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fruits, but the melon is a very juicy fruit and many consumers of melon are apt to
spoon up the juice from their plates, thereby consuming a large proportion of the
preservative, It does not seem to have been realised, moreover, that the area of
the skin of a fruit is proportional to the square of the radius, whereas the weight,
or volume is more or less proportional to the cube of the radius, so that the larger
the fruit the less should be the quantity of preservative in parts per million
required to cover the area of the skin.
The Antioxidant, in Food Regulations, 1958
These regulations provide for the sale and importation of certain foods, which
contain propyl, octyl, and dodecyl gallates, butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated
hydroxytoluene within certain limits. Essentially these regulations permit the
addition of these compounds to anhydrous edible oils and fats, to vitamin oils and
concentrates, to butter for manufacturing purposes, and to essential oils and their
flavouring constituents Since ingredients are allowed to contain anti-oxidants
provision is made for the resultant foods to do so With our present knowledge it is
extremely difficult to determine the quantity of anti oxidants in oils and the
difficulty of doing so in prepared foods is much greater. There has been a considerable
amount of discussion as to whether legislation should or should not be
enacted before it is capable of being fully implemented, but if one were always to
adopt the practice that legal requirements must follow the development of scientific
knowledge to enable their ready enforcement, food laws would lag even further behind
than they do at the present time It is generally found that science manages to
catch up with legislation and public analysts owe much to the willing help received
from their colleagues in industrial laboratories for information on some of these
delicate matters.
Labelling of Food (Amendment) Regulations, 1958
This amendment revokes Article 8 (d) of the Labelling of Pood Order, so that
alcoholic cocktails need no longer contain 40 per cent. of Proof Spirit, but they will
need to be labelled with the quantity of spirit which is present.
Copper in Foods
The Ministers of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and of Health duly considered
the Report of the Pood Standards Committee and decided not to issue any fresh Regulation,
but recommended limits, which they hope will be adopted In general it has
been found that recommendations of this type are accepted for enforcement purposes and
are not disputed by trade interests.
Tea Examination
Greater vigilance is necessary regarding the purity of tea following the issue of
Circular FSH 16/58 informing Local Authorities that H. M. Customs and Excise have
discontinued sampling tea on importation for adulteration and unfitness, but it is not
anticipated that this will cause any inconvenience to normal sampling and analysis.
The Therapeutic Substances (Supply of Substances for Analysis) Regulations, 1958
These regulations came into force as the result of an oversight in the drafting
of the Therapeutic Substances Act, 1956, and enabled public analysts and others likely
to be responsible for testing products containing antibiotics, to obtain samples for
control and for test.
THOMAS McLACHLAN,
Public Analyst.