Читать книгу Foods and Their Adulteration - Harvey Washington Wiley - Страница 52

—It has been stated in semi-scientific publications that the flesh of a mammoth incrusted in polar ice and presumably thousands of years old has been found to be intact and edible. This story, lacking corroboration, is hardly in harmony with known facts. The author had the opportunity of examining a quarter of beef which had been kept frozen in a warehouse for more than eleven years. This meat was found to be wholly inedible. It had an unpleasant and mummy-like odor, was light in fiber and color, having evidently lost a large part of its weight, and was of a character wholly unsuitable for consumption. This fact appears to show that eleven years is too long a time in which to keep meat frozen. In fact, it is scarcely worth while, from a practical point of view, to discuss so long a limit. Only the necessary time for the preparation and transportation of the meat is to be considered, and the sanitary laws of the nation, states, and municipalities should undoubtedly regulate the time of cold storage and see that all packages of meat exposed for sale are plainly tagged as to the date of slaughter, in order that the consumer may know.

In the consideration of the subject of preserved meats there are excluded all meats delivered in the fresh state for consumption and meats kept in cold storage in a fresh state during the necessary time of preparation and transportation say, on the whole, from four to eight weeks. Meats kept longer than this may generally be considered as preserved meats, even when cold is the only factor active in their preservation.