Has the WT ever said it's okay to steak rare?

by neverendingjourney 35 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  neverendingjourney

  I'm revisiting an old topic here, but this was a subject of much confusion for me when I was still a Witness. I went to a Spanish congregation in the U.S. and it seemed to be taken for granted by most that you needed to cook beef thoroughly to "get rid" of the blood. I was surprised when I learned that folks in the English speaking hall would order a steak medium-rare and think nothing of it.

  It wasn't until after I left the Witnesses that it started to occur to me that if the red fluid that was present when you'd cut the beef was blood, cooking it thoroughly wouldn't get rid of it, it'd just cook it and transform it into another color. Plus, there was bound to be blood in the meat since the capillaries carry blood into the muscle tissue and it won't drain from the meat unless you use kosher methods.

  I bring this up because I was having dinner with my brother and his family recently (they're still Witnesses) and my brother was telling his wife and kids to make sure they ordered any beef well-done. I ordered my steak medium-rare. My brother didn't say anything, but I know he was bothered by it, much like I was bothered by it when I was a Witness. I was about to begin explaining why the red liquid was not blood and how if it was, cooking it wouldn't make a bit of difference, but I held back because he might interpret it as a bunch of apostate talk.

  So, are you aware of the WT ever specifically addressing this point? If so, I could bring it up and casually mention remembering a WT talking about it, but I'd rather not broach the subject with him if there isn't anything on point.

  Edit: I noticed I screwed up the title of the thread, but I can't seem to be able to edit it.
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  cappytan

  I don't remember Watchtower talking about it when it came to steaks, but I and my father have always cooked our steaks rare and ridiculed anyone who ruined a perfectly good steak by asking for it "well done."
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  oppostate

  I never liked a rare or medium rare after articles about ecoli and nastiness about meat.

  But I do remember one talk where a brother went into this saying that the juices from meat aren't really flowing blood as you would consider it in the veins and arteries and if you properly bled the meat you would still have juices left in the muscle tissue.

  I guess the consideration is that when an animal is killed for food and all reasonable measures are taken to bleed it properly then it's okay to eat eve if there's residual amounts of blood still left in the meat.
  
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  dazed but not confused

  I have never heard that before. I always remember hearing "as long as it is bled properly, then you can eat it."

  I just googled it and found this:

  By Dr. Mercola

  The red juice that often collects in a package of red meat is not blood, as many assume. Most of the blood is removed during processing and any that remains is usually contained within the muscle tissue.

  The red liquid, instead, is a mixture of water and a protein called myoglobin, whose purpose is to help ship oxygen to muscle cells. Myoglobin is deeply pigmented, which is why the more myoglobin a meat contains, the darker (or redder) the meat will be.

  From http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/10/25/myoglobin-red-meat.aspx
  
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  sparrowdown

  I had this very discussion with a confused JW woman a couple of years back when the blood fractions nu-lite was revealed. She was very upset as to why the GB would be allowing fractions.

  My question to her was

  ME: But you eat meat dont you?

  HER: Yes

  ME: Is all the blood removed from the steak before you eat it?

  HER: (slack jawed, sound of crickets, cogs turning behind the eyes) Oh yeah.

  End of discussion
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  LisaRose

  Really, bloody meat is OK, it's just "fractions".

  Just joking, but I was always told that that was not blood, but just fluid from the meat that was red from trace amounts of blood. There is no way to remove every bit of blood from meat and that was never the goal. In Jewish tradition, as long as the animal has been bled properly, it is ok to eat. It's the process of bleeding that makes it acceptable, not the presence or not of blood.
  

  In any case, If there is still blood in the meat, cooking wouldn't get rid of it anyway, it would only be water that cooks off, leaving any solid parts parts the blood.
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  freemindfade

  I order mine black and blue. Of course i have eaten blood on at least two occasions I know of.
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  Village Idiot

  I always thought it strange that for a religion that used to forbid a single drop of blood in transfusion they would be so lax in preparing their meat.
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  Half banana

  Perhaps to want to cook red meat until it’s no longer red, is an aspect of JW thinking to somehow show respect for the belief that Big J doesn’t want humans to eat any blood. Blood taboo is just one of those primitive things which keep primitive people cosily together in their closed primitive societies.

  .

  I wonder if French JWs eat Steak tartare that is minced and completely uncooked and served with a raw egg on top?
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  Splash

  It's not blood that needs to be bled, but 'life blood'.

  You can bleed an animal all you like but you'll never get rid of every red blood cell.

  Eating meat means you will eat some blood, but that's ok so long as the animal was bled first in a symbolic gesture to acknowledge that God is the life giver.