Sous Vide Meat Discoloration

I am seeing frequent greenish discoloration on the surface of both beef and pork after sous vide cooking. Is this normal? What is the cause?

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Brandon_Byrd_40557

Nobody knows. At least, that's the impression I got from Dave Arnold's discussion of it on Cooking Issues a while back. But experience shows that pre-searing the meat helps to control greening. We do know that this color is not caused by harmful pathogens, so greened meat is perfectly safe to consume (assuming that it doesn't smell like death). It's merely a cosmetic issue and it goes away during the post-sear.

HammeredChef_DEFINITELY_does_NOT_work_at_22134

A previous discussion here http://www.chefsteps.com/forum/posts/sous-vide-troubleshooting

Isaac_Moreira_4911

We can see it very clearly on this recipe:http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tough-cuts-transformed

At first i was intrigued but, since it's safe, no worries... It makes me think if it has something to do with the plastic bag. Eggs yolks turn green wen exposed to certain amounts of heat and just in the outside layer of the yolk because of the high sulfur concentration on that layer. I wonder if the long period of cooking is responsible for the formation of hydrogen sulfide due to the reaction from the sulphur that is present on the meat and the hydrogen that permeates the bag, since it's a really small molecule...