THE FOOD FAKERS

Taranaki Daily News, 17 January 1910, Page 3

THE FOOD FAKERS

SOME STARTLING SIDELIGHTS ON WHAT WE EAT. '

If the autocratic lady who presides over the domestic desti»ies of a forty-pounds-a-year-with-ratefl-and-ta'xes suburban Tilla saw a cart ewfied bv a foreign-meat butcher drive /up to ' the house of her aext-aoor aeigh/hor and delifer the family dinner she would ■probably write the et-enpait down as a strikingly •conomical or rery hard-up person (Bays a writer in a Home paper). Many middle aad appcr class people hare a radical antipathy/ to foreign meat, not, perhaps, -because/ it is' foreign meat, but because its purchase savors of poverty. And yet we-all eat it at some time or another. Nearly every "English" butcher • keeps .two kinds of beef and mutton. The housewife who believes she has English .day after day labors under a delusion. Bat although the 'knight of the clearer resorts' to many; little trickssuch as applying sotl.ii im sulphide to give stale meat a good color—he does not occupy such a prominent position in the category of fooq.fakers as many «f his fellow-traders.

MILK OH! The first, trader to/ arrive at your home in the morning i s the milkman. Don't run away with .'the idea that you are getting that fluid from 'the j «ow without interference As likely as not the milk contains boric acid,'and your morning cream' i* probably thickened with gelatine n/nd starch. The brown-iihellcd; e'<rgs which look so nice on the breakfast-table llave , P ev " haps, gone through a process of dyeing; and tbo.se appetising potted meats are lucky if the}- havo escaped the attentions of salicylic a n d boric acids. Looking so succulent and innocent, tiie sausage app4rs' to be the rttst thing on earth to which vou would attribute dishonesty. Vet' aa immense amount contain .sawdust and potatoflour, in additioi. to being made from meat of doubtful rcsnectabiliiv. Of course, the,l ;nv allows the presence of a certain percentage of'preservatives in foods;, but h i s the excess of t-.is allowance that puses' a continuous war to be waged between the traders and the law's representatives. And so profitable a procepfting is the importation of inferior nujtter into the fond of people that, nujinv large firms pav a high salary to a skilled chemist solely that bis knowledge, mav assist thfm to drive a coach and, four through the A'ct of Parliament, ;-<nd fatten on the proceeds. TRACKING THE TRADESMEN. In what (i remarkable manner our food is tampered with may be. gleaned from the fai-t that a large, and highlytrained staf of inspectors' and their assistants ani engaged under the Pood and Drugs Act| to detect offences of this kind; and. |»rcat are the difficulties with which they' have to contend. For iusljincc, it is nut easy to prove that poisonous copper salts are applie.l to botth'd vegetables to give them color, or -that a concoction bundled and scaled asi arrowroot is nothing of the kind, but* s'olely potato-start'li. But it is more difficult still to prove who puts brickdtist, peroxide of iron, or arrowa harmless-looking packet of which hand introduces suhfrom coal tar into wines. and drugs to tnakc tin in more to the eye but more injurious stomach. One such ircquentlyviolet coloring matter boasts a of fifty-4ve letters, as fol-

acetic ether, tannin, crude cream ef tartar, and French pluw-jaice are frequently imported into -braady and whisky.