No Coins In The Pudding

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31540, 30 November 1967, Page 1

No Coins In The Pudding

Hard as It seems io the traditionalists, there should be no coins included in this year’s Christmas puddings. This is not merely because of the housewife’s refusal to replace the threepenny piece with something of greater value—popular as this might be—but because the high copper content of decimal coins means these coins should not be used.

A spokesman for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research said yesterday that the cupronickel coins of 5c and upwards consisted of 75 per cent copper and 25 per cent nickel. The smaller bronze-coloured coins were 97 per cent copper, 2i per cent zinc and i per cent tin, he said. Asked vhat would happen if they were cooked inside a Christmas pudding, the chemist said that some of the copper would go into solution and would be dis- • tributed ■throughout the pudding in small quantities.

Copper salts had emetic properties, and they might make some people sick. Not everyone would be affected, but for the sake of the 5 per cent who could be, he would advise against using the coins.

This warning was supported by the Medical Officer of Health in Christchurch (Dr L. F. Jepson), who said the copper could dissolve with cooking, and this could bring on nausea and might cause vomiting. While it was unlikely there would be sufficient copper from the coins in a Christmas pudding to cause death, he advised against putting in decimal “silver” pieces, said Dr Jepson.