Use Of Sodium Nitrite In Pickling Of Meat

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31763, 21 August 1968, Page 18

Use Of Sodium Nitrite In Pickling Of Meat

Sodium nitrite was used in the butchery trade in the preparation of brines for the pickling or corning of meats and this was permitted by the food and drugs legislation, said the supervising inspector of health in the Christchurch district (Mr J. B. Snoad), commenting on a letter to the editor of “The Press” from “Housewife.”

He added that the public need have no fear that corned meats would contain a dangerous amount of nitrite, because if the quantity included in the brine was increased even by the small amount needed to produce four grains a pound in the corned meat, the meat would be discoloured to a most unpleasant green and would be unsaleable. In addition, when the corned meat was cooked most of the sodium nitrite would be destroyed in the cooking, said Mr Snoad.

A housewife wrote: “I was alarmed to hear about this missing poison being used to colour corned beef. It does not seem right to me. What does the Health Department do about such a thing? Surely this should be investigated, and stopped in the interests of public health. 1 for one will not buy this beef any more.”

“The main hazard in the use of nitrite in butcheries is not its use as directed on the label for preparing: brines for pickling meat but when it is accidentally mistaken for sugar and a teaspoonful is put into a cup of tea,” said Mr Snoad. “It is to prevent this sort of thing happening that the law requires nitrite to be coloured with a harmless colouring substance and, if it is to be kept at the butcher’s business premises, to be mixed with 85 per cent common salt and contain no more than 10 per cent nitrite. There are some brands of pickling preparations sold which contain 95 per cent nitrite and these even though required to be coloured are prohibited from being kept in the butchery at all—not even if kept in a locked cupboard," said Mr Snoad. “Sodium nitrite is sold, coloured with a harmless colouring substance to distinguish it from, say, salt or sugar, in varying strengths and under differing trade names and is used in the butchering trade in the preparation of brines for the pickling or corning of meat. This is permitted by the food and drugs legislation which sets an upper limit for sodium nitrite in corned meats of 1) grains per lb."