The meatpacking industry employees and their families are on my mind as the closure of the Lexington, Nebraska, Tyson plant nears its closure date in January. More than 3,200 employees will lose their jobs, realistically affecting half of the 11,000 people in Lexington.

Meat packing has never been an easy way to make a living. And today, it’s far from what readers were presented in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 “The Jungle.” The industry was characterized in Sinclair’s book as brutal and wrought with worker exploitation, which may very well have been the case in that era. Notably, it was an attempt by Sinclair to encourage socialism, and it certainly wasn’t the last attempt to weaponize industry.

Today, it is incredibly efficient, and the food safety standards are the highest in the world. A time in which a shortage of safe, affordable, high-quality beef has been replaced with the opposite problem — food waste.

Dr. Mahesh Nair and I became fast friends walking to lunch at Colorado State University because he and I are both willing to die on the same mountain. It’s Hamburger Hill.

Like a bad penny back when those were still minted, misguided beef sellers circulate a tired social media post comparing their direct-to-consumer beef to that available in the grocery store. With the post is a photo comparing two pounds of ground beef, one darker than the other. The incorrect accompanying claim is the darker red color is the result of lower quality beef. Dr. Nair has dedicated his career to studying color change in beef and said the difference boils down to a single protein: myoglobin.

Myoglobin controls the color of protein. The red liquid often in the bottom of a package of meat that is often mistaken for blood is water and myoglobin.  Know your ‘globins and sound like the smartest guy at the meat case or grill.

There is much less myoglobin in chicken, for example, than beef, and it is what gives beef the bright red color consumers seek. The reason there is a color difference between vacuum-packed ground beef available from small to mid-sized processors and the meat available in grocery stores typically covered with polyvinyl fluoride film is that myoglobin binds to oxygen and there is less oxygen available in vacuum-sealed packages.

Different proteins and different cuts are packaged in different types of retail packaging with appearance of the meat in mind. Ground turkey, for example, is typically sold in tray-sealed packages because that packaging allows for the atmosphere inside the package to be modified by removing the atmospheric oxygen and replacing it with another gas to ensure freshness and prevent bacterial growth.

I tell you all of that, so I can tell you this. The equivalent of 700,000 head of fat cattle in the form of packaged beef is tossed in the dumpster annually due to color change. That is the equivalent of $3.7 billion. The resources used to produce, process, transport, distribute, and dispose of that volume is immense and that’s a big problem.

That’s where Dr. Nair, the self-proclaimed meat color nerd and professor in the department of animal sciences at CSU, comes in. His studies — and many others — indicate that vacuum packaging is ideal in change of slowing color change. The problem is pesky deoxymyoglobin and that the meat doesn’t appear bright red. To reduce this specific type of food waste, consumer preferences would have to change and that is a steep hill for the spriteliest stepper. Consumers purchase with their eyes.

Nair said much of his work focuses on that one protein that drives meat color and, in turn, consumer choice. There have been meat case shopper interviews to gauge consumer’s beliefs and preferences to understand that side of the equation and many studies on meat itself. Packaging is key to the entire conversation, just as it long has been. Remember the discussion surrounding antibiotic free chicken? Many consumers prefer hormone-free chicken. If you read below that statement, you’ll see another statement declaring that per federal regulations, all chicken must be raised without hormones. Paying a premium for chicken raised without hormones is akin to paying more for gluten-free oranges.

Nair expects that price could drive consumers toward vacuum-packed beef if they understand what is to be gained in terms of reducing food waste due to color change but there are a tremendous number of moving parts involved. The key moving part, of course, is the consumer who chooses a package of steaks primarily based on color and appearance. Know your ‘globins, kids.

Rachel Gabel writes about agriculture and rural issues. She is assistant editor of The Fence Post Magazine, the region’s preeminent agriculture publication.