No. 2 (1921) REMARKS ON CANNING 99 



CHAPTER VI. 

 Defects. 



131. It is obvious from the above pages and from experience 

 that cans and canned goods are liable to many troubles, whether 

 from original defects in the can body before packing, or from 

 leaks after packing and sealing, or from mere distortions of the 

 containers, or from originally bad or inferior contents, or from bad 

 preparation and improper treatment of contents and can, or from 

 bacterial or chemical action within the can. This, however, is not 

 to say that canned goods are more dangerous or more to be 

 suspected than ordinary foods; on the contrary, they are — in India 

 at all events — much less so ; canned goods are often unjustly 

 blamed when the blame should be given to other articles of 

 diet consumed at the same time, or to dirty cooking utensils or 

 practices, or to slightly tainted ' fresh ' food (fish and shell-fish 

 specially) ; canned goods display their defects and are consequently 

 liable to blame when it is the concealed defects of other foods that 

 are the true cause of illness or discomfort. Moreover, just because 

 of these difficulties, special care and knowledge are given to their 

 preparation and marketing, so that canned goods as found on 

 the market are usually the safest of goods having been carefully 

 selected, handled, sterilised, and then protected by good con- 

 tainers from contamination or damage. 



132. Briefly it should be said that if a manufacturer is honest 

 and does not 'work over' deteriorated or spoiled cans (e.g., by 

 venting and reprocessing, which is a most dangerous and fraudulent 

 trick based on absolute greed and carelessness of results) but 

 destroys the contents of all 'blown' tins, and if consumers will 

 observe the simple precaution of rejecting or throwing away all 

 tins which really are ' swells '(' blown '), there is not only no risk 

 in consuming canned goods but such goods are positively far safer 

 than much of the food supplied to consumers. All canned goods 

 have been absolutely sterilised during the operations of canning, 

 and if they subsequently go wrong they positively and unmis- 

 takably advertise the fact by the condition of the container or of 

 the contents. Cases are known to the writer where consumers fell 

 ill not because the canned goods (made abroad, not in India) did 

 not advertise the fact that they had gone wrong but that the 



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