Myth…! Flipping your meat doesn’t only give you professional bbq grill lines but it also makes sure that your meat cooks through evenly. I don’t know about you but raw meat just isn’t my style. So flip that meat and you’ll bite through grill lines to a succulent, fully cooked, prime cut of bbq. Oh yeah!

Let’s get a little scientific with this

We’ll call it food science for obvious reasons. Fun fact time: meat contains hundreds of small cells, each filled with its own moisture and juices. So if you poke your meat with a fork while chilling and grilling you may pop one or two cells, but it won’t let all of the juices out of the entire cut of meat.

Unless this is a horror movie and your meat is the victim of repeated stab wounds then you will lose major juices but for the sake of delicious bbq let’s not stab the meat like a slasher flick victim.

Similarly, flipping doesn’t puncture any of the cells. As long as you don’t flip it and smack it hard, then you won’t lose many juices at all. Be gentle…it’s already dead!

The problem with flipping your meat on the grill lies when cooks use their spatulas and other tools to squish the meat after it has been flipped, often trying to squeeze out the grease. By flattening the cells in the meat, much of the moisture and juices are pushed out, leaving the meat dry.

So flip those burgers and poke that steak but don’t smack it or squish it! Say it with me: flip and poke, don’t smack and squish. Until next time, put some meat on that grill!