Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-06-08
The EFFECT OF COLD
STORAGE ON HEALTH
Benefits Are Great From Its
General Use

The modern development of cold
storage methods has in several ways
added to the perplexities Of health
administration. On the one side are
the obvious advantages, economic and
other of carrying over valuable but
perishable foods from a time fwhen
they are not needed to time Of rela-
tive scarcity. On the other hand are
The well known abuses of corner
ing" which raises the price both IN
the time of abundance and the time
of scarcity. and of overlong storage
which may cause wasteful or inju-
rious deterioration. Attempts 10
remedy these abuses by legislative en-
actment are now being made, one of
the most popular apparently being a
three months time limitation on the
storage period
So far as eggs are concerned this
movement is meeting with great OPP
position from large dealers, who point
out that three months is quite too
short a period to make storage com
mercially profitable. The question
then seems to be whether fraud on the
public purse or injury to the public
health can be traced to the storage of
eggs at a low temperature for a pc
riod longer than three months Pub
lished observations, although rather
meager, show that progressive physi-
cal changes take place in cold stor-
age eggs, such changes being espe-
cially evidenced by the loss of weight
and by an increased tendency of the
| yOlks and whites to mingle. Chemi-
cally, there is a lowering of the
amount of coagulable protein and a
lowered percentage of lecithin phos-
phorus. An increase in the lower nj
trogen bodies, proteoses and peptones,
is noted, while there is apparently a
decrease in amido bodies. Bacter-
tally, stored eggs appear to be sterile
or inhabited by a few colonies of the
more resistant fungi Whether such
changes as thosei Indicated impair the
food value of the egg or render it
Injurious to health is a point worthy
of investigation 1t does not follow
that, because chemical alterations have
occurred in heterogeneous substance,
the resulting product is necessarily I'M
fit for food. Ripened cheese has been
ordinarily subjected to the long con-
tinued action of engines and bacteria,
but its food value appears to be high.
OF course, quite apart from the eff
feet of cold storage on the food value
of eggs, the fact that most people
find cold storage eggs less palatable
than fresh eggs renders the former
less available for many uses. While
the buyer is able to judge of the quail
ity of most foodstuffs by their ap-
pearance in the market, a cold-storage
egg, when offered for sale, is practi-
cally indistinguishable from a fresh
one; it is on the table if at all that
the difference is apparent Whatever
the final decision as to the effect on
health of the use of cold storage eggs,
therefore, the public has a right to
demand that it shall not be made 20
buy cold storage eggs under the be-
lief that they are fresh, or to pay the
price of fresh eggs for stored ones.
1t seems possible that if dealers were
compelled to call cold storage eggs
by their right name and to state the
length Of time they had been in stor-
age, many of the disadvantages now
ascribed to the practice of cold stor-
age would be moved.-Literary Di-
gest.
in i