FROZEN MEAT IN ENGLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5667, 11 September 1896, Page 6 (Supplement)

FROZEN MEAT IN ENGLAND.

By the way of set-off to the adverse report recently made by Mr Henry Gray to the New Zealand Department of Agriculture regarding faulty shipments of frozen mutton sent from this country to England, very valuable testimony to the general excellence of frozen meat has just been rendered by the Hospital! That journal conducted a series of experiments with a view to ascertaining the relative economic and nutritive qualities of Home-killed and frozen mutton for hospital use, and the results have been most satisfactory from a colonial point of view. It had, for example, been asserted that frozen meat was wasteful, as it lost more in the process of cooking. To test this, two legs of mutton were carefully weighed, cooked, carved and afterwards tested for yield of gravy, bone and waste with the following result . — New Zealand English. (Canterbury). lboz. lboz. Weight when delivered ... 8 6 ... 7 U Weight when, taken, from oven ... 5 15 ... 5 13 Weight of slices suitable for hospital diet ... 3 4 ... 3 0 Weight of bone and waste after carving 2 5 ... 2 5 Weight of pure bone ... 011 ... 0 11% Weight of dripping (cold) 012 ... 015 Tablespoonfuls. Gravy in dish after carving 8J ... S\ Gravy under dripping ... 2$ ... 4 Total quantity of gravy 10} ... 9$ Thus, contrary to expectation, it was found that the English meat lost more in proportion during baking, viz., 21bs 7oz against 21b loz; and "it is clear even from one experiment tfiafc the assertion that foreign (i.e. frozen) meat is essentially and invariably more wasteful than English cannot be supported." As regards the necessity for hospital meat being "easy of digestion and rich as possible in food value," recourse was had to artificial digestion experiments, conducted under the direction of Dr Eideal, D.Sc. Lond., P.1.C., three kinds of mutton being treated, viz., Scotch, New Zealand (Canterbury cross-bred), and Australian (merino). Here, again, the result was very gratifying, for it showed that the amount of digestion was very nearly the same for each kind of meat, and the report remarks that as frozen meat is very generally used for hospital patients' diet, " it is reassuring to find that the freezing process does not, to any extent, render it less easy of assimilation or constitute a drawback to its use for persons of feeble digestive powers." This 'testimony from a high and absolutely unbiassed authority ought to do much to remove the prejudice that still prevails in England against the general use of frozen mutton. The Hospital deserves the thanks of the colonies for the service it has rendered by its exhaustive inquiry and experiments.