KEEPING MEAT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 237, 6 October 1936, Page 8

KEEPING MEAT.

HOUSEWIFE'S PLAINT. USE OF PRESERVATIVE. A FORBIDDEN PRACTICE. An Auckland housewife has written to the "Star" to complain of the practice carried out by most butchers of dusting fresh meat with preservative powder to bring out the colour and allow it to be kept when the demand is not great. With all the modern systems of refrigeration it should not be necessary, she contends, for butchers to sell meat treated with preservative powder. "Very often the rank flavour can be detected on the edges of a joint | and if preservative is used to retard decomposition in meat its continual use must have some effect 011 the human system. I think there should be a law regarding meat which butchers sell to their customers as fresh." Actually the regulations of the Health Department do not allow the use of any kind of preservative 011 fresh meat. A certain percentage is allowed in the manufacture of potted meats and goods of that kind, and sausages may be treated, and butchers breaking these regulations are liable to punishment. The manager of a well-known firm of butchers stated this morning that the temptation to use preservative was during the .hot weather, when a mild dusting would stop the blood from running and would keep the meat fresh until the next day. In the case of smail shops where the turnover was not great this was useful, but the practice was dangerous and he did not think it was much used. All the big firms had orders from their head offices not to use preservatives of any kind..

The suggestion that people had seen butchers using pepper and drawn their own conclusions was made by the same informant. The preservative was very costly, and if it were used butchers had to be sparing. Another point raised was that butchers kept a special glove with a steel palm, in order that the preservative would not hurt their hands, but this, he said, was for no such purpose, being used to drive skewers through the joints. The Health Department officers state that breaches of their regulations reported will be investigated by inspectors, and offenders will be jnmished. Large firms consider that their efficient refrigeration systems do away with the necessity for using preservative powder, and in any case a prosecution would be damaging to their reputations.