Seeing red: spoiled meat may look fresh.(Health)

Attention, meat shoppers: Your supermarket may be selling ground beef and steaks packaged with gas that keeps it looking red for a month or longer. Our tests found that meat packaged using that method stayed red even if it was spoiled. The process, used in factory-wrapped (or case-ready) meat, replaces most of the oxygen in the package with other gases. Those include tiny amounts of carbon monoxide, which react with the pigment in meat, producing a red color. The shelf life for ground beef sealed in that mix of gases can be extended from about 14 days to 28 days, and about 10 days to 35 days for whole cuts.

Some supermarket chains, including Kroger and Publix, refuse to carry meat packaged with carbon-monoxide, citing concerns about appearance and freshness or quality.

Bacterial counts that indicate spoilage in meat may make it taste and smell bad, but food safety experts say that it is generally not a health hazard. Thorough cooking will kill bacteria that cause foodborne illness, though it won't necessarily undo spoilage odors or bad taste.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined as recently as July 2004 that it had no objections to the use of carbon-monoxide packaging for fresh meat. In November 2005, Kalsec, a company in Kalamazoo, Mich., that uses a different meat ...