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Educational Activities.
At the Invitation of the Chairman and Executive Committee of the West Ham Clean
Pood Advisory Association, Senior Public Health Inspectors gave a series of talks at
Executive Committee Meetings throughout the year on various aspects of their work. The
Chief Public Health Inspector and Food and Drugs Inspector, continue to act as Technical
Officers to the Association.
Lectures were also given to the staffs of school and day nursery kitchens and
the Chief Public Health Inspector addressed a meeting of the South-West Essex Master
Bakers1 Association at Ilford Town Hall.
Disposal of Unsound Food.
Unsound food is, for the most part, removed by the Public Cleansing Department,
and tipped with other refuse, but large quantities of meat and fish are sent directly to soap
or fertiliser factories in the Borough.
Foodstuffs Condemned During 1956
Meat 3,253 tins Cream & Milk 1,689 tins
Meat 4,690 lbs. Vegetables 3,441 tins
Tomatoes 39 lbs. Vegetables 2,268 lbs.
Tomatoes 1,826 tins Oranges 242 cases
Cheese 214 lbs. Fruit Juice 5 tins
Cheese 57 boxes Cereal 13 packets
Soup 145 tins Boiled Sweets 334 lbs.
Fruit 6,228 tins Dried Fruit 60 lbs.
Fruit (fresh) 1,288 lbs. Peanut Butter 10 lbs.
Jam & Marmalade 538 Jars Sandwich Cream 2 jars
Fish 970 tins Ham 24 tins
Fish 24½ lbs. Flour 440 lbs.
Food Samples.
Details of the number of samples taken during the year are contained in the Annual
§
Report of the Public Analyst. In this report the Public Analyst gives a table of figures for
the last 5 years showing the percentage of adulteration of the samples submitted to him for
analysis. The percentage of adulteration for the years 1954 and 1955 showed a comparatively
sharp rise over the two preceding years. This was accounted for by circumstances outside the
normal rate of adulteration as commonly understood, inasmuch as during 1954, 35% of the total
foods found to be adulterated were oranges containing thiourea, and a further 25% of the total
were sausages, containing excess of the preservatives allowed by the Preservatives Regulations,
which is 450 ppm of sulphur dioxide. The 1955 figure also revealed that sausages comprised
25% of the total adulteration as in 1954 for the same reason, and 37$ was accounted for by
analytical confirmation of unsound foodstuffs. The figure of 1.7% for 1956 is below the
average of 2.3% for the past 5 years and well below the figures for 1954 and 1955.
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