Hot on the heels of the “minced meat shock” delivered by consumers’ association DECO this week, the government’s health and safety authority has waded in – saying it is perfectly legal to use sulphites in the manufacture of hamburgers and meatballs.
As DECO retaliates, the authority of food safety and economy is blurring the issue.
“Sulphites in minced meat are prohibited by law,” it reiterated yesterday – and the levels found in samples of meat up and down the country have been described as “a time bomb”.
“Anything from 10 milligrams per kilo poses a risk. But we found certain samples with as much as 4500 milligrams,” DECO’s Nuno Lima Dias revealed.
The sulphites can cause “headaches, nausea, digestive and skin problems and, in the worst case scenario, death”, he warned – but instead of congratulating the watchdog on its concern for the welfare of Portugal’s meat-eaters, ASAE has created “unjustifiable confusion”, claims DECO.
“Not once, in any of our communications, did we refer to preparations made from minced meat,” it stresses in a new release sent to Lusa news agency.
DECO’s hair-raising study did not analyse meatballs or hamburgers – only minced meat, and the results were “disastrous”, the association maintains.
Thus it stands by its warning to consumers not to buy minced meat from butchers, but to buy a portion of meat and mince it at home.
DECO’s alert, which followed a survey of 26 butchers in the Lisbon, Porto and Setúbal areas, has prompted an emergency meeting of the food safety council today (Thursday), while the secretary of state for foodstuffs Nuno Vieira e Brito has confirmed that his department is demanding contingency plans be drawn up by “various authorities” to “intensify checks” on meat sales outlets.
By NATASHA DONN natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
