Homemade Sausage Making

New rules in the EU dramatically restrict the use of traditional wood smoke in flavouring meats.There is considerable panic in Poland as a large number of producers are not ready to undertake production under the new regulation.
http://www.wbj.pl/article-64701-polish- ... ml?typ=pam

The EU has determined that there are substantial health hazards in using unpurified wood smoke in flavouring meat products. Producers will now have to use approved smoke flavourings "obtained by fractionation and purification of a condensed smoke and used mainly to impart a smoky taste to food such as meat or fish as an alternative for traditional smoking processes".

Further explanation lifted from an Irish bulletin:
The production of smoke flavourings starts with the condensation of smoke. The condensed smoke is normally separated by physical processes into a water-based primary smoke condensate, a water-insoluble high-density tar phase and water in soluble oily phase. The water-insoluble oily phase is a by-product and unsuitable for the production of smoke flavourings. The primary smoke condensates and fractions of the water-insoluble high-density tar phase, the `primary tar fractions`, are purified to remove components of smoke which are most harmful to human health. They may then be suitable for use as such in or on foods or for the production of derived smoke flavourings made by further appropriate physical processing such as extraction procedures, distillation, concentration by evaporation, absorption or membrane separation and the addition of food ingredients, other flavourings, food additives or solvents, without prejudice to more specific EU legislation.

The link below has further links to the legislation and directives
http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/fAEF/flav ... ing_en.htm

And they are starting to ease the restrictions on marijuana! It makes perfectly good sense to me.

Smoking food has been done for well over a 1000 years and probably much longer and Hey!! we are still about.
Typical stupid EU interference by all-knowing, elected, overpaid/underworked, system rorting hordes.
There are elections being held this year in the EU, most of the officials are already shaking in their boots.
Let's hope that common sense will prevail.
FWIW,
Cheers,
Jan

I that guess only very few EU bureaucrats have ever tasted a polish sausage

Actually, we are many in Denmark who are appauled by EU´attempts to pass regulations that should be serving public health but in effect collides with old established ways of making various foods or delicaties that probably haven´t hurt anybody for ages -except those who deliberately go for excess.

Lately it was a traditional piece of Danish (the pastry) namely our beloved "Cinnamon Snail" that came into the danger zone because our National Food Administration felt obliged to follow the new EU redulation regarding the max allowable of Kumarin in foodstuffs.

Kumarin is a substance found in Cinnamon which MAY cause liver problems for SOME people, and because we in Denmark never cared about labeling the Cinnamon snail as a "traditional national patisserie item" we cannot claim exemption from the rule - unlike the (more clever) Swedes who by claiming their equivalent to the Cinnamon Snail to be a piece of traditional swedish bakery don´t need to give a damn about that absurd EU regulation.

Somehow it seems that our cinnamon-rich snail will survive the crisis as the authorities obviously don´t intend to embark upon a manhunt on bakers just to check on their cinnamon dosage-habits, but we did see a wawe of bakeries starting to sell the pastry under the name "Killer Snail" boosting its popularity (not unlike the US´ "Freedom Fries").

I do hope that the Poles will be able to pull a similar stunt by claiming that all Polish sausages processed according to the traditional recipes are traditional national heritage. Unfortunately it´s easier said than done because almost all major polish sausage producers nowadays use a wast array of chemical additives, starches, hydrocollids etc. to keep water in and production costs down - but only a few of them ever resigned on natural smoke because it gives such a damned good aroma!

Big business and the giant food internationals have long abandoned the traditional production methods. Now the governments are helping them to totally eradicate the small independent producers. Soon it will probably be illegal to smoke your own sausage.

I cannot imagine the world under a single EU-style central regulatory process, but it's coming....and it will be a mess

I understand that saliva can cause liver and cancer related health issues, but only when swallowed in small amounts over a very long period of time. RAY

Guess authentic sausage makers will have to go the way of moonshiners in the US. Get out to the backwoods, so the government can't save us from ourselves and turn us into criminals.

Only factories can be trusted to make wholesome food. We must be saved from our ancestors.

It will be "soylent green"!

PLEASE don't get me started on the....

Big Brother says, Conform and assimilate.

Big Brother and these loons in Brussels are the most hated idiots around the world from what I hear.
I can't agree more.
Cheers,
Jan.

A large part of the problem is coming from the improvement if our technology. I was reading a report today that cited the arsenic levels in rice in excess of 100 parts per BILLION and that the consumption of more than four cups of rice per day was potentially harmful. They acknowledged that if your economic status caused you to subsist on that much rice per day you probably had other things to be concerned about.