SULPHITE TEST RESULTS ON MINCED BEEF
Food Intolerance Network
members have been using sulphite test strips to test
butcheries around
Mince is not allowed to contain ANY
sulphites.
While FIN has the names of
the butcheries, samples were not taken under legal conditions and the
test-strip method, while calibrated and corrected for blank readings, is not
the recognised legal test method. Therefore the names
of butcheries are not given in the table below but are supplied to regulatory
authorities.
Tests are continuing. The
results on 65 butcheries to date are:
- overall, 43% of mince in
- The ACT was the worst state by far.
- While small butcheries are the usual offenders,
the highest results were actually from big butcheries in one supermarket
chain and in non-imported meat in
- Don't buy your mince on Fridays or weekends
after the health inspectors have knocked off.
Click picture to download
full-size media-printable photograph.
Click here for details of how to buy test-strips from Merck Pty Ltd and
how to use test-strips.
Click on button for a Factsheet on sulphites.
Detailed results on sulphite test strips – the Food Intolerance Network has been distributing these at cost within
See letters to and from FSANZ regarding the illegal
use of sulphites in mince.
Date of last update:
TO BUY SULPHITE TEST-STRIPS FROM MERCK PTY LTD
In
Ask for Merck Sulphite Test Strips "Mercoquant
110013". They cost $70.00 plus GST plus $35 freight = $112.00 for 100
tests. Provide your credit card details over the phone plus a street delivery
address. They are a stock item and should arrive within 5 working days.
DETAILS OF HOW
TO USE THE TEST STRIPS
You have sulphite test-strips. Their active end, which you put into
the meat and don't touch with your fingers, has a small white square on it.
There is a colour scale on the outside of the in the
plastic bag.
In addition, you will need
the following, all rinsed and dried thoroughly between uses: Measuring
teaspoon, Small glass tumbler, Small fork, Chilled water, Knife.
Buying the meat samples
Best to buy the samples
fresh, keep cool and test as soon as you get home. Friday afternoon is a good time
because those butchers who use sulphites illegally often wait until the
inspectors are unlikely to call. Ask for 250g. Make sure that you label the bag
with the date and name of the butcher so there can be no mix-ups.
Testing the meat sample.
- Put two teaspoons of chilled water into the
tumbler.
- Slash open the plastic bag containing meat. Make
a diagonal cut in it with a clean knife to expose the centre of the meat.
Scoop out a teaspoon full from one end of the cut surface, level with the
knife if needed, and drop into the tumbler. Repeat, taking the sample from
the other end of the cut surface.
- Thoroughly macerate the mince and chilled water
with the fork so that it is a uniform sludge. This takes about 15 seconds
to do properly.
- Without touching the active end of the Sulphite test strip, dip the active end into the mince
sludge for one second. Make sure that it is thoroughly wetted by wriggling
it around.
- Take out of the sludge, flick clean and time
exactly 30 seconds. You can rinse briefly with cool water to get any meat
off the active end.
- Compare the colour of
the active end with the colour scale supplied.
Put the active end and the colour scale side by
side and try the next higher and the next lower to be certain.
- Write down the reading. Note that meat contains
some sulphites anyway from the high level of protein, so some pink colour is expected.
- Don't panic if you get 80ppm. The calculation is
to take 80 from the reading and then multiply by 2. Therefore a reading of
80 is 0 ppm. A reading of 180ppm is 200ppm after
correction. ppm means parts per million.
- If you want to inform the Food Intolerance
Network of your result, send the information below to confoodnet@ozemail.com.au
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Date |
Butcher's name, suburb and state |
Product eg mince |
Your actual reading |
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Date of last
update: February 2009
