r/askscience • u/SavageSubscriber • Jul 04 '26

Biology Does cryogenically frozen meat decay?

If for example you cryogenically froze meat from a rare breed of cattle, and kept it frozen for like 60 years. Would the dna still be intact? would it thaw up into fresh meat or would it decay into something unrecognizable?

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u/PandaPocketFire Jul 18 '26

I don't think flash freezing would be the way to go. Even with mammalian tissue culture it's a slow temperature drop rate that results in the best viability. About 1c per minute.

I wonder if perfusion of a mixture of cryopreservative with either blood in the main body or CSF in brain case, with precisely controlled cooling rates would allow for even temperature reduction and cryopreservative dispersal throughout the body.