In order to popularize the use of whale meat, a kind of cheap and nourishing food, we have studied the relation between the smell of the meat and the content of volatile basic nitrogen in the meat. From the standpoint of food sanitation, we have clarified how much longer the whale meat can be preserved in a refrigerator than in a room of normal temperature. It has been found that before the whale meat loses its freshness in a view of food sanitation, it begins to em a bad smell of ammonia, which becomes much stronger as the freshness deteriorates.