frozen meat will keep for millennia, as has
been demonstrated by the discovery of
mammoth flesh frozen 15,000 years ago in the
ice of northern Siberia. It’s best to keep meat
as cold as possible. The usual
recommendation for home freezers is 0ºF/–
18ºC (many operate at 10–15ºF/–12 to –9ºC).
Freezing will preserve meat indefinitely from
biological decay. However, it’s a drastic
physical treatment that inevitably causes
damage to the muscle tissue, and therefore
diminishes meat quality in several ways.
Cell Damage and Fluid Loss As raw meat
freezes, the growing crystals protrude into the
soft cell membranes and puncture them. When
the meat is thawed, the ice crystals melt and
unplug the holes they’ve made in the muscle
cells, and the tissue as a whole readily leaks a
fluid rich in salts, vitamins, proteins, and
pigments. Then when the meat is cooked, it
loses more fluid than usual (p. 150), and more