The association appealed to consumers to ask for their burger meat to be ground on the spot, as in some cases bacteria and additives used to make them look fresh, were found.
In a study published at the start of this week, Deco said it had found in some cases burgers were being stored at too-high temperatures, with “millions of bacteria per gram” of meat, among them “salmonella” and others of faecal origin, and that others contained too much fat or sulphites which are used illegally as conservatives.
Speaking to Lusa News Agency, Deco’s Nuno Lima Dias said: “We completely discourage buying pre-minced meat and fresh hamburgers pre-prepared by butchers.”
Dias believes the government should ban the sale of such products.
To compose the study, Deco visited 25 butchers’ shops in Lisbon and Porto, looking to buy beefburgers without cereals or vegetables in them, and free of sulphites.
Even so, investigators found “hidden and illegal conservatives” in 80 percent of the samples they tested, sometimes “in large quantities.”
Dias warned that sulphites can cause allergic reactions, nausea, headaches, skin, digestive and respiratory problems, and elaborated that while very rare, allergic reactions may be life-threatening.
Some butchers were also found to be breaking the law by storing the meat at temperatures “far above what is permitted by law”; the recommended temperature is two degrees Celsius or lower, while some were found to be kept at eight degrees, and others at up to 14 degrees.
Dias argued that “consumers are unprotected” when buying pre-minced burgers as there is no way to tell just by looking at them whether the meat is of inferior quality, and chiefly whether sulphites have been used to keep the meat looking fresh.
Deco advises shoppers to choose their piece of meat at butchers’ counters and to ask for it to be ground on the spot, or mince it themselves at home.
Meat should always be well cooked and not come into contact with other raw ingredients.
“Nothing was better than just reasonable, and the vast majority of establishments flunked the test”, Nuno Lima Dias
conclude