Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2018 November 23

= November 23 =

Meat questions.
What makes beef meat beef meat, pork meat pork meat, and chicken meat chicken meat? If you ask a biochemist, he'll say "All meat is composed of proteins, and proteins are H2N-CH-R-COOH (empirical formula). Okay, that's a little too zoomed-in. If we zoom out a little less, what are the differences? If you say all meat is the same, imagine if scientists 1 day can mass-produce polypeptides of proteins or meats. And claim it is meat - independent of animal. What a concept that is for groups that can't eat pork meat like Muslims and Jews! Also, as a side question, Muslims and Jews can eat beef, but can they eat cow meat that have been fed pork? Thanks. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 05:07, 23 November 2018 (UTC).


 * Cows generally feed on plants. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:32, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, but why does Baseball Bugs get to delete all my posts about attracting women questions, and when I asked a question like this, I get this kind of an answer. I guess you'll delete this reply post too? After all, you still think I'm a troll. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 07:58, 23 November 2018 (UTC).
 * When and where? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:40, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * While that is all in the past, today I felt that because my 2nd part of the question here on Muslims/Jews is not actually a science question, you probably thought I was a troll and wanted to delete my entire question, hence your "cows generally feed on plants" remark, but actually felt like not deleting my question this time, and I am grateful for that. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 17:10, 23 November 2018 (UTC).
 * I ask you for evidence, and you've got nothing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:46, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The 2nd time, I started a new post getting more specific on attracting women, about the effects of shirtlessness men on women, any studies on how women perceive when men are shirtless in public. Then Nil Einne deleted my question and in the comment, pasted the link to my old edit. So, it's not just you. On a later day you deleted a reply post I made. But unfortunately, it's not just Wikipedia that I have places with these kinds of problems. City-Data, Reddit, etc. As observed, the Internet is full of bullies. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 22:33, 23 November 2018 (UTC).
 * The internet (or Wikipedia, at least) is also full of complainants who fail to provide evidence. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:36, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I assume you are referring to [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&diff=prev&oldid=796706120]. I make no apologies for that. While that question wasn't in itself that bad, your previous question was wildly inappropriate and strongly indicative of trolling or someone else who wasn't welcome on the RD [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&diff=794877777&oldid=794877532] and your follow up question seemed to strongly relate to your previous question. If you want to try to mess people up emotionally in real life for your own sadistic pleasure or whatever, we can't do anything here about it, but don't expect us to offer you any help doing so. If you find that your comments are continually deleted in whatever internet forum you hang out in, maybe it's not that the internet is full of bullies, but you are unable or unwilling to follow normal etiquette or wherever your hanging out. Or heck, in this case make it's just because from what you're telling us you're coming across as a horrible person and you're unwelcome even when you do mostly behave. You need to either change your behaviour, or hang out somewhere like 4chan which will allow such behaviour.  BTW, it's not advisable to draw attention to yourself. I think most of us didn't know you were the person who said "" and "" and "" and then asked us for advice how you could keep doing this, until you saw fit to bring it up. Your persistent desire to draw attention to your bad posts hints at someone who is either trolling or unwelcome even if not trolling. Nil Einne (talk) 01:50, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Soylent Green was a flop, but how about this ? 2A00:23C1:3182:5700:2154:3627:CD5D:3144 (talk) 13:26, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Here's one . 2A00:23C1:3182:5700:2154:3627:CD5D:3144 (talk) 14:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Here in the UK, cattle have been fed meat-and-bone meal with terrible results. I have been told the taboos on pork are for practical reasons. Religions tended to flourish in the hot Middle East and when pork goes off, it still smells the same as good meat, but beef and lamb doesn't. People won't stop doing something if they are told that it is bad for them, but they will if they can be convinced that a deity forbids it. --TrogWoolley (talk) 12:10, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Another theory is that hogs are "bottom feeders" or scavengers, which is why shellfish, for example, are also considered to be "unclean". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:42, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I've always assumed that Moses was the put off by the thought of pig toilets - bacon sandwich anyone? Alansplodge (talk) 16:14, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Uhh, I believe the theory is there was a big disease happening caused by infected pig meat, which is why pig meat was condemned in the Torah. And thus the Qur'an follows. 67.175.224.138 (talk) 17:02, 23 November 2018 (UTC).
 * There's a long list of exclusions and explanation theories in the Kashrut article. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:49, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

[extracted text below]
 * The best modern justification I've heard is, "To remind yourself that you're Jewish [or Muslim or Hindu or whatever]." A Jewish guy walks into a butcher shop and asks what the price of the ham is. A loud thunderclap is heard. He looks heavenward and says, "I was only asking!" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:53, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * A Catholic priest and a rabbi are alone together in a train compartment. Tell me, Reb," says the priest, "Just between you and me, have you ever tasted pork?" "Well," says the rabbi, "as a matter of fact, I did once, out of curiousity. So tell me this, Father, in strictest confidence of course, have you ever had sex with a woman?" "Well I have to admit," says the priest, "That on one occasion I did yield to temptation and sleep with a woman." The Rabbi leans forward and murmurs: "Better than pork, isn't it?" {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.131.235 (talk) 20:17, 23 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I know I'm breaking with tradition by actually answering the question, but hell: it's this. HenryFlower 14:20, 23 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Bah, I totally forgot the concept of cells. Meat by animal is also a bunch of meat cells, glued together or so? 67.175.224.138 (talk) 16:59, 23 November 2018 (UTC).
 * The "glue" is extracellular matrix material; in connective tissue, collagen is a large part of that. See epimysium, perimysium, endomysium, which are connective tissue membranes at varying scales of muscle ... right down to the "individual cell" (though muscle fibers are really many fused together in a long strand). Wnt (talk) 05:15, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The Anglicans come out of this rather well . 2A00:23C1:3180:6501:29E3:4ADB:4474:36D3 (talk) 14:20, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, the meat in beef and such, are not just proteins or amino acids, but the proteins and amino acids exist in meat cells? Not outside. Probably meat cells differ by animal, so beef, pork, and chicken meat cells taste different, and so there is no empirical formula. Would you by chance know what glues bone cells? Intracellular matrix? 67.175.224.138 (talk) 14:57, 24 November 2018 (UTC).
 * Proteins exist both inside and outside cells. Proteins can be produced and moved directly to a space called the rough endoplasmic reticulum that communicates via vesicles to the outside of the cell.  That said, proteins are a bit of red herring in that the "taste" of food is largely about its aroma, and the smell is from small volatile chemicals.  This paper reviews important compounds governing the flavor of chicken:  hexanal, D-limonene, pentanal, heptanal, 1-octen-3-ol, nonanal, 3-octanone, octanal, diisobutyl phthalate, Z-2-heptenal, 1-pentanol, heneicosane, benzaldehyde ... (in order of decreasing concentration in cage-raised chickens of one of two strains examined; there are substantial variations even based on rearing conditions)  It is not immediately obvious to me where many of these come from - some are too long to be most amino acids yet too short to be fatty acids, should be worth looking into further... Wnt (talk) 02:00, 26 November 2018 (UTC)
 * We have articles about short-chain fatty acids (C<6) and medium-chain fatty acids (C6–C12) that comment on their biochemical origins and roles. DMacks (talk) 14:44, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Bah, my question was not on why meat by animals have different smells or different tastes, but why meat by animal are structurally different. Because on the molecular level, all proteins are composed of H2N-CH-R-COOH, however, I was thinking different animals by species should have different meat cells. I think the dna in cells will even differ for 2 animals of the same species, but isn't there a bioprint that can distinctively tell by animal? 67.175.224.138 (talk) 06:04, 27 November 2018 (UTC).
 * Even within one organism, different tissues have substantially different types of cells (something like phenotype, even if same genotype). That means wholely different structures (including different proteins and other compounds) present in different amounts. The animal meat we eat is mostly muscle along with some fat. Plant cells generally have cell walls not just cell membranes. DMacks (talk) 06:15, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Proteins are much more complex than a chain of amino acids. Proteins are folded into all sorts of structures, get chemically modified, and are joined to other proteins and molecules. And cells are chock-full of things besides proteins: lipids, fatty acids, carbohydrates, electrolytes, thousands upon thousands of different small molecules. All of these will be factors in determining how a type of meat looks, feels, tastes, and so on. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 09:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I see a few "it's everything" answers here, and they're all true, but they're all false. I mean, there is actual food science ("molecular gastronomy", we have an article!) where bright bulbs at corporations figure out how to make chicken gizzards into scrumptious nuggets, perhaps with the judicious addition of certain chemicals (doubtless from natural sources, at least when those are cheaper).  I haven't done the research but if you have one specific goal in mind, say, making chicken-soy franks taste more like beef, you can find a lot of literature on it. Wnt (talk) 12:59, 29 November 2018 (UTC)