View report page

39
all the constituents of such wheat (including the germ); it shall contain not more than
fourteen parts per centum of moisture. Mixtures of flour and bran shall not be sold as
whole-meal flour. Flour shall not be artificially bleached nor shall it be sprayed at any
stage of its production.
Various problems which in England are only in the state of expressions of opinion in
reports by officials of the Local Government Board are boldly and clearly legislated in New
Zealand. For instance the regulations require that flour shall not contain any added substance,
in other words no " improvers " such as calcium phosphate and sodium persulphate
shall be added to flour so as to enable the baker to bake a loaf containing a higher proportion
of water and thus to make more loaves from a sack of flour.
Much fraud goes on in connection with sausages in this country; in the absence of a
definition a large quantity of a less expensive food such as bread can be added to a small
quantity of meat and the mixture sold at a price approximating to that of meat of fair
quality. The New Zealand Regulations require that minced meat, sausage-meat and saveloy
sausage-meat shall be chopped or comminuted meat, with or without salt, sugar, spices,
herbs, saltpetre (potassium or sodium nitrate) and wholesome farinaceous substances. It
shall contain not less than seventy-five parts per centum of meat of the kind or kinds
designated in the label attached to the outside of the package in which it is contained not
more than fourteen grains of saltpetre (potassium or sodium nitrate, calculated as potassium
nitrate) to the pound; provided that if minced meat, sausage-meat and saveloy sausage-meat
be sold enclosed in a skin of animal origin, the said skin shall be deemed to be an integral
portion of the said meat.
England and Wales.
The only substances with regard to which power to make standards exists in this country
are milk, cream and cheese, also butter and milk-blended butter in so far as the proportion
of any milk solid, other than milk fat is concerned. In other words the amount of water
permissible may be limited. The Board of Agriculture has issued standards for milk and
butter; very indirectly a standard for cream is given in the Public Health (Milk and
Cream) Regulations, 1912. The Board of Agriculture have not found themselves to be in a
position to use their powers to make standards with regard to cheese, yet standards with
regard to hard cheese and cream cheese are badly wanted. We are in the same weak position
as Austria before the issue of the Codex; it is left to an enterprising local authority
administering the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts to undertake expensive prosecutions with
every prospect, in event of success, of a more expensive appeal to a higher court. The
Ministry of Health can only report that " fines were also imposed in respect of the sale as
Cheshire cheese of two samples containing respectively 31 per cent, and 33'3 per cent, only of
fat calculated in the moisture-free content, whereas it is generally considered that Cheshire
cheese and cheese of similar character should contain at least 45 per cent, of fat calculated
on this basis," and again "although the conviction in this case (brought by the Metropolitan
Borough of Holborn) was squashed on appeal on a technical point, the conclusion on
which the conviction was based, viz., that cheese made from separated or partly separated
milk should not be described as cream cheese does not appear to have been disputed."
Contrast the definite position established by the issue of standards. The New Zealand Regulations
state that" cheese is to contain in the water-free substance not less than fifty parts
per centum of fat wholly derived from milk and it shall not contain any foreign fat. Skiinmilk
cheese is to contain not less than ten parts per centum of fat wholly derived from milk.
Cream cheese shall be cheese made from milk and cream or from milk containing not less
than six parts per centum of milk fat. It shall contain in the water-free substance not less
than sixty parts per centum of fat wholly derived from milk." Similar instances could
readily be given of the value of standards in respect of articles of food, notably cocca and
allied substances, pure fruit cordials and syrups, baking powder, self-raising flour, custard
powders, infants' foods, vinegar, honey and jam.