Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the use of preservatives and colouring matters in the preservation and colouring of food : together with minutes of evidence, appendices and index.
- Great Britain. Committee on Food Preservatives.
- Date:
- 1901
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the use of preservatives and colouring matters in the preservation and colouring of food : together with minutes of evidence, appendices and index. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![~ we can, and we have had instructors from Denmark that have come through Mr. Horace Plunkett’s Association. He sent instructors round. 117. Are you aware whether they use these preserva- tives in Denmark?—I suppose so—I am sure they do. 118. You think they do?—I know their butter would never stand—it would never come into the market. Butter will go bad in hot weather in two days ; you cannot keep the aroma; the aroma of it is a most volatile thing, and it evaporates. 119. You do not know that it is a penal offence in Den- mark to use preservatives with butter?—It might be, but I am afraid they wink at it. 120. (Dr. Bulstrode.) Did this instructor who was sent over from Denmark teach you to use boracic acid? —No, they do not go into that, but I think the instructors that come down from Glasnevin do it ; in fact, you must use it with saltless butter—it would not last; it would be rotten in a week in the hot weather. 121. (Dr. Tunnicliffe.) Tt would not matter how the butter was prepared ?—No; look at milk itself. If you cannot keep it in a cool place how quickly it goes sour. Butter will go equally sour. 122. (Professor Thorpe.) May I ask how you have gained your information as to the effect of boracic acid? —Mr. Gibson wrote to me ; he is our sale master for the Creameries Associations in the south of Ireland. He said that he found it was impossible to dispose of the butter recommended me this preservative then. He is our agent at Limerick ; he sells for nearly all the creameries in the south of Ireland. 123. (Chairman.) How many cows supplied your creamery ?—About a thousand; I turned out nearly a ton of butter a week. 124. (Dr. Bulstrode.) Do you think that boracic acid is ever added to the milk which goes to your creamery before it reaches the creamery ?—It would not be worth their while. It comes hot from the cow ; we separate it morning and evening, you know. 125. Do you take all they can give you?—Yes; the farthest distance anyone in the country would come is three miles. That is why I amalgamated it with the other ereameries, because we were rather too close together. What was laid down is that the range is three miles, and that the creamery is in the centre, and then there are other ranges of three miles, and so the farmers send theiz milk straight. Very often a great number milk the cows in the field, and they do not house them. 126. (Chairman.) I believe you appear on behalf of the London Chamber of Commerce /—Yes. 127. You have been acquainted yourself with the pro- vision trade for a number of years, I understand ?—About thirty-five. 128. Can you speak to the change which has taken place in the use of preservatives during that time?—For the past twenty years we have adopted a slight sprinkling of borax on all products shipped from Canada. The preparation or the preservative is not used in any way in the cure, but when the product is cured a slight sprinkle of borax is put over the surface. That is shipped to this country, and when here the product is taken out of the boxes, washed out, scrubbed back and front—that is, the skin side and the flesh side ; it is then drained for about twelve hours, and then it goes through the process of smoking ; so that whatever is put on the surface of the product is washed off and scrubbed off, and then it comes out practically free from any borax whatever. 129. Is it dry borax that is put on?—Yes, a slight sprinkle of it ; about four ounces to a side of 56lbs. It ig not used in any way in the cure or in the process. We have been doing that for something like twenty years. 130. Do you think any appreciable quantity of that gets into ‘he meat?—No. As I tell you, directly it comes to this country it is taken out of the boxes and put into tanks, sometimes of iukewarm water, and sometimes of cold water, and after being scrubbed it is thoroughly drained and smoked under a fire composed of fir dust and oak wood, and dried out. Irepresent the largest curing ‘house in the British Empire, and that is our system adopted with the Canadians during the past 20 years. Prior to that, of course, the trade was infinitesimal com- pared with what it is now. I have here a certified return from the High Commissioner’s Office, showing the great increase in the trade during the past ten years. It began in 1889, when it represented something like 3500 000 dollars, and in 1898 it stands at 8,000,000 dollars. That is the value of the product shipped to this country, and that shows the increase in ten years. 131. Do you deal with home bacon at all?—-Only in a very small degree. 132. Why is it small?—It is not popular. Where we should sell 100 sides of English bacon we should sell, perhaps, 3,000 or 4,009 sides of Canadian bacon. 133. Is the preservative applied in the same way to the English bacon ?—I do not think so; I am not aware that it is so, but I have heard it is so at times. 134. But you have seen the English and Irish products come in ?’—Yes. 135. Have you noticed the borax in the same way upon them ?—No. 136. You have not ?—No. 137. Then do they use more salt and saltpetre in cur- 3017. ing them ?—It is firmer in the cure, harsher in the cure to what the Canadian is. 138. Have you come to any opinion about the effect of the use of borax or boracic acid—I do not think you draw any distinction between the two?—No. We simply use borax, and we think it is a most useful commodity. We have proved it over and over again. I myself have been eating it for the past 20 years. 139. You look all right I am glad to say ?—Thank you. 140. Of course if it does not get into the meat, and most of it stays outside, you.think that practically the con- sumer takes very little of it?—Only in the very slightest degree does he take it. I may say, speaking after trials, that out of the four ounces sprinkled upon a side, some- thing like 80 per cent. in my opinion, is lost, having been washed away in the water. 141. (Professor Thorpe.) Then that would mean that one ounce was left in?—Probably that. 142. One ounce of borax was left in ?—Yes, in 56]bs. I do not give you chapter and verse for that, but that is what I think. Of course, in summer time your view may be right, but in the winter time there is absolutely none, I think, left in; I think it is all washed off then, because the pores are dried up, and it is almost impossible for the bacon to absorb anything at all. é Capt. T. W. Sandes. 14 Noy. 1899. Mr. J. W. Bennett. and borax ; is it actual borax you are using ?—We sprinkle the powder of borax only. 144. Not boracic acid ?—No, we never touch that. 145° (Dr. Bulstrode.) How do you account for this mild character in the hams with the treatment to which the hams are subjected with boracic acid?—I do not quite understand your question. 146. I think your position is that since the hams have been treated in the way you told us with borax they are less salty than they used to be ?—Yes, and the increase in the trade is enormous. T have given you something like the figures. 5 147. How do you account for that; how do you explain that this borax put uvon the surface of the ham should modify it to the extent which apparently it docs ?~There is a certain period of cure when the bacon has arrived at a_ state of perfection; if it were allowed to remain without borax the process of cure would go on, and the bacon would become salter and salter, until it would be absolutely useless on the English market. The process of cure is absolutely stopped by the application of this slight sprinkle of borax. It is preserved in the state in which it is cured on the other side; the process of cure is arrested, that is, the salt cure is arrested by the application of this borax. 148. And you de not think any appreciable amount of this borax is absorted into the ham ?—I am certain there is not. It would be a matter of taste; you would taste it at once in the product.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3217228x_0047.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
