The Hastings Standard Published Daily SATURDAY, NOV. 20, 1897. CANNED FOOD.

Hastings Standard, Issue 481, 20 November 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily

SATURDAY, NOV. 20, 1897. CANNED FOOD .

For the cause that lacks assistance,' For the wrongs that need resistance For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Tinned goods enter very largely into the dietary of the people of New Zealand. A large section of the community compelled to work some distance from the centres find it convenient on many grounds to live upon canned food, and the variety of edibles that is now tinned is remarkable. But bush workers are not the only people who live upon canned food ; in the largest of our towns and cities a goodly proportion of the food consumed is of the canned food type, and come from all corners of the globe. We in New Zealand supply the food of hundreds of human beings with our canned meats and similar preserved foods. It has been a matter of constant occurrence that people who have partaken of canned food have suffered from the effects of poisoning and in some instance the results have been fatal. In New Zealand there have been scores of cases recorded of poisoning of this nature and they have not in any way lessened the consumption of tinned meat. The fact is that however much we may be desirous of avoiding the potted food, we cannot indulge ourselves so, because this is the canned food age. The convenience of canned food overrides our fears of poisoning and other dangers. This subject of canned foods formed the subject of an interesting paper which was read on a recent occasion at a gathering of medical officers of health at Leeds. According to the author in Great Britain alone 581,0001b of canned foods are consumed daily. Tinned salmon is so popular that 2,000,000 people eat it every day, and one private firm in Liverpool has a turnover of more than 20,000,000 cans per year. In the cases of poisoning which have so often occurred, the poison it seems, was probably due to one of the ptomanes which are of bacterial origin and may have been produced (I) before the meat was canned ; (2) after canning ; (8) alter being ogeoed. After

opened, under a certain condition of the atmosphere these foods are rapidly acted upon by bacteria, which form toxines, and these are frequently more dangerous than the mineral poisons. This was particularly so in regard to fish, salmon being the worst. The reader of the paper recommended that all the canning stations of the trade should be controlled by sanitary laws ; that the plating of the canned foods shall be of pure tin, unless a satisfacfactory substitute can be found. His recommendations to consummers are useful. He says avoid cheap brands, as there is 50 "per cent, difference between the best and cheapest, and keep the cans in a cool place. When opened the contents of the tin should be emptied at once in a jar or glass vessel, and be consumed in one or two days. It is dangerous to keep canned fruit, and as some consolation this authority asserts that pineapples are the safest to buy.