Carelessness In Handling Food

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 92, 6 September 1950, Page 4

Carelessness In Handling Food

Carelessness in handling food appears to be increasing, according to the annual report of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research tabled in the House of Representatives. The director of the Dominion Laboratory, Mr F. J. T. Grigg, stated that dirt and foreign substances had been found in bread, flour, sugar, sausages and other food. “Some of the materials detected in foods were dangerous, while others were merely disgusting,” Mr Grigg stated. “All these instances were evidence of a lack of care.” Mr Grigg stated that milk supplies in the Wellington province were found to be reasonably satisfactory. Of 4500 samples, 50 contained added water, 30 yrere deficient in fat, 13 were insufficiently pasteurised and a small number were stale.

These figures did not give a true picture, as supplies found to be at fault were usually sampled repeatedly and the figures, therefore, included rather an undue number of faulty samples. A variety of foods were artificially coloured without the fact being declared and a survey of butchers’ shops made by the Health Department disclosed a number of meat pickling preparations containing dangerous substances that were not fully labelled.