> "Searing the meat seals in the juices" -- every chef on every cooking show.

This was debunked a long time ago. You do want to sear the meat, but only to give it a nice and tasty brown crust due to Maillard reactions. Searing does not seal in any juices.

I can recommend the book Cooking for Geeks, it has some nice scientific explanations about this and some other stuff too.