Eating Duck, Duck, GOOSE

I was on a roll posting things there and then suddenly poof! I swear I wasn’t just eating bon bons…well, I’m doing that now…but that is beside the point! Life happens, we move on.

Specifically, we move on to ducks.

DUCK

Some cutie wanted to know why it is safe and acceptable to eat duck medium-rare or rare, but not chicken. Why indeed! Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it. Apparently I do not eat enough ducks. Also, Googling this will get you a lot of cooking forums where folks suppose that ducks and geese are bacteria free.

Ducks and geese, like everything else, are exposed to bacteria in their daily lives and thus susceptible to bacterial contamination. The difference between them and chicken is actually in the muscle itself.

Although not as red as beef, duck and goose meat is considered “red”. As migratory birds, they possess fast-oxidative muscle fibers (which I described oh so long ago…). Like beef, these muscles are dense, so bacteria cannot penetrate deep into the tissue. As a result, as long as the outside of the duck or goose is cooked, the inside can safely remain pink. Of course, as the FDA always likes to remind us at the bottom of the menu, “any raw or undercooked meat or eggs carry a risk of food-bourne illness, &etc”. But The Risk is still greatly decreased.

Chicken on the other hand, is a considerably less dense white meat. Bacteria can penetrate deeper into their fast-glycolytic muscle tissue, so cooking chicken all the way through is necessary. If you don’t, that pink center will only get warm enough to incubate whatever could be living in there. And that would be gross.

Don’t be gross.

The End.

Sources

Armentrout, Jennifer. “Cooking Duck Breast: Is Medium-Rare Safe?” Fine Cooking. Feb 9, 2015. <http://www.finecooking.com/articles/cooking-duck-brest-medium-rare.aspx&gt;

Sherwood, Lauralee, Hillar Klandorf and Paul Yancey. 2005. Animal Physiology: From Genes to Organisms. Thomson Brookes/Cole, Belmont, CA.

–. 2015 “Meat and Poultry Temperature Guide.” Food Network. Feb 9. 2015 <http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/articles/meat-and-poultry-temperature-guide.html&gt;

Saucy Ribcage

Continuing on with answering questions posed before my “short” hiatus…

“Are there any living creatures that have solid rib-cages, and, if not, would this be an actual physical possibility?”

Besides being delicious smoked and dipped in sauce, ribs help provide structure to the torsos of many animals. That’s actually a function of the skeletal system in general, cause without a rigid framework, we’d all be literal meatbags. But besides providing keeping us meatbags upright, when expanded or compressed via muscle action, the ribcage assists in the inflation and deflation of the lungs. That expansion and compression of the thoracic cavity (with assistance of the diaphragm) expands and deflates the lungs by altering the pressure around them. I am referring of course to land animals, because fish in fact have a pretty dainty ribcage. Considering they respirate using gills, and strong swimming muscles throughout the body provide structure, they hardly need a ribcage at all. That’s great news for them, choking hazard for the rest of us.

Anyway! A solid ribcage would be physically unable to expand or compress, making it incredibly difficult to breathe. If you had a solid rib cage, it would probably have to be a lot bigger (to make room for fully inflated lungs), and your diaphragm would need to be stronger and would have to work harder in order to inflate and deflate the lungs on its own. If you want an idea of what it would be like, try holding your ribs still while breathing. It is not comfortable. A solid ribcage would not be comfortable. Go for a normal ribcage. Smoked and dipped in sauce.

These are the ribs you want.

Sources

Sherwood, Lauralee, Hillar Klandorf and Paul Yancey. 2005. Animal Physiology: From Genes to Organisms. Thomson Brookes/Cole, Belmont, CA.

Photo courtesy of Applebees.

Homos and Anas

Because I can only be SO relevant to current events, today I am addressing homo…ology. Homology literally means “similar structures”, but in biology we differentiate between “serial” homology and “structural” homology. Both of these are very distinct from analogy.

First! Serial homology, for which snakes are an excellent example. Think of their ribs, you only have…uh, a limited number, but snakes have a lot more. Like the reticulated python above. Beautiful girl, 14 years old and 18 feet long (old enough and yet way too big for middle school. Poor thing will never get to prom), can you imagine the ribs she has? The many, many vertebrae and ribs of this python serve the same purpose in the same species and look…THE SAME. This is serial homology; those rib-vertebrae structures are in a series in the python and display homology.

Now, structural homology may require a slightly different image. Firstly, look at your hand, now look at the wings of this pooping Rodriguez Fruit Bat.

The bones in a bat wing are like elongate versions of your fingers. Just with some skin stretched between so that they can fly. Here, the structures are homologous, even if the function is not.

Finally, we have analogues. In biology, analogous structures have a similar function, but very different structures. Look at your hand, now look at this chicken.

NOW BACK TO YOUR HAND. Here are the fingers in the hand you love. THE FINGERS HAVE BECOME A BAT WING. By comparison the chicken wing is formed largely from only a couple fingers in the “hand” template, unlike the bat wing which uses all fingers. I’m on a horse. Anything is possible when you have functional structures with great flexibility in regards to adaptive variation.

Tooth, No Nail

I freakin’ love my teeth, you guys. It’s genetic; my granddad was a navy dental hygienist in WW2. He saw some things, man. Terrible things…sailors who’d never even HEARD of a dentist before. Or at least it looked that way. Anyway, after the dental horrors of war, he went on to become a licensed dentist and that practiced for forty years. Fifty-plus if you count impromptu living room exams (“Honey, show Grandpa your new bite plate!” “Smile for Grandpa!” “Show Grandpa your nasty shark teeth!”). But it’s all paid off because I now have lovely pearly whites that can tackle the crunchiest of breads. And I do love my crunchy bread. Anyway, this is a rambling way of saying today’s post is inspired/brought to you by my granddad. Cause my granddad is awesome. And he’s reading this. Hi Granddad!

So, teeth! Humans and many mammals only get two sets: baby teeth and permanent, adult teeth. Reptiles, some mammals and fish display continuous tooth replacement (sharks have a conveyor belt of death in their mouths). Still others, like rodents, just have one set of continuously growing teeth. But wait! There’s more. Regardless of tooth replacement, animals may possess acrodont, thecodont or pleurodont teeth. Acrodonts include certain lizards as well as crocodilians, they possess teeth fused to the top of the jaw. Conical “caps” are shed as the teeth renew. We and many other mammals are thecodonts; our teeth have roots and sit snug in sockets in our jaws. Finally there are pleurodonts (iguanas and monitor lizards) who, strangely enough, have teeth fused to the inner side of their jaws. Braces would be hella awkward.

That’s all I have for now! For any more tooth-related queries, well…uh, let me know! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a small swarm of dogs to tend to.

 

Source

–. 2013. “Tooth Implantation”. Palaeos. 5 Feb 2013 < http://palaeos.com/vertebrates/bones/teeth/tooth_implantation.html&gt;