NEW FOOD INDUSTRIES IN GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3013, 26 February 1917, Page 10

NEW FOOD INDUSTRIES IN GERMANY

The blockade has given birth in Germany to a new and thriving industry— that of substitutes for the common articles of food. The advertising columns of the large newspapers are full of various announcements extolling tho virtues of the new "discoveries, ,t? which are in every way as good as the natural product aud much cheaper. Dr. j Fondler, the head of the Berlin municipal chemical laboratory, has now published a pamphlet revealing the composition of these substitutes, from which the "Vorwaerts" quotes a. few instructive oxamples. A. substitute for tho famous Hungarian stew (Gukscli), I tho "high nutritive .value" of which lias been loudly proclaimed by its "in- [ ventors," consists of 55 per cent, of potato, 41 per cent, of common salt, and an addition of meat extract, pepper, etc. A substitute for eggs has beon found to bo a yellowish' mixture of potato and milk powder. Yet its prico is 2s. 6d. per lb. 1 A substitute for butter consists of common suet sJid J salted flour pasto in equal proportions. Another precious concoction, sold as an "equivalent" substitute for salad oil, consisted of S9J- per cent, of water and a dash of some vegetable fat. This "invention" Dr. Fendler regards as tho acmo of the production of substitutes: "artificially thickened and coloured' water at the wholesale prico of about 6d. per pound." Very good is also a I certain, variety of coffee-substitute; it ! is nothing more or loss than roasted— i potatoes 1