not shock me to learn high end steak restaurants tend toward white clientele. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/76 "2015-09-21T15:37:34Z")
> [@Spud](#): > > It’s too bad nobody thought to post that link 50 posts ago. I didn’t see it before, but my point was not to try to answer that question. The point was that this has been going, from the other side, since pretty much day one. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/77 "2015-09-21T15:47:00Z")
> [@grude](#): > > It would not shock me to learn high end steak restaurants tend toward white clientele. Le Château du Boeuf We only serve pink meats ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/78 "2015-09-21T16:29:56Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Might I suggest class as a major, perhaps preeminent, factor? > > Hence, people who 1) are currently 2) come from 3) mainly know people who are in the lower economic strata will tend to eat meat well done and have less experience with rare/medium rare meat. > > Any white people who grew up lower class here? Well, from a monetary perspective we were not well-off after my parents divorced. [Meaning, we didn’t have much ready money, but certainly weren’t lower class…(books, habits, hobbies, and attitudes make up “class” as much as money).] We ate a lot of ground beef. If served as a burger, it was generally medium-rare to rare (my mom and I love rare burgers). My mother served steak and roasts mostly rare, with a small portion on each end that was well-done formy stepfather, who preferred well-done meat. BTW, for the Safety Police out there, I’ve never had “food poisoning” in my life (and I still eat rare burgers if I know where the meat came from), so, no, rare burgers don’t immediately cause teh dead. ETA, now I have mom eating her lamb rare, and not with feckin’ mint jelly. VICTORY! ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/79 "2015-09-21T16:42:36Z")
I’m by no means a food historian, but didn’t the practice of eating meat well done start because of food safety? To this day, if I have little to no trust in the source of my meat, I prefer that it be served well done for health purposes. But for taste purposes, most meat is more flavorful and juicier if it isn’t overly well done. I grew up on stringy beef roasts and pork chops cooked to a state resembling hockey pucks. I thought I didn’t like meat until I was served medium rare prime rib once at a banquet. It was a minor revelation. Had a similar experience with pork. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021/80 "2015-09-21T16:49:38Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s not blood. It’s [myogobin](http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/10/25/myoglobin-red-meat.aspx). How did a misspelled Mercola link go this long without being corrected and/or roll-eyed? Who are you people and what have you done with the… other people?! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-white-people-like-to-eat-bloody-meat/732021.md?page=5)