[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Greenwich Borough].

  • Greenwich (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
[1952]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Greenwich Borough]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    84/134 (page 78)
    78 Other Foods— Meat, Canned—various 2,806 lbs. Provisions, various 1,499¾ „ Fish 1,034 „ Tomatoes 224 „ Onions 220 „ Condensed Milk 135 „ Cheese trimmings 118¼ „ Swiss Rolls 87 „ Spaghetti 87 „ Eggs 80 „ Sugar 56 „ Butter 24 „ Dried Fruit 15¾ ,, Arrowroot 8 „ Sweets 7 „ 6,401¾ lbs. Total Food Rejected 7,854¾ lbs. It will be observed that the largest category of food rejected was canned meats and it must be recorded that, of this total, 2,300 lbs. was in respect of imported ham. This food which is brought into the country under private licence, suffered greatly from decom position probably indicating inadequate preparation or imperfect canning. As this problem was nation wide, attention focussed on the fact that such canned goods are not sterilised but only pasteurised. It is apparent that the heat treatment given is such that deep-seated parts of the ham may only reach approximately 170°F. Little is known of the numbers and the nature of bacteria that are likely to be found in such material before canning but, according to data accumulated at the Low Temperature Research Station at Cam bridge, faecal streptococci and salt-tolerant strains of bacillus are capable of surviving the canning process. This latter point certainly provides a logical explanation for at least a portion of the heavy loss of tinned ham during the year.