Beef tea was all the rage in the 1800s

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Food and medicine have always been deeply intertwined. In tracing the origins of a food product, it can be hard to separate its supposed health benefits from all the other reasons we choose to eat something.

Take meat extract, for example. As far back as the 18th century, people were cooking with dried bouillon powder and cubes made from meat stock that we would find pretty recognizable today. Dehydrating and salting a meat broth proved an effective way of lengthening its shelf life, especially for soldiers or sailors who needed to carry light, long-lasting rations. 

But by the middle of the 19th century, doctors were prescribing concentrated extracts with names like “beef tea” for every imaginable ailment: from stomach problems and fever to depression and dementia. Medical records from the time show that liquid beef was a major component of hospital diets. At the London Hospital in 1851, adult patients were fed 12 ounces of bread, two pints of milk, and one pint of beef tea (made from eight ounces of beef) per day. 

As Canadian museum curator Melissa Cole wrote in 2017,  “If you open a book about 19th century dietary remedies, it would be hard to find one that does not mention beef tea.”

As chicken farming did not become industrialized until the late 20th century, long after cattle farming, early medicinal meat broths were typically beef-based. However, we can see an echo of the practice in the modern association of chicken soup with recovery from illness.

The medical fad for meat extracts, though widespread, was fairly short-lived. By the 20th century, meat extracts were seen less and less as medicine, largely ending up back in the kitchen pantry where they came from. So how did this obsession with drinking meat for health emerge in the first place? 

The German scientist behind meat extracts 

Considered one of the founders of organic chemistry, German scientist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) made extensive studies of nutrition and metabolism. One of Liebig’s most influential ideas was that the liquid in meat and other foods, not just the solids, carries the most important nutrients. It was Liebig who first suggested searing meat before cooking to prevent its juices from leaking out. (This belief remains widespread, despite evidence that it isn’t really true.)

Liebig was a major contributor to what was then called the “rational” approach to diet, where people sought to apply the principles of modern science to cooking. Combined with prevailing beliefs in the general healthfulness of meat, and an increasing urban population who could not afford it, 19th-century nutritionists identified a major social problem: Not enough people were eating enough meat.

In 1847, Liebig proposed a solution. Inspired by earlier culinary bouillon, he developed a procedure for boiling down beef into a concentrated paste or solid. In theory, those who could not afford fresh meat could reconstitute this extract into a nutritious broth. 

Today, we know that Liebig’s method doesn’t actually preserve much of the original nutrients in the beef, although it’s full of flavor thanks to compounds like MSG. But for Liebig, the main flaw in his plan was that the ratio of meat to extract was about thirty to one by weight, making it far more expensive to produce than fresh beef. 

Years later, engineer George Christian Giebert approached Liebig with the suggestion of industrializing production in South America, where beef was cheap as a byproduct of the leather industry. The two men went into business together, creating Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company (LEMCO) in 1865. 

LEMCO’s products, such as their UK-based Oxo line of beef extract cubes, became widely popular and soon spawned imitators. Liebig’s research laid the groundwork for other beef extracts such as Bovril and Valentine’s Meat Juice, as well as extracts derived from chicken or even yeast, such as Marmite and Vegemite.

Meat tea for the sick

While Liebig and others were figuring out how to mass-market beef extract, home recipes for “beef tea” proliferated. Based on the concept of liquid nutrients as essential, the intention was not to replace meat for those who could not afford it, but to provide nutrients for the sick, especially patients with delicate stomachs. Some medical texts even promoted beef tea enemas, such as an 1867 treatment plan for delirium tremens (alcohol withdrawal).

Even in the 19th century, there was debate about the actual health benefits of meat juice. Some disagreed with Liebig’s assertion that the solids in meat were less nutritionally important than the juices. 

“Almost the whole of this enormous mass of nutritious matter,” one British doctor wrote scornfully in 1879, “was simply wasted” in producing beef tea. However, he did praise an enterprising London saleswoman for making meat pies from the dregs.

How beef tea was made

Isn’t beef tea the same thing as beef broth? Well, not exactly. 

While beef broth was (and still is) made by simmering meat in water for long periods, many recipes for beef tea called for pressure-cooking meat in jars. This technique was an early form of the method we now call sous vide (French for “under the vacuum”), often done using a submerged plastic bag today.

Chefs would heat sealed jars full of raw meat in a pot of boiling water. This created a pressurized vacuum seal, preventing water from escaping as the meat cooked and broke down inside. The resulting liquid would have a richer, more intense flavor than regular beef broth, as well as, it was believed, more nutrients. 

Modern research suggests that pressure-cooking really does preserve more nutrients than many other cooking methods, especially boiling. While it isn’t the cure-all that it was once promoted as, beef tea may have benefited some patients. The concoction could provide a boost of iron for people suffering from iron-deficiency anemia or recovering from major blood loss, such as after surgery.

Fresh-squeezed beef

Another related remedy was the liquid squeezed from half-cooked meat. This could be prepared using a metal “meat juice press” designed for the purpose. Some recipes for beef tea even combined pressure-cooking and pressing to get as much juice out as possible. 

In a recipe recorded by London’s Royal College of Physicians, beef is pressure-cooked in jars, then squeezed in a press, and the liquid from the press is mixed with the liquid from the jars.

In 2019, food YouTuber EmmyMade prepared both beef tea and fresh-squeezed beef juice according to 19th-century recipes. Emmy noted that the press produced a smaller amount of bloodier-looking liquid than the jar method. She found both tasty (although they needed salt), describing the flavor as “very, very heme-y.” Heme is the part of the hemoglobin compound found in blood that contains iron. In other words, beef juice has some of the same metallic tang as organ meats like liver (and blood, of course).

The end of meat juice

With the establishment of national standards for the production of medicines and commercial medicines supplanting home remedies, beef tea started to decline. However, companies that produced extracts for health realized that their products were still being appreciated for their flavor and convenience. By the early 20th century, many of them had shifted fully into the culinary market.

Valentine’s Meat Juice, once a widely popular medicinal remedy, rebranded as a cooking ingredient in 1906 and managed to stay in business until 1986. LEMCO’s Oxo brand is still going strong, though it’s primarily associated with cooking today. Similarly, the dehydration technology used in producing modern chicken bouillon was developed for soldiers and refined for NASA astronauts before landing in our supermarkets and kitchens. 

People initially invented meat extracts to add concentrated flavor to their food and preserve it for longer. For a time, doctors and scientists touted its health benefits, but flavor seems to have won out in the end. Maybe it’s just too delicious to resist.

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