PRESERVATIVES IN FOOD

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 127, 26 November 1923, Page 6

PRESERVATIVES IN FOOD

It is not at all improbable that there^ is " considerable apprehension "—to quote a cable dispatch from London, published to-day— among butter importers in Great Britain that boric acid in butter may be prohibited. It is further stated that the abolition of the use of this preservative, if insisted upon by the British Health authorities, would deal " a tremendous blow to the New Zealand and Australian butter industry." The attention of the public has been specifically directed to the increasing use of preservatives in food by recent discussions on the subject by such eminent authorities as Sir Frederick Treves and Dr. Monckton Copeman. The latter, dealing specially with the alarming increase in cases of cancer and experiments made in diet in relation to this disease, brought forth a comment by Sir Frederick Treves, who said:. "I would venture to point out, in connection with the question of cancer and diet, that the increase in cancer in recent years has been exactly coincident with the introduction of preserved food (cold storage supplies, tinned foods, concentrated foods, extracts, foods treated with preservatives). The coincidence may be accidental, but it is assuredly the most conspicuous feature in relation to the present subject." The British Government has been particularly active in this matter of late, for it has realised that it is not so much the actual preservative percentage in a given article that matters, but the cumulative effects of preservatives in the daily food.

In butter, in which New Zealand is particularly interested, shipments containing not more than 0.5 per cent, of boric acid are admitted by Great Britain. It is for expertsto say whether the quality, and-therefore the- market value, of our butter would, suffer if butter from this country were sent to the British market" without preservatives. It has to be pointed out, however, that the now very imp"ortant exporftrade in butter with the United States has been built up on the basis of no preservative. The United States laws will not permit the entry of butter with any preservative. That market condition has been, and is being, met. It may be possible for butter without preservative to be exported to Great Britain without any serious effects on that important trade. What the British Government has to face is not so much a matter-'of 0.5 per cent, of boric acid in New Zealand butter, but preservatives in butter, milk, liquid eggs, sausages, temperance drinks, margarine, chilled beef treated with formaldehyde, chemically bleached flour, rice faced with French chalk, and other and numerous additions of foreign, possibly injurious, substances to articles of food and drink, small in themselves, but probably inimical to health in their cumulative effects. The British Government has the right to take what measures it deems proper in the interests of public health without reference to New Zealand or Australian buttermakers. So far as this country is concerned, it would seem that the proper thing to do is to ascertain the practicability of delivering butter to the British market, as is being done with regard to the exports of that article to the United States—viz., without the addition of preservatives other than salt.