MILK AS FOOD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 125, 23 November 1944, Page 6

MILK AS FOOD

PLUNKET SOCIETY'S VIEWS

The importance of milk as a food was stressed at the Plunket Society's annual conference which has just concluded in Wellington. Attention was also drawn to the many ways in which milk can become contaminated in every .stage of its journey from the producer to the consumer, and it was decided to urge universal insistence on adequate safeguards to preserve its purity. The first fact to be recognised by the public, it was stated, was that good pure milk could come only from the farm, and no treatment could make bad "milk good. For this reason the society was firmly convinced of the importance of an adequate supply of milk from tuberculin-tested cows. The society endorsed the ideal of the Milk Commission of an adequate supply of good milk meeting the requirements outlined in. the Commission's report. Until 100 per cent, satisfactory pasteurisation could be attained, the society decided to continue to urge mothers to take Truby King measures to prevent infection from, milk. It was stressed that some of the so-called pasteurised milk did not comply with the regulations governing the sale of pasteurised milk. Sometimes milk was stale before it was pasteurised; sometimes dirty bottles were used; and sometimes pasteurised milk was sold loose, and was. contaminated on the round. For these reasons the. Plunket Society again put forward the plea that no milk should be sold as pasteurised milk unless it conformed with the regulations governing the sale of milk in the Food and Drtigs Act. It was contended that the milk supply should be made the responsibility of some competent local authority, and. it was the duty of all branches of the society to see that such public authorities were competent, and that their care of liquid milk was as sound and satisfactory as possible.