What's really going on with our meat? Guest blog by Niki Bezzant

Sometimes stories about food pop up in the media, create a flurry of comment and indignation, and then disappear, leaving in their wake the germ of a myth. This is what seemed to me to happen with a recent story about the 'gassing' of meat.

Reports in newspapers and on TV revealed that some meat for sale in supermarkets undergoes a process called 'gas flushing', in which carbon dioxide and oxygen is pumped into meat packaging to lengthen its shelf-life. The implication in these news stories was that the practice was deceptive – making meat appear fresh when it might not be – and also somehow unsafe. It does sound a bit alarming, at first read. However, when you look a little closer, the truth is much less sensational.

It turns out that gas flushing of meat (known as 'modified atmosphere packaging' or MAP) has been going on for many years – in fact, NZ was a world leader in the development of MAP in the late '80s. This is how much of our quality meat is packaged for export. MAP packaging is done for food safety reasons – it controls the growth of harmful bacteria on the meat. Dr Brian Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Food, Nutrition and Human Health at Massey University, says: "To my knowledge there has not been a single case of food poisoning over a period of 30 years… from the consumption of meat that is packaged in high oxygen atmosphere packs."

I was also interested to learn that rather than deteriorating it, some experts say that packaging meat this way actually improves its quality. We all know beef develops better flavour if it's 'hung' for a while before being butchered. Associate Professor Jonathan Hickford of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science at Lincoln University, comments: "The prolonged storage of gassed meat may assist the meat tenderisation process. Export chilled (not frozen) meat products 'condition' in cool storage as they are transported by ship to overseas markets. They command the market premium in those markets."

Even so, should we be told if the meat we're buying is packaged this way? Here I have to agree with the newspapers. As consumers we do have a right to know exactly what's been done to our food before we buy, so we can make an informed choice. On that score, it's up to us to use our consumer power to let the retailers know what we want. If enough people ask for it, we'll start to see a change.