Robbers of the People’s Food.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 3, 20 November 1914, Page 3

Robbers of the People’s Food.

CHALK IN RICE AND PAINT IN CHEESE. It is encouraging to know that a widespread movement is on foot to stop the wicked adulteration of the people’s food. Since the passing of the Food Act, most of us have thought that the adulteration of the tilings we eat has largely been stopped, but this, unhappily, is not so. The Pure Food Society has long been seeking to safeguard our food supplies, and now an appeal is being made for £50,000 to enable the society to bring about a better state of the law, and a better administration of existing laws. In many parts of the country the laws for the protection of the food of the people are not put into force by the local authorities. What is urgently needed is a powerful central Government Board, with an army of inspectors and chemists to fight against the clever and crafty system of adulteration that still goes on over a large part of the kingdom. The adulterators are often very cunning men, who make use of science to hide the harm they are doing to the public health. It is now very difficult for ordinary people to find out if an article is pure. Let us look at a few of the ways in which the cunning deceivers of the people work, producing bad food to increase their profits. Butter is now largely adulterated with cocoanut oil, and is very generally sold with mixture of animal fat. Another trick is to mix a good deal of water with the butter ; water is cheap, but the butter adulterator man,' es to sell it, several ounces at a time, for a shilling or eighteonpence a pound. It is worked into the butter by means of machinery* Cream is adulterated by means of the same preservative chemicals as are used in butter and bacon, ham. poultry, fish, and potted- meats. Cream is also thickened by means of gelatine, and sometimes even a preparation of lime is employed. This last adulteration is happily growing rarer. Cocoa is mixed with cheap starches, such as potato starch, sago starch and arrowroot. Sugar, costing only 21T1 a pound, is also used ; and the useless, indigestible shell of the cocoabeJggs ground into powder and misfed with the real cocoa. Chocolate is adulterated in the same way, and. in addition, various kinds of cheap f.it are worked into it. Tea is mixed with exhausted and re-dried tea leaves,- and the dried leaves of other shrubs are used as adulterants. Lard is adulterated in the same way as butter, but, moreover, paraffin wax and soft paraffin are used. These nasty paraffin preparations are also found in certain kinds of margarine. Cheese is made of skimmed milk and then mixed with animal fat. The rinds of Gorgonzola cheeses are often composed of tallow and white paint. %Peppsr is mixed with sand, ground olive-stones, and starch. Mustard is sometimes cheapened with coloured flour and a kind of ginger plant, and vinegar is made from acids obtained from wood. Sweets are adulterated with paraffin wax, and innocent coaltar dyes are used for colouring. Jams and preserves contain glucose instead of sugar, and a powerful and dangerous drug, salicylic acid, is employed as a preservative. This dangerous drug is also lirgely put into lemon-juice, lime-juice, and other drinks, as well as in bottled beers and wines. Boric acid and borax, or a strong and perilous coal-tar preparation known as formalin, are used as preservatives in milk. In preserved green vegetables -pens, beans, and spinach —sulphate of copper, a terrible poison, is employed to make the vegetables look green. Rice/and barley are adulterated by coating the grains with French chalk. Large consignments of wheat-flour received from America a few years ago were found to be mixed with ground maize, and a process for bleaching wheat-flour has been introduced in which nitrous fumes are used. These injure the food qualities of the flour, and often introduce chemical impurities. We must remember of course, that there are many great and reputable firms who would scorn to stoop so low as to do these things, and most good housewives know the firms whose goods are worth buying ; but it is right that we should be warned against all those frauds that are imposed upon the poor, and all good people will hope that the Pure -Food Society wRI goon with its work and succeed. The society ; should find a great man in MrflL i; rt Samuel, the Presid&P>f'^ Tl i Local Governi ment Board, ho has now charge of a Pure .i !k. Bill. [The Liitie j Paper.]