-'aii'iiiiiilii 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 Cop^TiglK N^ 
 
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 COl^I^KiHT DKPOSrr. 
 
FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 AND 
 
 THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 BY 
 ELLEN H. RICHARDS 
 
 INSTRUCTOR IN SANITARY CHEMISTRY 
 IN THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLQGY 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 REVISED AND REWRITTEN 
 
 WHITCOMB & BARROWS 
 
 BOSTON, 1906 
 
OCT 1 "*n'06 
 ASS /{ ' XXo. Htk 
 
 /^ II S- 
 
 5m 
 
 ©e?^B 
 
 FIRST EDITION 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1885 
 
 BY ESTES & LAURIAT 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1898 
 
 BY HOME SCIENCE PUB. CO. 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1906 
 
 BY ELLEN H. RICHARDS 
 
 COMPOSITION AND ELECTROTYPING BV 
 
 THOMAS TODD 
 
 J^ BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION 
 
 CONDITIONS have changed with marvelous rapidity 
 in the twenty years since this Httle book was written, 
 and in no quarter more than in the food problem. The 
 original aim of the author and her collaborators was to 
 arouse women providers for their families to the need of a 
 study of the materials they purchased, both from a sanitary 
 and economic point of view. 
 
 If such study was needed then, it is tenfold more 
 important now, since, while the women have slept, the 
 manufacturer has kept wide awake and has employed the 
 chemist to help him impose upon the ignorant and credulous 
 housekeeper. 
 
 With the establishment of state and city laboratories 
 there is not today the need of the Housekeepers' Labora- 
 tory which the authors tried to introduce. Nearly every 
 householder can find the information that she needs by a 
 visit to one of these laboratories if not in the printed reports. 
 To take an instance from a burning subject at this writing : 
 Since 1896, when the Massachusetts State Board of Health 
 first published a list of patent medicines containing alcohol, 
 there has been no excuse for any citizen of the state to be 
 deceivedo Common sense would have told him that such 
 a practice once started would go on and other names would 
 cover similar compoundso Housekeepers should make use 
 of the information which is paid for by their taxes„ 
 
 It is to ring again the call to study facts and conditions 
 that the author and her coadjutors have decided to revise 
 this little volume, which has been out of print for some time 
 
IV PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION 
 
 They are unable to understand the slowness of young women 
 to take up the study of chemistry after they have made it 
 possible and have shown the practical advantage of such 
 knowledge. 
 
 Doubtless some such universal excitement as the country 
 has just been through is needed to focus attention. All 
 this agitation over the pure food law has come about be- 
 cause the buyer has not kept himself informed as to the 
 methods of manufacture, and because the impossible has 
 been demanded. We are all suffering because thoughtless 
 and ignorant women have demanded red berries, green 
 pickles, bright catsup, and variegated candies, and have 
 not even considered whether the results were possible with- 
 out preservatives and coal tar dyes. It is, perhaps, an 
 evidence of the ancient credulity persisting in the belief 
 that science can work miracles. But it was to combat that 
 idea with knowledge that this volume was written and is 
 now rewritteno It seems incredible that intelligent women 
 could have put upon their tables canned meats " largely 
 corn meal " and not know the difference. 
 
 To the housewife and mother we say : For the sake of 
 your children keep yourselves informed of the true state 
 of the food manufacture. Do not accept all sensational 
 headlines, but yourself study and give your daughters an 
 opportunity to study chemistry in the high school. Encour- 
 age your grocer to provide honest goods. It will take time 
 and thought, but on what can these be better spent than on 
 that which gives health and vigor for the better enjoyment 
 of all the good things of life? 
 Boston, July, 1906. 
 
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 
 
 'T'HERE is neither novelty in the information which this 
 little volume seeks to convey, nor originality in the 
 manner of presenting it ; but when its preparation was be- 
 gun, some years since, the facts here considered were for 
 the most part found scattered through large and costly 
 technical works, written for the conditions existing in Eng- 
 land and Germany. The books claiming to be popular 
 expositions were either so old as to be out of date, were 
 sensational, or otherwise unsatisfactory. 
 
 One excellent English work has recently appeared which 
 is so suitable and admirable in form, as well as in material, 
 that at the first glance it seemed superfluous to issue the 
 present one. Yet Church's " Food " was prepared especially 
 for the visitors to the Bethnal Green branch of the South 
 Kensington Museum, London, while the place which this 
 little volume is intended to fill is that of giving useful 
 information in a form available and attractive for schools 
 and for home reading without technicalities or unnecessary 
 details. It has been compiled from many sources, and it 
 would be impossible to credit each book with the special 
 facts derived from it, since the same thing in different forms 
 is often found in several works. Quotation marks are in- 
 tended to indicate all passages taken verbatim. The names 
 of the books consulted will be found in the list at the 
 end of the volume. It is in the hope that these works 
 may be more widely known, and the subjects of which they 
 treat more earnestly studied, that this slight contribution 
 is sent forth. 
 
VI PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 
 
 The conclusions are a result of ten years' experience 
 in laboratory examination of food materials. 
 
 The author is especially indebted to Miss S. Minns 
 and to Miss L. M. Peabody for valuable aid, both in the 
 laboratory and in the preparation of the text. 
 Boston, December, 1885. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Principles of Diet . . . . . . . i 
 
 II. The Relation of General Intelligence to the 
 
 Quality of the Food Supply .... 4 
 
 III. Water, Tea, Coffee, Cocoa ..... 20 
 
 IV. Milk, Buitter, Cheese, Eggs ..... 47 
 
 V. Cereal Foods — Barley, Rice, Oats, Maize, Rye, 
 
 and Wheat .64 
 
 VI. Sugar 87 
 
 VII. Nuts 102 
 
 VIII. Perishable Foods — ^Meat, Poultry, Fish . . 107 
 
 IX. Perishable Foods — Vegetables and Fruits . .114 
 
 X. Canned Foods and Jellies 122 
 
 XL Condiments , . 130 
 
 XII. Other Materials Used in Cooking .... 147 
 
 XIII. Recapitulation . . . . . . . '155 
 
 References 167 
 
 Index , . 
 
FOOD MATERIALS AND THEIR 
 ADULTERATIONS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF DIET 
 
 THE food of savage and semi-civilized man has 
 always been of the material most readily ob- 
 tained; either the flesh of animals killed in the chase, 
 or wild fruits native to his country, or the products of 
 crude agriculture.^ The nations of Northern Europe, 
 down to nearly the middle of the present century, ate 
 rye and barley bread, as wheat could not be profitably 
 grown in that region ; and the Esquimaux today live 
 upon the product of the seal fishery from necessity, 
 not from choice. 
 
 Now, the food products of the whole world are 
 accessible to the people of the United States through 
 the use of improved methods of transportation — the 
 refrigerator car and steamship compartment — and 
 through improved methods of preservation — by cold 
 storage and by the canning process. 
 
 This very abundance brings its own danger, for the 
 appetite is no longer a sufficient guide to the selection 
 of food, as it was in the case of the early peoples, who 
 were not tempted by so great a variety. 
 
 No hard and fast rule of what to eat can be laid 
 
 1 For the diet of ancient peoples, see Food and Dietetics, 
 Pavy, p. 475. 
 
2 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 down. Not only is it true that what is meat to one is 
 poison to another, but it is also true that what a man 
 may eat with impunity today may cause illness tomor- 
 row, because the man himself is in a different condition. 
 After a day spent in -pleasurable exercise in the open 
 air one may take a meal which might jeopardize his 
 life if taken after a day of grief, anxiety, or exposure 
 to severe cold. 
 
 Bodily energy is supplied by the food which has 
 been "assimilated," made a part of the body tissues. 
 Much food eaten is never so utilized. It passes through 
 only slightly changed or is decomposed into toxic sub- 
 stances that do the body harm and not good. Illnesses 
 which come from this cause are said to be due to 
 auto-infection. 
 
 Many diseases of modern civihzation are doubtless 
 due to errors of diet, which might easily be avoided. 
 Numerous dietaries have been published, but nearly all 
 are only of limited local application, so that when ap- 
 plied elsewhere they have failed and brought discredit 
 upon the whole plan. Only certain broad principles 
 can be laid down, and much intelligent study must be 
 brought to bear upon the question in each community. ^ 
 
 The first general principle is suggested by Dr. Pavy, 
 when he calls attention to the fact that the meat eaters 
 among animals, having to hunt for their food, pass long 
 intervals without any, and when it is obtained gorge 
 themselves with it, and then lie torpid for days. The 
 herbivorous animals, having their food always near 
 them, eat all the time, and are stupid all the time. 
 
 1 F. G. Benedict : Journal of Physiology. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 3 
 
 Man ought not to imitate either class. It is his 
 privilege to choose such times for eating and such 
 materials for food as will best develop his mental 
 power. Many writers seem to forget this, and to plan 
 man's food as if he were a mere animal, whereas he is 
 or may be very much more. His food should be such 
 as to keep the animal mechanism in good order for 
 the mind to use. It should not be overfed, so as to be 
 sluggish, nor should it be starved, so as to be incapable 
 of executing the mind's demands. 
 
 Food should be eaten for bodily profit and not for 
 pleasure only. The two should be combined in a 
 correct diet. 
 
 While the whimsicalities of the sitophobist should 
 be avoided and the stomach allowed to do its work 
 unwatched, yet each one should take pains to acquire 
 right habits in eating, as in walking or speaking. The 
 physician knows that a large part of man's ills comes 
 from his persisting in bad habits of eating and from 
 his dense ignorance of food and its effect on him. 
 
 Life is too valuable a possession to be at the mercy 
 of mere whims, and it is an economy of expensive 
 material to make the food tell in an efficient life. 
 Further discussion of these points belongs elsewhere. 
 In this volume one side of the food question only is 
 presented. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RELATION OF GENERAL INTELLIGENCE TO 
 THE QUALITY OF THE FOOD SUPPLY 
 
 THE prosperity of a nation depends upon the health 
 and the morals of its citizens ; and the health and 
 the morals of a people depend mainly upon the food 
 they eat and the homes they live in. 
 
 Strong men and women cannot be ''raised" on 
 insufificient food. Good-tempered, temperate, highly 
 moral men cannot be expected from a race which eats 
 badly cooked food, irritating to the digestive organs 
 and unsatisfying to the appetite. Wholesome and pala- 
 table food is the first step in good morals, and is con- 
 ducive to ability in business, skill in trade, and healthy 
 tone in literature. 
 
 This being granted, what office is of more impor- 
 tance to the State than that of the provider of food 
 for the families composing it .? The modern stock farm 
 has given us most of the scientific knowledge we pos- 
 sess on the question of foods. All this because it pays 
 to know the composition of the food and its effect on 
 the value of the stock. Shall the human animal be 
 considered of less consequence ? 
 
 The agricultural states of the Union have recognized 
 the two fundamental professions upon which their pros- 
 perity rests, and have established in their agricultural 
 
 4 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 5 
 
 colleges a parallel course of domestic economy to com- 
 plete the education of the girls. 
 
 This is an instance of wisdom, an example which 
 might be more widely followed, for in all our towns 
 and villages the housewives need to know something 
 of the materials of daily consumption. 
 
 The conditions of life have changed here in New 
 England so rapidly and completely that our young 
 housewives find themselves very much at a loss. The 
 methods of their mothers and grandmothers will no 
 longer answer. They had no trouble with their soap, 
 for they superintended its making and knew its prop- 
 erties. They knew how colored fabrics should be 
 washed, for they had the coloring done under their 
 own eyes. Wc buy everything, and have no idea of 
 the processes by which the articles are produced, and 
 have no means of knowing beforehand what the quality 
 may be. Relatively, we are in a state of barbarous 
 ignorance, as compared with our grandmothers, about 
 the common articles of daily use. 
 
 The only remedy is for our girls to learn something 
 practical about these forces and the nature of the 
 materials which are scattered about so freely. The 
 distinction between an educated cook and an unedu- 
 cated one of the same skill is that the educated one 
 can tell some one else just how and why she takes each 
 step, while the uneducated one can do the thing, but 
 cannot tell any one else how or why she does it. Let 
 our schoolgirls bear this in mind, and so study their 
 chemistry and physics that they can tell why this and 
 that should or should not be done. A little actual 
 
6 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 knowledge wonderfully simplifies things, and adds 
 interest to the commonest deeds. 
 
 Educated women must mark out a new plan for 
 themselves. Our girls must be taught to recognize 
 the profession of housekeeping as one of the highest, 
 although not necessarily the only one ; but, whatever 
 art or accomplishment they may acquire besides, let 
 them consider that the management of a household is 
 not to be neglected. The properly educated house- 
 keeper is not a drudge ; she has all the forces of nature 
 at her command — the lightning harnessed to give her 
 light ; the stored-up energy of past ages at her com- 
 mand by the turning of a stopcock ; swift steamships 
 and railways bring to her fruits and vegetables from all 
 climes ; the vast prairies furnish meat, game, and flour ; 
 mechanical skill gives her all kinds of labor-saving de- 
 vices ; the general prosperity and improving taste of 
 the country admit of tasteful decoration of the rooms. 
 Surely, never did housekeeping present so many charms. 
 Alas ! the winged Pegasus is too strong for his unskilled 
 rider, for in his train has come a style of living both 
 extravagant and demoralizing. All this delicate ma- 
 chinery and costly luxury are committed by ignorant 
 mistresses to still more ignorant servants — conserva- 
 tive by inheritance and superstitious by nature, restless 
 with the very air of the new and to them wonderful 
 country, where all men are equal, and naturally bewil- 
 dered by the novelties of the new life, so different from 
 their simple one. What wonder that the complicated 
 machinery comes to grief, and the tempers of both mis- 
 tress and maid are spoiled in attempting the impossible ! 
 
And their adulterations 7 
 
 Within the memory of the present generation there 
 has crept into the heads of the great American people 
 a most pernicious and insidious idea — that labor with 
 the hands alone is degrading and beneath the dignity 
 of a free American citizen. Nowhere has this been 
 more noticeable than in the place to which housework 
 has been relegated. 
 
 To judge by the opinion of the average schoolgirl, 
 one would think that housekeeping required no more 
 thought than the breaking of stones on the highway. 
 Such may listen with profit to Ruskin when he says : 
 " It is a no less fatal error to despise labor when regu- 
 lated by intellect than to value it for its own sake. 
 In these days we are always trying to separate the 
 two. We want one man to be always thinking, another 
 to be always working ; and we call the one a gentleman 
 and the other an operative, whereas the workman ought 
 often to be thinking and the thinker to be working, 
 and both should be gentlemen in the best sense. Now, 
 it is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, 
 and only by thought that labor can be made happy." 
 If this is assented to, then is not the conclusion 
 clear that if our girls were capable of tJiinking about 
 the many problems of housework and of investip-atino- 
 new and better ways they would find the work an 
 interesting and worthy one .? 
 
 Just now educators are complaining of all classes 
 of students, saying that they are too careless or too 
 indolent to think for themselves, that they wish their 
 knowledge, like their food, ''predigested." Women of 
 sense ought not to shirk a little exercise of their minds. 
 
8 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Political economists are beginning to take up this 
 subject, for they see that the ultimate welfare of the 
 country depends upon securing the maximum of utility 
 for the money spent. The money's worth must be 
 obtained from both material and labor. The law of 
 utility requires an adequate return for the value con- 
 sumed. A loaf of bread eaten by a farm hand returns 
 more than its value in the produce of that man's labor ; 
 so it should be with all labor, whether mechanical or 
 literary. A loaf of bread allowed to mold brings no 
 return in wheat or in useful thought, and it is therefore 
 wasted — so much value thrown away. So, too, if a 
 family consume at one meal three times as much food 
 as is needed to keep them in perfect health, the excess 
 is wasted, and sometimes worse, in that it causes dis- 
 ease. Not that a family which can afford beef should 
 live on corn meal, but that if the food is not wisely used 
 for pleasure or nourishment it is wasted. 
 
 It is believed by many that instruction in the funda- 
 mental laws of hygiene and of efficient living should 
 begin in the elementary school and continue through 
 and beyond -the college. 
 
 The following statement was unanimously adopted 
 as the sentiment of the Lake Placid Conference in 
 1902 :^ 
 
 "The Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics 
 considers that the time has come when subjects related 
 to the home and its interests should have larger recog- 
 nition in our colleges and universities. 
 
 1 Proceedings of Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics, 
 1904. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 9 
 
 " Recognizing the fact that there is a strong and 
 steadily increasing demand for knowledge of these sub- 
 jects, believing that their educational possibilities are 
 not inferior to those of other subjects now in the cur- 
 riculum, and that instruction in these branches promotes 
 in a high degree individual and social efficiency, we 
 earnestly request that the heads of our higher institu- 
 tions consider the advisability of introducing such work. 
 This may be done either by the establishment of new 
 departments or by the extension of courses already 
 offered. 
 
 " History, sociology, and economics deal with funda- 
 mental problems of the family and the home. Biology, 
 chemistry, and physics have important applications in 
 the household. This has been already recognized to 
 some extent by leading universities, and their curricu- 
 lums include such courses as 'The Family,' 'The 
 Citizen or Householder,' 'The Evolution of the House,' 
 'Sanitary Chemistry,' 'Food and Nutrition,' 'Bacte- 
 riology,' besides work in sanitation, physiology, and 
 hygiene. 
 
 "The members of this conference believe that an 
 extension of such work where it is already established 
 and its introduction in other institutions would contrib- 
 ute to the solution of some of the most important social 
 problems of today." 
 
 One of the most puzzling problems which a modern 
 housewife has to solve is to learn the quality of the 
 various food materials which she provides for the use 
 of the family, and to know how to apportion them. 
 So much has been said on the subject of adulteration 
 
10 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 in the past few years that the peace of mind of a 
 conscientious woman is quite gone. 
 
 A government report on baking powder, made some 
 years ago, argues that the '' housewife surely deserves 
 protection against swindling as much as the farmer (for 
 whom the government will make analyses of fertilizers), 
 and she has no better means of ascertaining the 
 strength and quality of the baking powder she buys 
 than the farmer has for the strength of his fertilizer. 
 The verity and accuracy of the analysis stated on the 
 label should be insured, as in the case of the fertilizer, 
 by its being performed by a sworn analyst. If such a 
 regulation were enforced, people would soon inform 
 themselves of the respective merits of the different 
 varieties, and the further requirements of a certain 
 standard of strength, as suggested by Professor Corn- 
 wall, would probably be unnecessary, as they would 
 learn to interpret the analysis, and a powder made up 
 of fifty per cent of starch, for instance, would have to 
 be sold cheaper than one made with ten per cent, or 
 not sold at all." i 
 
 Reference is made several times in these pages 
 to the sources of reliable information, and here em- 
 phasis is laid on the fact that many of the alarming 
 statements, so disquieting to anxious mothers, are in- 
 serted in the circulars sown broadcast and in newspaper 
 advertisements by one manufacturer to decry another's 
 product and to promote the sale of his own. Some- 
 times these are not exactly falsehoods, but they may 
 easily be interpreted in a false way. 
 
 1 Quoted in Bulletin of the Kansas State Board of Health, 
 March, 1906, 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS I I 
 
 If the buyer used a little of that thinking power 
 for which we have been pleading he or she would not 
 be deceived. The boldness with which misleading state- 
 ments are printed leads to the inevitable conviction that 
 buyers will not take the trouble to think or to find out 
 from the city and state authorities what is true. In- 
 stead of taking the sensible course the average woman 
 believes every sensational article that she reads, and 
 does almost as much harm to her family by avoiding 
 a good article as by purchasing an inferior one. 
 
 The unanimous testimony of all chemists who have 
 carefully investigated the extent to which adulteration 
 of food is carried on in the United States is that, while 
 there exists adulteration injurious to health, there is a 
 much greater injury to the morals of the community 
 and loss to the pockets of the people. In other words, 
 the point to which public attention should be mainly 
 directed is the question of paying a high price for 
 an inferior article. In some portions of the country 
 ground gypsum — at perhaps a cent a pound — is sold 
 for cream of tartar at ten cents a quarter of a pound. 
 Now this fraud can be detected by any one who knows 
 that cream of tartar is soluble in hot water, while gyp- 
 sum is not. A cupful of boiling water poured upon 
 half a teaspoonful of good cream of tartar will dissolve 
 it almost instantly, giving a nearly transparent liquid. 
 
 In these days of wandering attention "scare heads" 
 alone fix themselves on the public mind. So it has 
 come about that the word "adulteration" looms large 
 in the estimation of even thoughtful persons, who pass 
 by the really important matter of nutritive value and 
 
12 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 of combination. Yet the number of deaths caused by 
 adulteration is infinitesimal compared with the number 
 caused by auto-infection (from diseases arising within 
 the body) and by personal indiscretion in diet. 
 
 If the present interest in the misdemeanors of the 
 manufacturers shall focus attention on the importance 
 of food to human welfare it will have served a good 
 purpose. 
 
 A long acquaintance with the markets of the country 
 in the East and West, North and South, leads the 
 author to the estimate that not over two per cent of the 
 total weight of the food sold in shops and markets is 
 adulterated, and that not more than an additional three 
 per cent is sophisticated — that is, lowered in commer- 
 cial value by a cheaper ingredient. 
 
 What proportion of the whole bulk of the family 
 food is made up by the few ounces of spices, condi- 
 ments, and fruit essence ? What if the color of the 
 occasional pink tea or green dinner is aniline dye ! 
 One-sixteenth of an ounce is probably a large estimate 
 of the amount used by any one person in a year. 
 
 The extra twenty per cent of starch in a box of 
 baking powder, if a family uses ten pounds a year, 
 levies a tax of only sixty to eighty cents, or twelve to 
 sixteen cents a person. How many times that amount 
 do all today waste on candy and soda ? The damage 
 to health by the injudicious drinking of soda and various 
 ''bottled beverages" is many times that caused by all 
 the preservatives used in food. 
 
 It is, however, true that " the use of preservatives, 
 usually salicylic acid or benzoate of soda, is very com- 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 3 
 
 mon in the manufacture of fruit syrups and that coal 
 tar dyes are freely used to give an attractive color. 
 
 ''The grape juices have usually been found pure, 
 but in some instances from five to seven per cent of 
 alcohol has been found. 
 
 ''All lime juices are much below standard, having 
 been diluted with two or three times their volume of 
 water." ^ 
 
 It has been the history of every harmful adultera- 
 tion that, as soon as the public became aware of the 
 nature of it, its manufacture was stopped and some new 
 device substituted. The remedy, then, for this sort 
 of fraud is the education of the general public to such 
 an extent that it can, with some degree of probability, 
 detect any flagrant case of adulteration or substitution. 
 It is the aim of this little book to place in the hands 
 of housekeepers such information as will enable them 
 to purchase intelligently and to know in what direction 
 to be suspicious of the different food products on the 
 market. The nature of the adulterations will vary from 
 year to year with the advance of knowledge and with 
 the detection and exposure of the accustomed frauds ; 
 therefore a careful watch is needed to keep the dealers 
 and manufacturers in check. The bulletins of each 
 state agricultural experiment station give the results 
 of examination of local markets. 
 
 Demand is the great cause of supply ; and if many 
 of the reasons for complaint were examined, it would 
 be found that the grocers, of whom we so bitterly 
 complain, are only supplying the demand of their cu ;- 
 
 J New Hampshire Sanitary Bulletin, October, 1904, p. 70. 
 
14 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 tomers. Few dealers are in a position to instruct their 
 customers ; there are occasional philanthropists among 
 them, but most of them must make money, and they 
 can do this only by supplying what the public want. 
 The superstition yet lingering in the minds of people 
 is nowhere shown more clearly than in the purchases 
 they make for e very-day use. 
 
 Science, and especially chemical science, has achieved 
 so many marvelous triumphs within the last fifty years 
 that it is looked upon as an occult knowledge, having 
 the power which was attributed to the alchemy of the 
 Middle Ages ; and even intelligent persons, perhaps 
 unconsciously, look upon chemical operations as capable 
 of transforming substances in as subtle a manner as 
 was claimed to be possible by the old-time searcher 
 after the philosopher's stone. As a result, the average 
 housekeeper is a fit subject for the modern alchemist — 
 the man who can turn cereals and apple cores into gold 
 by a few neatly turned phrases calculated to impress 
 the housewife with the profound wisdom of the 
 manufacturer. 
 
 " Although the words * adulteration ' and ' sophis- 
 tication ' are in a degree synonymous, yet there is a 
 distinction which seems borne out in legal practice. 
 To adulterate the coin of the realm or the liquor of 
 the bar with a baser metal or an imitation whisky is 
 a heinous offense. So is the mixture of milk with the 
 baser article, water, which thereby lowers its food value. 
 But the ' wretched sophistry ' which obscures the na- 
 ture of things on a package of prepared food misleads 
 more persons and inflicts more injury on the community 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 5 
 
 than the other, yet goes unrebuked. The most bare- 
 faced assertions are printed in magazines, and ' pure 
 food shows ' only whet the appetite for something 
 new."i 
 
 In considering the probabilities of adulteration, one 
 important fact must not be overlooked. When prices 
 are low and food is plentiful there is much less reason 
 for admixture of foreign substances ; but when prices 
 are high and any article scarce, then is adulteration 
 rife. Take, for example, cream of tartar : in ordinary 
 years, when money is plentiful and gold at par, it can 
 be bought at from thirty-five to forty cents a pound ; 
 but when gold was two dollars or more, as during the 
 Civil War, and when the risk of importation became 
 considerable, cream of tartar sold for two dollars or so 
 a pound. The poor people could not pay fifty cents for 
 what they had been accustomed to get for ten, but 
 they did not know enough of the principles of cooking 
 to get along without it, and so they asked for some- 
 thing cheaper. During those years there was very 
 little of the genuine article sold under the name, and 
 the result was poor bread and injured health. 
 
 A very good example of the law of supply and 
 demand was given to the writer by a man of strict 
 integrity, but a man of business who understood the 
 public temper. When quite young he kept a small 
 grocery store in one of the suburbs of Boston. Cream 
 of tartar had just come into use. A woman who had 
 been in the habit of purchasing her supplies at a neigh- 
 boring grocery came to him one day for some articles. 
 
 1 Air, Water, and Food, p. 155. 
 
1 6 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 The young man prided himself on the good quahty of 
 his goods, therefore felt quite sure she would be pleased 
 and give him her custom. What was his surprise to 
 have her come back and complain of the quality of his 
 cream of tartar. It did not make as good bread as 
 that which she had been buying. He ventured to 
 suggest that perhaps it was strong and that she used 
 too much ; but she would not be satisfied and wanted 
 another kind, so he made up a package for her of two- 
 thirds cream of tartar and one-third rice flour ; this 
 satisfied her, and she became his customer. We can 
 hardly expect our grocers to become philanthropists 
 and teachers of the people. Their business is to supply 
 the public with the articles which it demands, and it 
 is from education of the public that we must look for 
 redress. There is great danger to the moral sense of 
 the community from this sort of cheating — this obtain- 
 ing money under false pretences (for it is nothing else). 
 And the pubhc is content to be cheated ; it should be 
 aroused, and by a knowledge of food materials a stop 
 may be put to most frauds. 
 
 In the new enthusiasm for social service many stu- 
 dents are working at the problem of developing a fuller 
 life for the sinews of the repubUc, the wage-earners. 
 Each one of these students of social conditions comes 
 upon a find, as it seems to him, of a great leak in the 
 average family purse in the case of his grocer's and 
 butcher's bills. By all laws of economy the workman 
 should not spend so much of his money for food. If 
 he lived more economically his family could have more 
 recreation and a better house. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1/ 
 
 There is no more burning question in sociology 
 today than this, What ought food to cost ? That the 
 buyer does not get his money's worth in many direc- 
 tions is true. It is to add one mite to the heap of 
 knowledge which the United States Government is 
 sending out in its bulletins from the Department of 
 Agriculture that this volume is written. 
 
 One result of this study of social conditions is the 
 introduction of cooking into the public schools and, 
 along with the practice, a considerable amount of ele- 
 mentary science to serve as a foundation for further 
 study and an inspiration to investigation. Helpful as 
 these classes have been, they are still often too much 
 under the domination of the commercial cooking schools, 
 as we may term them — those which depend upon the 
 patronage of women who wish to outdo their neighbors 
 in fancy cakes, pink teas, and decorative rather than 
 nutritious dishes. In the one case food is used, like 
 fabrics and flowers, as decoration and not as that 
 strength-giving material which shall make men and 
 women workers. 
 
 The cooking classes of today must learn how to 
 make attractive meals out of nutritious materials, and 
 must pay attention to composition and quantity of food 
 served as well as to its outward appearance. 
 
 A great deal may be done by economy in the prep- 
 aration of food and in the substitution of one kind 
 for another, according to the cost at different seasons 
 of the year. Here a knowledge of the composition of 
 the various articles of diet will enable one to choose 
 and yet to give the family all the constituents needed. 
 
1 8 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Tables ^ of the relative value of foods \\dll guide a wise 
 housekeeper in her selection. 
 
 Another instance of the disincHnation to think is 
 seen in the multiplication of cook books which give 
 recipes rather than principles upon which variations 
 may be made. 
 
 The modern housewife seems helpless before a new 
 material, utterly at a loss how to combine old materials 
 into new dishes, and therefore wastes good food. 
 
 However, the agitation of the subject of diet in its 
 relation to health is calling attention to the importance 
 of so vital an element in human existence, and much 
 progress may be looked for in the immediate future. 
 
 Undoubtedly it will need two generations of sound 
 teaching before bad habits in eating and drinking will 
 be conquered and sane, sensible methods be common. 
 
 Of all the dangers to health from eating, that of 
 unclean food leads all the rest. This uncleanness is 
 due to unsanitary production, feeding, and transporta- 
 tion of animals ; careless use of fertihzer on vegetables ; 
 cold storage under bad conditions, both in bulk and in 
 domestic refrigerators ; exposure to street dust ; and 
 cooking and serving in unclean vessels. 
 
 These conditions result not only in actual disease, 
 but in lowered vitahty and lessened work power. Prob- 
 ably not more than twenty-five per cent of the inhabit- 
 ants of any community are doing a full day's work, 
 such as they would be capable of if they were in per- 
 fect health. This adds to the length of the school 
 
 1 Bulletin 28, United States Department of Agriculture, Office of 
 Experiment Station. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS I9 
 
 course, to the cost of production in all directions, to 
 increased taxation, to decreased interest in life. There- 
 fore we say that the safety of food materials lies mainly 
 in the cleanly ways in which they are gathered, kept, 
 and prepared for the table. 
 
 For instance, berries may be picked by dirty hands, 
 exposed on dirty sidewalks, covered with dust from the 
 streets, served without suitable picking over and wash- 
 ing. Ice may be cut from polluted water, dragged over 
 sputum-covered sidewalks, and put into the ice box 
 unwashed. 
 
 In every direction careless handling of substances 
 used in connection with food seems to have increased, 
 and this in spite of the public dissemination of the 
 germ theory of diseases. 
 
 The watchword of every householder should be 
 clean, clean, clean, chemically and bacterially clean. 
 
 As usual, public attention is aroused to the various 
 concomitant evils without touching the core of the 
 whole matter — personal efficiency through good food 
 habits. 
 
 It is well, of course, to stop all the little leaks, but 
 the waste at the bung hole should not be neglected. 
 The renewed excitement in regard to food may be 
 turned to good account in showing the essential value 
 of food to the individual and to the community. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 WATER, TEA, .COFFEE, COCOA 
 
 IN importance to health second only to pure air is 
 the quality of the water drunk. It may even be 
 considered as a food, for there is at least a probability 
 that its office in the system is more than that of a 
 regulator of temperature and a diluent of the blood. 
 From a sanitary point of view, next in importance to 
 the quality of the water used is that of the other 
 Hquids which are more and more frequently substituted 
 for it, namely, tea, coffee, and cocoa. Beer and wine 
 are neither foods nor necessary beverages in this land 
 of good water and cheap coffee, hence they are not 
 here considered. 
 
 WATER 
 
 By far the largest quantity of any one thing taken 
 into the system through the mouth is water. The aver- 
 age person drinks whatever is most convenient, yet 
 only in the large cities with a carefully guarded water 
 supply is this safe. In the country nine-tenths of the 
 wells are more or less contaminated and are growing 
 worse. 
 
 It is past comprehension that men with some knowl- 
 edge of soil drainage and water flow should place a well 
 close by the cesspool and kitchen sink and expect it 
 to keep sweet and clean. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS ±1 
 
 Even women with no especial training should have 
 reason enough to know that slops thrown close to the 
 mouth of the well disappear into the ground and must 
 find their way to the water. It seems to be assumed 
 that all clear, cold water comes from a great depth 
 and is therefore pure. Only in the case of driven wells, 
 where a small pipe is driven down to a known distance, 
 or in the case of the true artesian wells, which deliver 
 water in great force without pumping, is this true. 
 The ordinary shallow well, thirty feet or so deep, is 
 usually fed, in whole or in part, from near-by sources 
 and is always an object of suspicion. Such water, 
 unless tested by a reliable expert, should be boiled 
 before drinking, as should water taken from rivers and 
 small streams. 
 
 Protection is best secured by cooperation and the 
 introduction of a safe supply for the community, in- 
 stead of each one depending on his own well or cistern. 
 These are often sources of danger. 
 
 But the housewife will ask, " Is not the use of 
 filters better than depending on boiled water ? " A 
 coarse filter will take out coarse material such as comes 
 from heavy rains, from growths of a/o;-cE, from rusting 
 pipes, etc, but it requires porous porcelain or sandstone 
 to take out excessively fine material such as bacteria. 
 This means very slow action and soon a clogged sur- 
 face. Rapid filters are all merely strainers. A flannel 
 bag tied on the faucet and washed every day will serve 
 for this as well as any expensive mechanical device. 
 The bone black filters will take out color, but color is 
 not the dangerous factor, and the water is rendered 
 
22 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 harder by the lime phosphate. All strainers collect the 
 insoluble material that they remove and should be thor- 
 oughly cleaned, else they are worse than nothing. All 
 true filters act slowly and deliver a small quantity in 
 an hour. 
 
 It is worth noting that the New Hampshire State 
 Board of Health in its July Bulletin, 1906, gives an 
 illustration of a household filter, with full directions 
 for construction and use, which has considerable merit ; 
 but, like all good things, " it demands intelligent super- 
 vision, and the occasional attention prompted by a proper 
 understanding of what it is and what it ought to do from 
 day to day." 
 
 The author wishes to impress upon her readers, even 
 to their weariness, that the best things are not obtained 
 by machinery. Very few things are really automatic. 
 Somewhere there must be a mind in control, a watchful 
 eye to see the beginnings of failure to work. Let the 
 housekeeper once again learn the pleasure of power over 
 things, of knowledge of constituents and durability, feel 
 once more the delight of invention, and see the work 
 of her mind as well as of her hands gTOw before her 
 eyes. 
 
 A serious danger to the public lies in impure wells 
 on dairy farms. Milk cans washed in foul water have 
 often been a source of disease. On the other hand, 
 the practice of using the well as an ice box cannot be 
 too strongly reprehended. 
 
 The first essential in establishing a new home is, 
 then, clean, safe water. The services of an expert must 
 be secured if there is doubt. Towns and villages are 
 
And their adulterations 23 
 
 beginning to appreciate the fact that property is worth 
 more where this satisfaction may be felt. 
 
 One simple, popular test which may serve to detect 
 harmful materials in water is as follows : Place a pint 
 of clear well or spring water in a clean, white, uncracked 
 dish on the stove. If, on evaporation, the water leaves 
 dark rings on the dish, or a dark sediment in the bot. 
 tom, there is positive evidence of danger. If, on the 
 other hand, there is no sediment, we have no proof that 
 the water is safe. This test does not apply to surface 
 waters, which always contain harmless organic matter. 
 
 TEA 
 
 In regard to tea and coffee more than to any other 
 class of foods is there a popular misconception of the 
 differences in quality, caused solely by methods of prep- 
 aration, but often attributed to adulteration. There- 
 fore space is here given to the principles of obtaining 
 satisfactory results in the home. 
 
 The tea plant, Thea Sinensis, or Camellia Thea, 
 , an evergreen, is a native of China, Japan, and the 
 north of Eastern India, and has been there cultivated 
 from time immemorial. The finest tea of China is 
 grown between the twenty-seventh and thirty-first par- 
 allels of north latitude But the plant will flourish from 
 the equator to forty degrees north latitude. 
 
 Tea has been used as a beverage by the Chinese 
 for ages past. Tradition refers to it as early as the 
 third century. It first became known to Europeans 
 about the end of the sixteenth century. Until the 
 middle of the seventeenth, the price was from twenty- 
 five to fifty dollars a pound ; and a remarkable feature 
 
24 POOD MATERIALS 
 
 in its history is the reduction which has taken place in 
 its commercial value, tea now being sold at Canton at 
 from fifteen to twenty cents a pound, and in this 
 country at from twenty-five cents to one dollar. Tea 
 is used at present by about one-third of the human 
 race. The consumption in Great Britain in 1835 was 
 less than one and a half pounds a head. In 1877 it 
 was four and a half pounds, and in 1904 six pounds. 
 In the United States in 1876 it was one and a half 
 pounds. In 1904 it was about one and a quarter pounds. 
 Among European nations tea is preeminently an Eng- 
 lish, Russian, and Dutch drink. 
 
 The quality of tea depends upon its flavor, which 
 should be delicate and yet full ; and this is affected by 
 the time of gathering (whether or not the first of the 
 four yearly gatherings), by the age of the tree, by the 
 country in which it is grown, by the quality of the soil, 
 and by the situation of the plantation. The two classes 
 of tea, the black and the green, are produced in the 
 same region and often from the same trees. Green 
 tea is rolled and dried very quickly, the whole process 
 being finished in an hour or two, so that the leaf keeps 
 its color. The idea that green tea is obtained by dry- 
 ing the leaves in copper pans is a popular error, which 
 has been persisted in for a long time, without a shadow 
 of truth for its foundation. For black tea, the leaves 
 are beaten and exposed to the air for some time, so 
 that a sort of fermentation sets in. The production of 
 the aromatic flavors is due to the processes of drying, 
 since the leaves when freshly plucked have neither the 
 odor nor flavor of the dried leaves. Hence different 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 2$ 
 
 qualities of tea may be made from the same leaves, 
 according to the treatment while drying. This is the 
 source of the various kinds found in the market under 
 the names Hyson, Oolong, etc. Some teas are scented 
 with fragrant leaves and flowers. 
 
 Substitutes for tea are found in nearly every coun- 
 try. Sage leaves were frequently so used in England 
 a century ago. Labrador tea was prepared by the 
 native American tribes. The leaves of thirty-two plants 
 are known to have been thus used. 
 
 The important constituent of tea is an alkaloid called 
 theine. It is present in varying proportions, from i to 
 4 per cent. The theine is supposed to be in combina- 
 tion with tannin, which is the most abundant soluble 
 substance in tea, usually from i6 to 27 per cent. To 
 the tannin is due the constipating effect of tea. The 
 longer the tea leaves are steeped, the more tannin 
 the solution contains. Regard for the lining of one's 
 stomach would lead one to avoid all steeped teas. 
 The infusion should be prepared immediately before 
 drinking, or removed from contact with the leaves. 
 
 The odor and flavor of tea are due to an essential 
 oil which is present in very small quantity, and which 
 is developed during the fermenting and drying. For a 
 good tea the volatile oil must not escape. To make 
 a good pot of tea, scald out the pot with boiling hot 
 soft water, place the tea in it as soon as possible, 
 pour over it the boiling water, and close the pot imme- 
 diately ; allow it to stand in a hot place for a few 
 minutes, but do not let it boil ; if the tea leaves are put 
 in a bag or ball they may be at once withdrawn. Tea 
 
26 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 as drunk in China is always taken clear, without any 
 addition of milk or sugar. The Russians add a few 
 drops of lemon. 
 
 Lo-Yu, a learned Chinese who lived about 700 a.d., 
 says of the effect of an infusion of tea, that it tempers 
 the spirits and harmonizes the mind, dispels lassitude 
 and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents 
 drowsiness, lightens or refreshes the body, and clears 
 the perceptive faculties. Modern writers claim that 
 tea excites the brain to increased activity, while it 
 soothes and stills the vascular system ; hence its use 
 in inflammatory diseases and as a cure for headache. 
 Taken in excess it has the effect of a vegetable poison. 
 It affects different people differently, and when it causes 
 nervous excitement its use should be avoided. The in- 
 fusion is stimulating and not nutritive ; hence the use 
 of tea and toast, so common among the workingwomen 
 of America, is very poor economy, and is an evil, one 
 had almost said, second only to the use of alcohol. 
 Indeed, it has been called the tobacco of women ; 
 for while the tea does undoubtedly allow one to live 
 on less food, it does not supply the place of food for 
 any length of time. If the exhausted leaves were eaten 
 after the infusion was drunk, as is the case in several 
 countries, it would be more economical, since they con- 
 tain about 20 per cent of nitrogenous matter, insoluble 
 in water. On the coast of South America and on the 
 slopes of the Himalayas the spent leaves are handed 
 round among the company, sometimes on a silver salver, 
 and much relished. In some places the leaves are pow- 
 dered and mixed with various nutritious substances, anp 
 eaten without infusion. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 2/ 
 
 According to the best authorities tea should not be 
 drunk as a beverage by persons under middle age, as 
 it is liable to interfere with the development of the 
 nervous system. But for elderly and delicate people 
 whose stomachs are incapable of digesting much food 
 the use of tea is often valuable, as it, like coffee, pre- 
 vents the waste of tissue, or, in other words, a person 
 requires less food when tea is taken ; but it should not 
 be used for this purpose by working people, since it tells 
 upon the digestive power of the stomach, and nothing 
 can supply day after day the lack of nutritious food. 
 Physicians now recognize a tea dyspepsia, and no one 
 with a hope for better digestion should drink tea 
 constantly three times a day. 
 
 ADULTERATIONS OF TEA 
 
 When tea was ten dollars a pound there was great 
 temptation to mix other leaves with the genuine, or 
 even to substitute them entirely ; also to add to the 
 weight by iron filings, etc, or sand gummed on plum- 
 bago and soapstone ; the exhausted leaves were also 
 used. Since the price has fallen, very much less adul- 
 teration is practiced. It will not pay to work over the 
 tea leaves to any extent, yet they are occasionally 
 adulterated, and inferior grades due to carelessness in 
 preparation and to less careful cultivation are often 
 found. 
 
 The most common method of adulteration is by 
 "facing," that is, by treating with certain coloring 
 materials to give intensity to the color of the leaves. 
 The facings in most general use are Prussian blue, 
 
28 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 indigo, plumbago, and turmeric, often accompanied by 
 such minerals as gypsum and soapstone. According 
 to Leach ^ the Chinese and Japanese face only the teas 
 intended for export trade. 
 
 The addition of mineral matter may be detected by 
 burning a weighed quantity — one gram or more — 
 in a platinum dish, and weighing the ash. Good tea 
 gives from 5 to 7 per cent of ash. If the leaves are 
 exhausted, the per cent will be less. To ascertain the 
 strength of the tea, an infusion is the best test. If 
 the decoction is very high-colored, the tea has probably 
 been doctored. If there is not much extract, the leaves 
 have been exhausted. The surest test of this is the 
 specific gravity of the solution ; but even this is a deli- 
 cate test, since the specific gravity of a solution of 200 
 grains of tea in 2,000 grains of water is from 1.012 
 to 1. 01 4, while that of exhausted leaves is from 1.003 to 
 1.0057. Good tea should yield 26 per cent, and often 
 as much as 36 per cent, of its weight to boiling water. 
 
 Spent or exhausted leaves, leaves that have been 
 once steeped and afterwards again rolled and dried, 
 have been used as an adulterant, though the practice 
 is now rare. 
 
 Certain foreign leaves, as the leaves of the willow, 
 elder, rose, elm, etc, have been said to be used as 
 adulterants. 
 
 Stems, fragments, and tea dust are sometimes found 
 in large proportion. 
 
 " As a matter of fact, the worst forms of tea adul- 
 teration, such as the actual substitution of foreign 
 
 iFood Inspection and Analysis, p. 285. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 29 
 
 leaves, once so commonly practiced, are now extremely 
 rare in this country and have been for some years, by 
 reason of the careful system of government inspection 
 in force at the various ports of entry. The greater 
 portion of the tea on our market today is genuine, but 
 fraud is practiced to a considerable extent by the sub- 
 stitution of inferior grades for those of good quality. 
 This form of deception is in many cases beyond the 
 power of the analyst to detect, and properly comes 
 within the realm of the professional tea taster." ^ 
 
 Tea tablets are made of finely ground tea pressed 
 together, and are prepared for a beverage by simply 
 dissolving in hot water. 
 
 The analysis of the Samovar Tea Tablets, accord- 
 ing to the Massachusetts State Board of Health, is as 
 follows : 
 
 Water 
 
 . . 8.7 
 
 Theine 
 
 . 2.25 
 
 Extract . . . 
 
 . 54.4 
 
 Ash 
 
 . 5-4 
 
 Soluble ash 
 
 . 2.8 
 
 Insoluble ash 
 
 . 2.6 
 
 In England all tea is sampled and inspected, and 
 in 1879, of 575 specimens examined, only three were 
 found to require special disposal — one damaged by 
 water, one consisting of exhausted leaves, and one 
 sanded .2 
 
 1 Leach, p. 287. 
 
 2 For illustrations of the appearance of tea leaves, and other leaves 
 and berries, see Bell, Hassall, Blyth, Konig, Leach, Winton. 
 
30 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 The Russians are said to have the most dehcious tea 
 of any nation in Europe. They have an inland trade 
 with China, and choice teas are directly imported, with- 
 out exposure to the heat and close air of the hold of a 
 vessel, so injurious to teas of a delicate flavor. Their 
 method of making tea also has much to do with its 
 fine flavor, and samovars are a national feature, from 
 which some lessons may be learned. 
 
 The samovar is a large brass urn, lined with block 
 tin. The urn and the stand which raises it from the 
 table are all in one piece, in those I have seen. The 
 urns hold from four to eight quarts of water, which is 
 poured in through a small hole, three quarters of an 
 inch in diameter, in the top, and they are emptied by 
 a stopcock or faucet, like any hot water urn. 
 
 It is usually one servant's duty in Russia to take 
 care of the samovar, to fill it with the freshest of water, 
 to kindle the fire, and to bring it in when all is ready 
 for the table. A twist of paper is placed in the bottom 
 of the cylinder, with some splinters of kindling wood. 
 Upon this is placed charcoal broken into pieces the 
 size of walnuts. The Russians themselves often have 
 a special charcoal made from cocoanuts, the hard shells 
 making a very dense, odorless charcoal, which gives 
 off an intense heat. The fire is Hghted from the 
 grate below. The chimney is put on, and the fire is 
 allowed to burn until all smoke and smell from the 
 wood and paper have passed away, and the charcoal 
 is in a glow. Then it is carried in and set upon the 
 table. 
 
 As soon as the w^ater sends out a jet of steam from 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 3 1 
 
 the hole at the top, beside the cyUnder, the tea is 
 made by the hostess. Now notice that the water has 
 just reached the boiUng point. It has lost none of its 
 life or air. It is simply fresh, pure water brought to 
 the boiling point. The teapot is made scalding hot, 
 and the tea is taken from a caddy upon the table. At 
 first only a little water is poured upon it. The chimney 
 is taken off and the teapot is set upon the cylinder 
 over the glowing coals, upon the same principle as 
 setting the teapot in the top of the boiling teakettle 
 on the fire, as we often see done here in our kitchens. 
 In a few moments more boiling water is added, and the 
 teapot replaced over the coals. The tea is poured into 
 the cups when it has steeped sufficiently long, sugar is 
 added, and instead of cream a slice of lemon is slipped 
 into each cup. Fresh tea and water are put in the 
 teapot, and it is again placed over the coals. 
 
 COFFEE 
 
 One tradition relates that, in ancient days, a poor 
 dervish, who lived in a valley of Arabia Felix, observed 
 a strange hilarity in his goats on their return home 
 every evening. To find out the cause of this, he 
 watched them closely one day, and observed that they 
 eagerly devoured the blossoms and fruit of a tree he 
 had hitherto disregarded. He tried the effect of this 
 food upon himself, and was thrown into such a state of 
 exhilaration that his neighbors accused him of having 
 drunk of the forbidden wine ; but he revealed to them 
 his discovery, and they at once agreed that Allah had 
 sent the coffee plant to the faithful as a substitute for 
 the wine. 
 
32 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 The name of coffee is given to a beverage prepared 
 from the seeds of plants, which are roasted, ground, 
 and infused in boiling water. The seeds most used are 
 those of the Arabian coffee tree (an evergreen, Cajfea 
 Arabica), which belongs to the natural order Cincho- 
 nacece^ the same order to which belongs the tree from 
 which are obtained quinine and the Peruvian bark of 
 commerce. It is probable that the use of coffee has 
 been known from time immemorial in Abyssinia, where 
 the tree is native. In Persia it is known to have been 
 in use as early as a.d. 875. 
 
 The first allusion to coffee in an English book is 
 believed to be in Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" : 
 "The Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use 
 no wine), so named of a berry as black as soot, and 
 as bitter, which they sup up as warm as they can 
 suffer, because they find by experience that that kind 
 of drink, so used, helpeth digestion and produceth 
 alacrity." 
 
 The introduction of coffee into Europe was bitterly 
 opposed, and the use of it denounced from the pulpit. 
 Nevertheless the tree has been cultivated in all tropical 
 countries which have been colonized by Europeans. 
 
 While in Mohammedan countries its use as an anti^ 
 soporific in the long devotional exercises rendered 
 it obnoxious to the conservative priests, and while 
 some held it to be an intoxicant, and so prohibited 
 by the Koran, in England it seems to have been op. 
 posed by liquor dealers, who alleged that the popularity 
 of the coffee houses was so great as to draw away 
 their custom. The popularity of the coffee houses 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 33 
 
 also aroused suspicion of disloyalty in the gatherings, so 
 that they were made the object of a royal proclamation 
 by Charles it in 1675. 
 
 Coffee was introduced into England at about the 
 same time as tea, and its use increased very rapidly, 
 until it reached its maximum in 1854, when the import 
 into Great Britain was 37,441,373 pounds. Since then 
 the consumption has decreased, partly owing to a greater 
 use of tea, and partly to the increase of coffee substi- 
 tutes. The amount used in Great Britain in 1857 was 
 one and a quarter pounds a head; in 1875-77 three- 
 quarters of a pound; in 1904 only three-fifths. In Hol- 
 land and Germany in 1885 about fourteen pounds a 
 head were consumed; in 1904 less than seven pounds. 
 In the United States the amount was in 1885 about 
 eight pounds; in 1904 it was twelve pounds, and the 
 United States consumed about half the total supply 
 of the world. 
 
 Brazil now supplies more than one-half of the coffee 
 of the world, and nearly 75 per cent of that used in 
 the United States. 
 
 The most valuable constituent of coffee is caffeine, 
 an alkaloid identical with the theine of tea. There is 
 present about i per cent of it. The peculiar flavor 
 and aroma of coffee are due to one or more oils or 
 fats, which become changed to peculiar aromatic com- 
 pounds in the roasting. There is about 13 per cent 
 of these, and they probably possess the stimulating 
 properties noticed in the infusion. Caffeic acid, an 
 astringent somewhat like the tannin of tea, is present, 
 but only from 3 to 5 per cent. Hence the action 
 
34 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 of coffee is not as deleterious to the coatings of the 
 stomach as is that of tea. Coffee also contains sugar 
 to 5 or 7 per cent, which is all converted into caramel 
 in roasting. 
 
 The exhausted berries also contain nutritious nitrog- 
 enous matter, and some Eastern nations drink grounds 
 and all. In Sumatra the leaves are used, and seem 
 to have a large proportion of the properties of the 
 berry. 
 
 The effect of coffee on the human system is to 
 counteract the tendency to sleep, and it is almost cer- 
 tain that it was this property which originally led to 
 its use as a beverage. It also excites the nervous 
 system, and when taken in excess produces contractions 
 and tremors of the muscles, and a feeling of buoyancy 
 and exhilaration somewhat similar to that produced by 
 alcohol, but does not end with depression or collapse. 
 Professor Johnstone thus describes the properties and 
 effects of coffee : "It exhilarates, arouses, and keeps 
 awake ; it counteracts the stupor occasioned by fatigue, 
 by disease, or opium ; it allays hunger to a certain ex- 
 tent ; it gives to the weary increased strength and vigor, 
 and imparts a feeling of comfort and repose." Its 
 physiological effects upon the system, so far as they 
 have been investigated, appear to be that, while it 
 makes the brain more active, it soothes the body gen- 
 erally, makes the change and waste of matter slower, 
 and the demand for food in consequence less. 
 
 For soldiers and travelers exposed to great hard- 
 ships, coffee is the best agent known for restoration of 
 the exhausted energies. Its use can be abused, like 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 35 
 
 that of any other good thing, but, used understandingly, 
 coffee is an important addition to one's diet. 
 
 There are few adulterants in whole coffee, though, 
 as in the case of teas, inferior qualities are often sub- 
 stituted for the choicer varieties. It is very doubtful 
 if the old story of coffee beans molded out of paper 
 pulp deserves attention. 
 
 Glazing is the process of coating the coffee beans 
 with white of egg or sugar, or with one of a variety of 
 gums. This is ostensibly for the better preservation 
 of the coffee, and for the purpose of saving the house- 
 wife the trouble of clarifying her own coffee. It may 
 be questioned, however, whether the process is not for 
 the purpose of deceiving the housewife with the sub- 
 stitution of an inferior bean for a better quality. If 
 this is the case, then certainly glazing is a form of 
 adulteration. 
 
 Ground coffee is variously adulterated. In Massa- 
 chusetts the following adulterants have been found : 
 roasted peas, beans, wheat, rye, oats, chicory, brown 
 bread, pilot bread, charcoal, red slate, bark, and dried 
 pellets made of ground peas, pea hulls, and cereals, held 
 together with molasses.^ 
 
 Of the ninety examples examined by the Massachu- 
 setts Board of Health in 1905 only four were found to 
 be adulterated. Two were not labeled according to the 
 law. 
 
 A small proportion of chicory in coffee is considered 
 by many connoisseurs to impart a particularly agree- 
 able flavor, and consequently its use is not condemned. 
 
 1 Leach, p. 292 
 
36 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 The difificulty about sanctioning such a mixture is that 
 if you give a man an inch he will take an ell, and in 
 the end chicory may be the chief constituent. Here 
 again enters in the problem of injury to morals and 
 loss to pocketbooks, and of the need for protection 
 against ''swindling." 
 
 Villiers and Collin ^ give the following analyses of 
 two samples of chicory : 
 
 Soluble in 
 water 
 
 Insoluble 
 in water 
 
 ■ Water (loss at ioo° to 103°) 
 
 Weight of total matter soluble in water 
 
 Reducing sugar 
 
 Dextrin, gum, inulin 
 
 Albuminoids 
 
 Mineral matter 
 
 Coloring matter 
 
 Albuminoids 
 
 Weight of the total insoluble matter . 
 
 Mineral matter 
 
 Fat 
 
 Cellulose 
 
 In large 
 granules . 
 
 16.28 
 
 57.96 
 
 26.12 
 
 9-63 
 
 3-23 
 
 2.58 
 
 16.40 
 
 3-15 
 25.76 
 
 4-58 
 I2.-,2 
 
 In 
 powder. 
 
 16.96 
 
 56.90 
 
 23-79 
 
 931 
 
 3.66 
 
 2-55 
 17-59 
 
 2.98 
 
 26.14 
 
 5.87 
 
 3-92 
 
 As yet there has been no seed found which, when 
 roasted and ground, corresponds with coffee, either in its 
 physiological properties or in the chemical composition. 
 
 The detection of the presence of chicory, caramel, 
 and some of the sweet roots, as turnips, carrots, and 
 parsnips, is quite easy. If a few grains of the sus- 
 pected sample are placed on the surface of water in a 
 
 1 Falsifications et Alterations des Substances Alimentaires, p. 234 
 in Food Inspection and Analysis, p. 296. 
 
And their adulterations 37 
 
 glass vessel, beaker, or tumbler, each particle of chic- 
 ory, etc, will become surrounded by a yellow-brown 
 cloud, which rapidly diffuses through the water until 
 the whole becomes colored. Pure coffee, under the 
 same conditions, gives no sensible color to the water 
 until after the lapse of about fifteen minutes. Cara- 
 mel (burnt sugar) of course colors the water very 
 deeply. Dandelion root gives a deeper color than 
 coffee, but not as deep as chicory ; this is true of 
 bread raspings. The first two adulterations may be 
 more readily detected by the taste, and the bread by 
 its softening. Beans and peas give much less color 
 to the water than pure coffee ; they can be readily 
 detected by the microscope, as can roasted figs and 
 dates, or date stones. But the use of the microscope 
 is not to be learned in one lesson, and the microscopical 
 examination must be made by one who has skill. In 
 months of practice one sees more and more each time 
 the instrument is used, so that, while it is an invalu- 
 able aid to those accustomed to its use, it is as unre- 
 liable as the chemical tests in the hands of the unskilled. 
 The preparation of good coffee requires only an 
 understanding of its properties, and is not as difficult 
 or as dependent upon complicated apparatus as is often 
 supposed. Raw coffee, when kept dry, improves with 
 age. The best Java is said to be some seven or eight 
 years old. To prepare the kernel for use, it must first 
 be properly roasted by a quick heat, like that used for 
 popping corn. The kernels should swell and pop in 
 much the same way, though not to the same extent. 
 When the flavor has thus been developed, and the berry 
 
38 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 made brittle, it is to be ground in a mill or pounded in 
 a mortar as fine as may be, and then, to obtain the 
 full strength, placed in an earthenware vessel, covered 
 with cold water, allowed to stand for some hours, and 
 brought to the boiling heat just before use. While this 
 is the most economical treatment, most people prepare 
 an infusion made by pouring boiling water upon the fine 
 coffee. The vessel should then be closed and allowed 
 to stand at a boiling heat for five to ten minutes ; it 
 should never boil violently, as the delicate aroma of 
 the coffee is then lost. According to one authority : 
 " Coffee, to be good, must be made strong. From one 
 to two ounces to a pint of water is recommended ; three 
 times the volume of milk may then be added. This 
 is better than to add water. In countries where the 
 best coffee is made, there is a concurrence of opinion 
 that roasted coffee should not come in contact with 
 any metal ; but that it should be powdered in a wooden 
 mortar, kept in glass or porcelain, and infused in porce- 
 lain or earthenware jugs, or other closed vessels." An 
 expensive method of preparation is by the percolation 
 of boiUng water through the coffee, drop by drop. The 
 simplest apparatus for this is a flannel bag, which 
 carries the coffee, suspended in the coffee pot. 
 
 The following directions for making coffee in three 
 different ways are given by the courtesy of Mr. Frank A. 
 Allen, of the Oriental Tea Company, of Boston. 
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING COFFEE 
 
 I. Fill the coffee pot with cold water. Take the 
 required amount of coffee and turn it in. Let it float 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 39 
 
 on the water without stirrmg. Place on the stove to 
 heat, and remove from stove the moment it begins to 
 boil. Decant slowly and carefully into the coffee pot 
 or urn for the table, without disturbing the grounds 
 which will be settled at the bottom of the pot. 
 
 2. Measure out the required amount of coffee and 
 put into a bowl, and add barely enough boiling water 
 to dampen it. Let it stand seven minutes soaking. 
 Put the soaked coffee in the coffee pot, pour on the 
 needed amount of boiling water, and stand the coffee 
 pot on the stove where it will keep z'ery hot, but not 
 boil, for ten minutes. Pour into the table urn, as in 
 Rule I, and serve. A fine-mesh cheese cloth bag to 
 hang in the pot and hold the coffee insures clear coffee 
 by this method. But be sure and soak seven minutes 
 before putting in the. bag. 
 
 3. If a French coffee pot or urn with a leacher 
 to strain the coffee through is used, be sure to put the 
 dry coffee needed into a bowl, with barely enough hot 
 water to moisten, and soak seven or more minutes. 
 Then put into the leacher, pour the needed amount of 
 boiling water on it, and let it strain through. 
 
 COFFEE SUBSTITUTES 
 
 We find in Farmers' Bulletin No. 122, 1900, that 
 coffee substitutes of domestic manufacture have long 
 been known. An infusion of parched corn, or corn 
 coffee, has met with some favor in the household as 
 a drink for invalids, etc. Parched wheat, peas, beans, 
 bread crusts, and corncobs, as well as sweet potatoes 
 cut into small pieces and dried and parched, have also 
 been used. 
 
40 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 The coffee substitutes found on the market today 
 frequently claim a high food value as well as a special 
 hygienic quality. ^' The food value of any such beverage 
 is evidently due (i) to the material extracted from the 
 coffee (or other substance) by the water used, and (2) to 
 the sugar and milk or cream added to the infusion." 
 
 The food value of coffee substitutes has been studied 
 by the Maine Experiment Station. Flour, meal, and 
 other ground grains contain little soluble material, but 
 when roasted a portion of the carbohydrates is caramel- 
 ized and rendered soluble. The infusions studied were 
 made according to directions, varying from 20 to 
 180 cups a pound of material. It was found that 
 the average infusion had the following composition : 
 water, 98.2 per cent; protein, 0.2; carbohydrates, 1.4; 
 fuel value, 30 calories a pound. 
 
 Skim milk, which is considered a rather "thin" 
 beverage, contains : protein, 3.5 per cent ; fat, 0.3 ; car- 
 bohydrates, 5.15 ; or almost twenty times as much food 
 material as the averages made from cereal coffee. If 
 made according to directions one would have to drink 
 4.5 gallons of an infusion of one of them which made 
 a special claim to high nutritive value, in order to get 
 as much food material as is contained in a quart of skim 
 milk. 
 
 The infusion of true coffee also contains very little 
 nutritive material. It is not ordinarily^ consumed on 
 account of its food value, however, but on account of 
 its agreeable flavor and stimulating properties. 
 
 In Europe hundreds of proprietary articles are sold 
 as coffee substitutes, such as " Datel Kaffee," wheat, 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 4 1 
 
 chicory, figs, and coffee ; " Hygienic Nahrkaffee," cereals 
 and acorns ; peanuts, lupines, and date stones enter into 
 other brands. 
 
 In America there are a number of favorite substi- 
 tutes prepared from roasted cereals, ground peas, 
 chicory, and other harmless material. 
 
 In the decade just passed the mixture of cereal 
 coffee with the genuine coffees has become very gen- 
 eral. A few of the preparations labeled as cereal 
 coffees in reality contain a large percentage of coffee, 
 at least in one case as much as 30 per cent. 
 
 It has been said that "in coffee substitutes, coffee 
 itself should be considered the adulterant." 
 
 The present custom in advertising coffee well illus- 
 trates modern methods, which should be understood by 
 the buyer. 
 
 A gentleman came to engage the author as expert 
 in a legal case against a firm which sold a coffee war- 
 ranted to contain no Java or Mocha coffee, and to 
 be free from the deleterious effects of these coffees. 
 The attending physician had forbidden coffee to the 
 plaintiff's wife, and had prescribed this brand. The 
 patient grew steadily worse until it was discovered that 
 the article used was nearly half coffee, not Mocha or 
 Java, but presumably one or more of the dozens of 
 brands now on the market from tropical countries with 
 which trade has been established in recent years. 
 
 COCOA 
 
 The cocoa of commerce is chiefly prepared from the 
 seeds of the plant Theobroma cacao, which grows in 
 
42 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 the West Indies, in many South American countries, 
 and in some parts of Asia and Africa.^ 
 
 The earliest references to the chocolate plant are in 
 the accounts of the explorers who followed Columbus. 
 It appears to have been known to the inhabitants of 
 Central America from time immemorial. It was in- 
 troduced into Europe by the Spaniards in 1520, prob- 
 ably before either tea or coffee was generally known. 
 
 After its introduction it was at first only a luxury, 
 but now it is a necessity. England and the United 
 States each uses annually about three-quarters of a 
 pound a head. 
 
 The term theobroma implies food for the gods, and 
 is the name given to the plant by Linnaeus, who is said 
 to have been very fond of the beverage prepared from 
 cocoa. The Mexicans called it cacaoa quahuitl, and the 
 beverage chocolatl ; and we probably derive from these 
 native names our words cocoa and chocolate. 
 
 The cocoa bean contains 50 per cent of fat, 13 per 
 cent of nitrogenous substance, half of which is soluble, 
 about 7 per cent of a tannin-Uke principle, 4 per cent 
 of starch, and about i per cent of theobromine, an 
 alkaloid resembling theine. Thus it combines in a 
 remarkable way the important substances which con- 
 stitute a perfect food, and it is not strange that it 
 holds so high a place in popular favor. 
 
 For the highest grades of chocolate the beans are 
 selected with great care and then thoroughly cleaned 
 
 1 A clear idea of the natural history of the plant and of the modem 
 method of cultivation in South America may be obtained from The 
 Chocolate Plant and Its Products, pubUshed by the Walter Baker 
 Company. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 43 
 
 from all dust and foreign matter. The next step in 
 the process of preparing the chocolate for market is the 
 roasting, and here the utmost caution is used to secure 
 a uniform effect ; for if the seeds are under-roasted the 
 full flavor is not obtained, while in over-roasted seeds 
 the flavor is likely to become bitter. By the roasting, 
 the shells become detachable, and are removed and sold 
 as cocoa shells, while the beans, merely cracked, are 
 sold as cocoa nibs. As some time is required to 
 soften the cracked cocoa, the prepared forms are pre- 
 ferred, with or without fat. For these preparations 
 the beans are ground to an extreme fineness, so as to 
 form a perfectly homogeneous mass. If the chocolate 
 is to be a plain chocolate, it is flavored delicately and 
 poured immediately into molds. If a sweet chocolate 
 is to be made, the ground chocolate is mixed with a 
 definite proportion of perfectly pure, finely pulverized 
 sugar, flavored with the purest vanilla, and poured 
 into molds. When the chocolate is cooled and formed 
 into cakes, it is wrapped and packed for the market. 
 
 Many persons find in chocolate too much fat for 
 easy digestion. In certain preparations a definite pro- 
 portion of the oil is extracted, and we have breakfast 
 cocoa^ a valuable food even for delicate stomachs. 
 
 In inferior (not necessarily cheaper) grades of choco- 
 late chemical means are used for its preparation from 
 the seed instead of the natural physical means which 
 preserve all the characteristic virtues. For instance, 
 they may be treated with caustic or carbonated alkalies 
 to increase the solubility of the fat, and deepen the 
 color which gives an impression of greater solubility. 
 
44 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 In most cases these chemical additions are found in 
 the ash after wholly burning the preparation. 
 
 Sometimes an attempt is made to supply the loss 
 of flavor by the use of fragrant gums. 
 
 Adulterations are frequently found in the sugar 
 which is combined with chocolate, and in the vanilla. 
 Or, on account of the high price of vanilla, an artificial 
 extract is substituted. Sometimes ferruginous earths 
 have been found, and occasionally foreign fats are used. 
 
 ** In preparing chocolate as a beverage for the table 
 a mistake has frequently been made in considering it 
 merely as an adjunct to the rest of the meal, instead 
 of giving it its due prominence as a real food, contain- 
 ing all the necessary nutritive principles. A cup of 
 chocolate made with sugar and milk is in itself a fair 
 breakfast." ^ 
 
 '* Chocolate or cocoa is not properly cooked by 
 having hot water poured over it. It is true that as 
 the whole powder is in suspension and is swallowed, 
 its food material can be assimilated as it is when the 
 prepared chocolate is eaten raw ; but in order to bring 
 out the full fine flavor and to secure the most complete 
 digestibility, the preparation, whatever it be, should be 
 subjected to the boiUng point for a few minutes." ^ 
 
 Among the nations of tropical America it was the 
 custom to beat a mixture, of which chocolate was 
 the chief ingredient, into a froth by means of stirrers 
 or mallet-like implements, thus making a delicious 
 beverage. 
 
 ^ Suggestions relative to the cooking of chocolate and cocoa in 
 The Chocolate Plant and Its Products, 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 45 
 
 Thomas Gage, in his " New Survey of the West 
 Indies," says : '' The name chocolatte is an Indian 
 name, and is compounded, as some say, from atte, or 
 as others, at/e, which in the Mexican language signifieth 
 water, and from the sound which the water (wherein 
 is put the chocolate) makes, as c/ioco, choco, cJwcOy when 
 it is stirred in a cup by an instrument called a 'molinet,' 
 or 'molinillo,' until it rise and bubble into a froath." 
 
 A similar thick, foamy drink may be made by the 
 addition of one tablespoonful of cornstarch, three table- 
 spoonfuls of sugar, and two ounces of chocolate to a 
 quart of milk. The cornstarch should be mixed with 
 about a gill of cold milk, the chocolate melted with the 
 sugar over hot water, and all added to the remainder 
 of the milk just as it comes to the boiling point. If 
 a thinner beverage is desired, the cornstarch may be 
 omitted. 
 
 In making tea we make an infusion. In making 
 coffee we make either an infusion or a decoction. Now 
 in making cocoa from the nibs or the cracked cocoa, 
 we make a decoction ; that is, the cocoa must actually 
 boil. If it stands upon the stove or range, and steeps 
 without boiling, we have an infusion, and we obtain as 
 a result an intensely bitter drink. But if it boils — and 
 it is an important, curious fact the difference a few 
 degrees of heat will make — we have a smooth, oily, 
 nutty beverage, which is most agreeable to drink, and 
 very nutritious also, which the bitter beverage is not. 
 There is the same difference between an infusion and 
 a decoction of coffee, but the bitter of coffee is not so 
 unpleasant nor so marked. Tea, on the contrary, and 
 
4^ FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 also all herb teas, like mint, catnip, etc, are harsh 
 and bitter when boiled, losing all their fragrance and 
 delicate flavor. Tea is more of a mere beverage than 
 coffee, which approaches a liquid food, though not so 
 nearly as cocoa does. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MILK, BUTTER, CHEESE, EGGS 
 MILK 
 
 NEXT to water the milk supply of the family must 
 be looked to. 
 
 The milk of animals has always been used as human 
 food. In early ages it was the milk of goats, asses, etc., 
 which was common ; now, however, cow's milk is used 
 all over the world. 
 
 The composition of milk may be roughly stated as 
 follows : water, 86 per cent ; lactose, or milk sugar, 
 5.5 per cent ; milk fat, 4 per cent ; casein, or curd, 4 per 
 cent; saline matter, 0.5 per cent. The fat is held 
 in suspension in the liquid in the form of globules, of 
 which it is estimated that there are about three and 
 a half millions in every cubic millimeter. 
 
 The variations in the food value of milk are great, 
 so that it is quite probable that one man pays much 
 more than his neighbor for the same amount of nutrients. 
 
 Milk is often called the perfect food, since it contains 
 all the elements necessary for nutrition, and in the right 
 proportions. One of the greatest advances in modern 
 medicine, as well as in wholesome living, is the recog- 
 nition of milk as an article of diet, especially for invalids, 
 young people, and fever patients. Most persons can 
 
 47 
 
48 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 digest it when a little lime water is added, if it does 
 not suit them without it. 
 
 For infants milk is the important food. Until they 
 are twelve or thirteen months old it should be the only 
 food. It is essential, therefore, that the milk supplied 
 be of good quality, and from healthy, well-fed animals. 
 Unfortunately, however, it is true that the deaths 
 of many children from cholera infantum and kindred 
 diseases are due to injurious milk. 
 
 According to the secretary of the Massachusetts 
 State Board of Health, deaths from diarrhoeal diseases 
 are much more frequent among bottle-fed children than 
 among those fed on the mother's milk. He estimates 
 that ninety per cent of the deaths among children were 
 of those fed on bottle milk. A similar estimate is 
 made by New York authorities. 
 
 Since infant mortality is a direct loss to the State, 
 as well as a personal grief, communities are waking up 
 to the necessity for a careful investigation of causes, 
 and for stringent regulations as to the purity of the 
 milk.^ The deterioration in the milk of late years is 
 due largely to the change from the clean, intelligent 
 dairy woman who cared for the milk, to the hired, 
 irresponsible laborer who has no sense of cleanliness. 
 
 The ordinary cow barn is filled with dust and filth, 
 and in the summer with flies, all contributing possible 
 disease-bearing organisms. Among these are certain 
 bacteria which find an especially congenial home in 
 milk and multiply rapidly, causing the so-called lactic 
 
 1 For the question of the control of the milk supply, see Farmers' 
 Bulletin No. 42, Office of Experiment Stations; also Bulletin No. 20, 
 Bureau of Animal Industry. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 49 
 
 fermentation ; that is, the milk sugar undergoes decom- 
 position, whereby lactic acid is formed and the milk 
 becomes sour. 
 
 Inasmuch as it has been proved that milk can act 
 as a carrier of infection, the utmost care should be taken 
 in the dairy to render it impossible for the milk to be 
 exposed to any kind of impurities. 
 
 Another potent cause of poor milk is the concentra- 
 tion of consumers in the cities, necessitating the trans- 
 portation of milk from greater distances, so that it is 
 of greater age. Hence has arisen the practice of adding 
 preservatives to offset the lack of cleanliness. 
 
 But greater danger to health comes from the use 
 of milk produced under improper conditions, and from 
 diseased or wrongly fed cows, than from any substances 
 added to the milk — unless the water taken from a foul 
 well is used. 
 
 The most frequent method of adulteration is by the 
 addition of water, which reduces the nutritive value for 
 the same volume of milk. 
 
 Other adulterants are coloring matters, added to 
 give the requisite yellowness, and various chemical 
 preservatives to prevent souring. 
 
 The common belief that much of the milk sold is 
 a mixture of chalk and water is quite unfounded. 
 
 It is a wrong to sell watered milk, but it is a greater 
 wrong to use foul water to dilute the milk. The pollu- 
 tion of the milk by means of the swill-fed cow is not 
 nearly so prevalent as formerly, for a much closer watch 
 is kept by the inspector. 
 
 Since cream, which brings a higher price than milk, 
 
50 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 has come into general use, ''topped" milk is not un- 
 common. Thus, by loss of the fat, the nutritive value 
 is again reduced, and inanition of the child is the result. 
 
 While skim milk, if sold as whole milk, must be 
 considered an adulterant, it has in itself a definite food 
 value. Whole milk and skim milk contain practically 
 the same amount of protein, but the former costs at 
 least twice as much. "As a source of protein, there- 
 fore, the skim milk is twice as economical as whole 
 milk. On the other hand, the fuel value of skim milk 
 is practically but one-half that of whole milk, so that 
 a given amount of energy is given for the same price, 
 either in whole milk or skim milk."^ 
 
 Of practically the same composition as skim milk 
 is buttermilk, which is the liquid left after separating 
 the fat of the cream in butter making. To many per- 
 sons this is a more agreeable beverage than either whole 
 milk or skim milk. 
 
 The housewife should note certain evidences of good 
 and bad milk : ( i ) There should be no sediment of dirt 
 on standing. (2) There should be about one-sixth the 
 total depth of cream — the narrowing neck of a bottle 
 may make it seem even more. The milk should keep 
 sweet twenty-four hours, and when it tastes sour it 
 should separate into curds and whey, not be simply 
 a uniform white mass, as is likely to happen when soda 
 is used to keep it. 
 
 The Quarterly Bulletin of the Dairy and Food Com- 
 mission of the State of Wisconsin gives the following 
 test as "a practical means of tracing the source of 
 
 1 Farmers' Bulletin No. 72, Office of Experiment Stations. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 5 1 
 
 tainted conditions in milk. The test is made by adding 
 rennet to milk; after curdling, the curd is cut into 
 small pieces, thus allowing the whey to separate as in 
 cheese making. The drained curd is then incubated 
 at about blood heat to facilitate the rapid growth of 
 gas-forming bacteria. Organisms capable of forming a 
 gassy curd are thus able to overcome the lactic bacteria, 
 so that within six or eight hours the presence of pos- 
 sible taints may be demonstrated. Taints caused by 
 other than gas-forming organisms may also be detected 
 by this forced development. Curds made from good 
 milk occasionally show large, irregular, so-called me- 
 chanical holes, due to the lack of pressure on the curd 
 particles, while poor milks contain innumerable small 
 pin holes and possess a decidedly bad odor." 
 
 Many States have commissions to investigate the 
 conditions of dairies and creameries and to publish an 
 analysis of the results. The following from a report 
 of the Wisconsin State Commission shows the care 
 with which such investigations are pursued : 
 
 " Date, ; name of creamery, ; proprietary 
 
 or cooperative, ; location, ; owner or man- 
 ager, ; post-office address, ; name of operator, 
 
 ; he has not attended dairy school at ; num- 
 ber of patrons, ; number of pounds of milk daily, 
 
 ; number of pounds of butter daily, ; loss of 
 
 fat in skim milk, .20 per cent ; skim milk was divided 
 by automatic weigher ; there were no screen doors or 
 windows ; cream hauled to daily ; drainage under- 
 ground a distance, then to open ditch along the road ; 
 some bad odor in creamery ; location and condition of 
 
52 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 skim milk tank upstairs, not clean ; condition of build- 
 ing, fair ; the building is painted outside ; condition of 
 apparatus, poor ; condition of surroundings, fair ; con- 
 dition of patrons' milk cans, fair ; condition of milk in 
 cans, good. Remarks : A general lack of cleanliness 
 in this place." 
 
 An example of bad conditions may be taken from 
 a town in Massachusetts whose milk supply is said to 
 increase fifty per cent in summer, owing to the influx 
 of summer visitors. Of i6o dairies examined, two- 
 thirds were found with conditions to which it was 
 necessary to call the attention, not only of the owners, 
 but also of the Board of Health. 
 
 There were lOO cow barns needing a general clean- 
 ing and whitewashing. In seventy-seven cases the cows 
 were in such dirty condition that their milk could not 
 be drawn without becoming contaminated with detach- 
 able filth. In forty-four barns there was an accumula- 
 tion of manure which required removal, and forty-five 
 cow-yards contained large pools of liquid manure. In 
 one case the owner bedded his cows in horse manure. 
 In four barns the privy was situated directly behind 
 the cows, and in one the floor was made to serve as a 
 privy. 
 
 The Illinois Experiment Station has issued an excel- 
 lent bulletin (No. 91, December, 1903) on preventing 
 the contamination of milk. 
 
 The Storrs Experiment Station of Connecticut in 
 June, 1906, issued Bulletin No. 42, considering the 
 quahty of milk as affected by common dairy practices. 
 
 Encouragement to produce good milk is needed 
 instead of a cry against bad milk. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS §3 
 
 // always costs to be clean^ and clean milk costs 
 more to produce and deliver. Several right-minded 
 persons have tested the public's willingness and have 
 found it wanting. This must be remedied. 
 
 If housewives would unite in demanding certified 
 milk, and be willing to pay for it, the quality would 
 rapidly improve. It is poor policy to balk at an increase 
 in price which means health and even life, instead of 
 illness and death, to thousands of children. 
 
 Too loud a note cannot be sounded in warning, but 
 it must be based on truth, not on exaggeration. The 
 twentieth century woman should not allow herself to 
 be imposed upon by sensational literature, but should 
 inform herself of local conditions. 
 
 Cooperation is here a necessity, and should be sup- 
 ported as a business venture. 
 
 CONDENSED MILK 
 
 The extremely unstable character of milk, and the 
 consequent difficulty of transportation and preservation 
 for any length of time, have led to the adoption of 
 various processes for concentrating the valuable con- 
 stituents, which are only about 14 per cent of the 
 weight, into a smaller bulk and more stable condition. 
 The usual process consists in simple concentration. 
 The milk is evaporated in vacuum pans, and toward the 
 end heated to 212° F., in order to destroy any germs 
 of mold. It is put up in tin cans, sealed hermetically, 
 and may then be kept any length of time. Sometimes 
 a little sugar is added. In either case, the product is 
 sold as condensed milk, which often contains about 
 one-third as much water as the original liquid. 
 
54 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Evaporated milk is offered as a solution of the 
 problem of supplying a safe milk for children and 
 invalids during the summer months. It is pure milk 
 evaporated, without the addition of sugar, in a vacuum 
 pan at a temperature of about 130° F., or below 
 150° F., which is much lower than that at which con- 
 densed milk is usually prepared. At this low tem- 
 perature the milk is far less changed from its normal 
 condition, and is more digestible than is the case when 
 it is heated to boiling. 
 
 CREAM 
 
 When milk is allowed to stand at rest for some 
 hours, the fat globules rise to the top, forming a layer 
 from one-tenth to one-fifth of the total thickness. This 
 layer, rich in fat, is called cream, and contains from 
 20 to 40 per cent of fat. 
 
 A sign of increasing prosperity and of more luxu- 
 rious living is the extensive use of cream purchased as 
 cream. Apartment dwellers have no facilities for ''set- 
 ting" the several quarts of milk needed to supply the 
 breakfast table with this esteemed adjunct to the coffee, 
 fruit, and cereal, even if the milk could be delivered 
 to them in a sweet condition. 
 
 The separator at the dairy, a truly modern machine, 
 does in a few minutes the work of hours in dividing 
 most of the fat from the fluid emulsion without churn- 
 ing it to butter. Reduced to one-fifth the bulk, it is 
 much more easily transported and delivered to cus- 
 tomers. It is sold as heavy or thin cream. 
 
 Probably this use of cream has been the means of 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 55 
 
 abolishing the now berated American breakfast of steak 
 or eggs and bacon with hot breads. 
 
 The good prices obtained for cream have doubtless 
 led to some abuses, such as the addition of thickening 
 substances and preservatives. Sucrate of lime, or vis- 
 cogen, is not in itself harmful, nor does it injure the 
 cream. If, however, a person is avoiding the use of lime 
 salts in water and other foods, this unknown amount 
 of the forbidden substance may prove hurtful. Gela- 
 tin is not an objectionable article of diet when properly 
 prepared, but as a thickener of cream it is out of place. 
 
 Cream naturally thickens on standing, owing to the 
 chemical changes in even clean cream. 
 
 Sterilized cream has not quite the flavor of fresh 
 cream, but it is safer than dirty cream unsteriUzed. 
 Fortunately, cream is very easily changed in taste and 
 odor by foreign substances, and therefore is not so 
 deceptive as other adulterated products. 
 
 The use of cream instead of milk for infants renders 
 it imperative that the public generally should be awake 
 to the conditions of the cream market and should sus- 
 tain the city and state authorities in their endeavors 
 to protect the helpless children. 
 
 The matter is in the hands of the buyer. If he 
 will use only certified milk and cream, then the laws 
 can be enforced. 
 
 BUTTER 
 
 Butter is a very important article of diet, especially 
 in English-speaking countries. It is of all animal fats 
 the favorite, not only on account of its pleasant taste, 
 
56 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 but because it is the most easily digested. Butter with 
 bread forms an almost perfect food. 
 
 Herodotus, in his account of the Scythians, makes 
 an obscure mention of butter, and this is the earliest 
 reference known. Dioscorides is the first to observe 
 that when melted and poured over vegetables it serves 
 the same purpose as oil, and that it can be used in 
 pastry. It is not mentioned by Galen, or other writers 
 of his time, as food, and indeed to this day it is little 
 used in southern countries, so that it might almost be 
 said to be a product of northern civilization in its 
 present uses. There is undoubted evidence that butter 
 was well known to the Anglo-Saxons and used for 
 salves and medicines. 
 
 Butter is prepared by separating the fats from the 
 water and curd of milk by agitation, which causes the 
 lighter particles of fat to rise. These then are collected 
 and worked into a homogeneous mass„ This process 
 seems to be very successfully accomplished at present 
 by the centrifugal machine. 
 
 Good butter consists of fats, water, and curd. The 
 water varies from 8 to 16 per cent. Over 16 per cent 
 is injurious to the keeping of butter. There should 
 not be over i per cent of curd left, because it tends to 
 grow rancid and mold, thus tainting the butter. 
 
 The manufacture of butter has passed from the 
 care of the farmer's wife to that of the company em- 
 ployee — to its advantage in some respects, but with 
 certain deteriorations. 
 
 The skilled dairy woman, with a pride in the flavor 
 and keeping qualities of her product, furnished an arti- 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS ^y 
 
 cle rarely found today, in spite of the artificial ripening 
 of the cream by B^i, or whatever bacterium is the 
 favorite. On the other hand, creamery butter is of a 
 more uniform quality and better flavor than the butter 
 of ignorant and careless butter makers. 
 
 There is a great temptation to cheat the pigs to 
 increase the yield of the valuable product, butter, by 
 stuffing with the curd. The old-fashioned country but- 
 ter, packed in tubs to keep eight months, contained 
 only I o to 12 per cent water and curd. The creamery 
 butter of today, especially the light-colored, unsalted 
 variety, frequently contains 20 per cent water and 5 to 
 10 per cent curd, lessening its fuel value, although 
 increasing its nitrogenous value, which is not what we 
 expect to pay for in butter. The author has found as 
 high as 33 per cent of curd. 
 
 This excess of curd does not injure the flavor, but 
 rather adds to it when fresh. Since, however, 'it is 
 more readily attacked by decomposing organisms which 
 give very disagreeable tastes and odors, such butter 
 soon spoils and may become dangerous. It should 
 therefore be eaten while fresh. 
 
 The United States standard for fat is not less than 
 82.5 per cent. 
 
 Butter is very sensitive to unpleasant odors, and 
 must be kept with great care, in closed vessels, since 
 even a few hours' exposure to ordinary air injures the 
 delicate flavor. It would be well if all girls could serve 
 an apprenticeship in a good dairy for a few weeks, in 
 order to learn cleanliness. 
 
 The ;o to S6 per cent of butter fats are for the 
 
58 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 most part identical with those in ohve and palm oils, 
 and in other animal fats ; but the peculiar flavor of 
 butter is due to the presence of 5 to 8 per cent 
 of butyric, capric, caprylic, and caproic acids. These 
 fatty acids are much less stable than oleic, palmitic, 
 and stearic acids, which are often called the fixed fatty 
 acids. In butter, human fat, and goose fat, palmitic 
 acid is the most abundant. It is so named from its 
 occurrence in palm oil. Oleic acid is common to these 
 fats, and to beef, mutton, and hog fats. Stearic acid 
 is found in small quantities in butter, while it is a chief 
 and constant constituent of beef tallow. 
 
 During the Franco-German War, in 1870-71, a 
 French chemist, Mege-Mouries, invented a process for 
 obtaining from other animal fats the fatty acids com- 
 mon to them and to butter, and making from them 
 a very fair artificial butter, for the use of the French 
 army. The name oleomargarine is derived from the 
 fatty acids present — oleic and margaric, as the mixture 
 of stearic and palmitic acids was formerly called. 
 
 Oleomargarine and butterine are prepared in a sim- 
 ilar manner from oleo oil (beef fat) or neutral lard and 
 milk by churning and salting and coloring to imitate 
 butter. These are wholesome food products, and their 
 use furnishes a much needed fat to an economical diet. 
 As a rule oleo keeps better than creamery butter, and 
 if the latter is loaded with curd the oleo has a higher 
 food value. But they should be sold under their own 
 names. 
 
 Rarely has there been a fraud so difficult to 
 detect, since not only the apparent but the real 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 59 
 
 differences between genuine and artificial butter are 
 but slight. Yet careful chemical analysis will show 
 about 87 per cent of fixed fatty acids in butter, 
 and about 95 per cent in the fats used in making 
 artificial butter. 
 
 Reichert's process of determining the volatile acids 
 peculiar to butter answers well in skilled hands. An 
 analytical chemist has little difficulty in deciding upon 
 the quality of a suspected sample. The expense at- 
 tending such an examination, however, prevents its 
 application as often as is desirable. The detection of 
 the crystals of the different fats, as proposed by Taylor, 
 may be an important aid. Some simple and easily ap- 
 pUed test is much to be desired, but the public yet 
 awaits its discovery. 
 
 Butter which has become rancid may be sweetened 
 or ** renovated " on a large scale by a process long used 
 by the housewife in essential. It is melted, the curd 
 and brine allowed to settle, and the scum removed ; the 
 butter fat is then aerated by a current of air blown 
 through it in some cases to take out disagreeable odors, 
 and then churned with milk, whole or skimmed, cooled, 
 and packed. This butter will not keep as long as 
 fresh, well-worked butter, and if sold without a correct 
 label is a fraud. 
 
 The carrot and certain weeds served the farmer for 
 his butter color. The dairies used annato, but the 
 creameries find the coal tar yellows preferable. These 
 may be detected by boiling bits of silk or wool in an 
 alcohohc solution of the butter fat with the addition 
 of water and cream of tartar. 
 
60 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 One of the State chemists says, ''The practice of 
 coloring butter is now so firmly fixed, and the taste 
 of consumers so bent to the false standard, that it is 
 not probable that it will ever be abandoned." 
 
 CHEESE 
 
 Good cheese is composed of the total solids of milk 
 curdled by rennet before the milk sours. Poor cheese 
 is made from skimmed milk, and hence has less fat. 
 Cheese is really a condensed milk, less the sugar and 
 part of the mineral salts, and is a valuable article of 
 diet, replacing meat, to a great extent, with those whose 
 stomachs it suits ; but on account of unjustifiable preju- 
 dice it is much neglected. One pound of dry cheese is 
 estimated to contain as much nitrogenous substance as a 
 pound or a pound and a half of beef as purchased. The 
 rind of the cheese may have been brushed over with 
 some metallic salt to preserve it from the attacks of 
 fungi, etc, so that it is well to pare it off before eating. 
 
 The ripening of cheese has been the subject of 
 much study. 
 
 The dairy schools give close attention to the pro- 
 duction of all varieties, and very soon American cheese 
 may be had of any desired quality, instead of the for- 
 mer crude, tough substance that is digested only with 
 difficulty. 
 
 The great advantage of cheese is that it may be put 
 up on the dairy farm under cleanly conditions and then 
 transported and kept without change, being too con- 
 centrated for ready decomposition. 
 
 Dangerous preservatives rarely find their way into 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 6i 
 
 cheeses. " Filled " cheese has the butter fat replaced 
 by foreign fats, such as lard and cotton seed oil. 
 
 Composition of Different Kinds of Cheese i 
 
 Cheddar ....... 
 
 Cheshire 
 
 Stilton 
 
 Brie 
 
 Neufchatel 
 
 Roquefort 
 
 Edam 
 
 Swiss 
 
 Full cream, mean of 143 
 analyses 
 
 Water. 
 
 Casein. 
 
 Fat. 
 
 Sugar. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 34.38 
 
 26.38 
 
 32-71 
 
 2.95 
 
 32-59 
 
 32-51 
 
 26.06 
 
 4.53 
 
 30-35 
 
 28.85 
 
 35-39 
 
 1-59 
 
 50-35 
 
 17.18 
 
 25.12 
 
 1.94 
 
 44-47 
 
 14.60 
 
 33-70 
 
 4-24 
 
 31.20 
 
 27-63 
 
 33-^^ 
 
 2.00 
 
 36.28 
 
 24.06 
 
 30.26 
 
 4.60 
 
 35.80 
 
 24.44 
 
 37.40 
 
 • • 
 
 38.60 
 
 25-35 
 
 30.25 
 
 2.03 
 
 Ash. 
 
 Per cent. 
 3-58 
 4-31 
 3.83 
 
 5-41 
 2.99 
 6.01 
 
 4-90 
 2.36 
 
 4.07 
 
 EGGS 
 
 Eggs contain all the necessary constituents of food 
 in the most concentrated form — so concentrated as 
 to be unsuited for the whole of the daily ration. For 
 convalescents they are invaluable when they can be 
 obtained fresh. 
 
 Eggs as bought consist of about 1 1 per cent shell, 
 32 per cent yolk, and 57 per cent egg-white or albumen. 
 The yolk has the highest food value because it contains 
 less water and more fat. Egg-white contains 86.2 per 
 cent water, 12.3 per cent proteid, 0.2 per cent fat. 
 Egg-yolk contains 49.5 per cent water, 15.7 per cent 
 proteid, 33.3 per cent fat. The yolk contains more 
 mineral matter and is an especially valuable food in 
 anaemic and nervous conditions. 
 
 The egg production of the United States is one of 
 
 1 Table compiled by Woll, in Leach, p. 158. 
 
62 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 the most important and valuable. It is estimated at 
 not less than a billion dozens. Dietary studies have 
 shown that eggs constitute three per cent of the total 
 food. 
 
 The normal eggshell has a natural coating of mu- 
 cilaginous matter which prevents the various micro- 
 organisms from passing through, at least for a time ; 
 but if this is washed or rubbed off putrefaction sets in 
 and proceeds with rapidity because of the rich food 
 material. 
 
 Water evaporates through the pores of the shell, 
 so that old, unvarnished eggs are of greater specific 
 gravity than new-laid. 
 
 Cold storage in a fairly moist atmosphere is the 
 usual method of keeping and transporting eggs. They 
 must be kept by themselves as they absorb odors very 
 readily. 
 
 Various methods of preserving — packing in oatmeal 
 or bran, covering with brine or lime water, treating with 
 salicylic acid, varnishing with collodion or shellac — 
 have been tried, with a usual loss of half the pack. 
 
 At the North Dakota Experiment Station marked 
 success has been obtained by coating the fresh, un- 
 washed eggs with a dilute solution of water glass (one 
 part of the thick, not too alkaline syrup as purchased 
 to ten parts of water). These eggs are said to keep 
 all their qualities, even that of beating up well for 
 frosting. 
 
 Desiccated eggs have been successfully prepared for 
 provisioning camps and expeditions. The water being 
 removed enables four times the food value to be carried 
 in the same weight. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 63 
 
 Several egg substitutes have appeared on the mar- 
 ket. One of considerable food value is said to be made 
 from skim milk and flour, probably slightly colored. 
 Others seem to be chiefly starch highly colored. These 
 cannot replace eggs in the diet, since they contain little 
 nitrogen and almost no fat. 
 
 One '* remarkable substitute for fresh eggs" has 
 recently been put upon the market with the claim that 
 ''the contents of this can is equal to and will do the 
 work of thirty-six fresh eggs." Examination shows it 
 to consist almost wholly of artificially colored corn meal. 
 The most astonishing thing about such frauds is that 
 intelligent women can be found to buy them. The 
 German immigrant woman would know better. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CEREAL FOODS BARLEY, RICE, OATS, MAIZE, 
 
 RYE, AND WHEAT 
 
 THE term cereals has come to have a limited 
 significance since the universal introduction of 
 breakfast foods. 
 
 The public needs to be reminded that there are 
 only six or seven grains in common use and that the 
 365 brands of cereals must be made from these, and 
 therefore that the same thing must be sold under many 
 names. 
 
 Cereals all belong to the family of grasses, and some 
 member of the group flourishes in every latitude. Bar- 
 ley grows even within the arctic circle, and thence 
 southward are found, in the following order, oats, rye, 
 wheat, maize, while within the tropics rice is found. 
 The seeds of these plants have been used for the food 
 of man from time immemorial. They are the most 
 abundant of all food substances. The Egyptians have 
 a tradition that barley was the first to be so used. 
 
 A general description will serve for all the seeds or 
 kernels. The shape is from round to oval or oblong, 
 with a groove on one side running the length of the 
 kernel. This indentation serves to protect the germ 
 which it incloses. Outside the germ are usually rec- 
 ognized three layers. The outer layer, which serves 
 to hold the inner ones compactly together and to keep 
 
 64 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 6$ 
 
 them dry, is made up chiefly of woody fiber, or cellu- 
 lose, and is comparatively worthless for the purpose of 
 nutrition. Next there are in most grains one or more 
 layers of cells which contain nitrogenous and phos- 
 phatic compounds ; while within, forming the body of 
 the seed, is found the mass of starch granules, larger 
 and smaller, with intermingled cells of the glutinous or 
 albuminoid constituents. All these are supported in a 
 loose framework of cellular tissue. The proportion of 
 these constituents varies greatly in the different grains 
 and in varieties of the same grain. Rice has the largest 
 proportion of starch, and oats contain the most oily and 
 phosphatic material. 
 
 The term Jiour is often used to designate the meal 
 or powder obtained by the grinding of any species of 
 grain or seed. But the use of the word in the United 
 States is for the most part limited to the finely ground 
 portion, the more starchy portion ; while by the term 
 meal — a Saxon word meaning finely ground, soft to 
 the touch — is understood the product- of the grinding 
 of the whole grain. Both terms are generic, and are 
 qualified by a descriptive adjective, as wheat flour, 
 corn meal, etc. 
 
 Barley and rice are for the most part cooked whole ; 
 oats and maize are coarsely crushed ; while wheat and 
 rye are finely ground and separated into the flour, 
 or white sifted starch and gluten, and the husk or 
 bran which is left after the bolting, as the sifting is 
 technically called. 
 
 The greatest change in the habits of food consump- 
 tion which the last twenty years has developed is in 
 
66 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 the greatly increased use of prepared cereals — both 
 cereals which may be cooked quickly and those which 
 may be eaten uncooked. 
 
 There are several causes contributing to this result- 
 Chief of these is the money to be made by the quick 
 marketing of a popular food. When a particular name 
 begins to pall, the same material, or that combination 
 with a slight variation in appearance, is put on the 
 market under a new name. Prizes are offered for a 
 name which will sell the packages most quickly. Much 
 ingenuity has been spent on this manufacture of cereals 
 into new shapes, and more on the advertising descrip- 
 tion of them. The constant demand for something 
 new, as if Burbank could indeed use the wizard's wand 
 on the grain fields, has flooded the market with pre- 
 pared foods — a brand for every day in the year made 
 from the varieties of grains known for thousands of 
 years. 
 
 The introduction of gas stoves and the habit of a 
 continental or meatless breakfast, often eaten in the 
 living room, have created a demand for a tasty cereal 
 to be served without the trouble of cooking. A morbid 
 craving for variety and the too often poor quality of the 
 cooked cereal served in boarding houses and hotels has 
 also favored the use of the various ''flakes," which make 
 such admirable conveyors of cream and which crackle 
 so delightfully. 
 
 There is httle cause for alarm as to the introduction 
 of poisonous substances into these products. It may 
 be possible that in some cases impure chemicals have 
 been used, but it is very doubtful if direct addition of 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 6/ 
 
 poison has occurred. The chief danger is to be found 
 in the ignorance of the public as to food values and the 
 needs of the body. 
 
 In order to furnish the heat and energy for a day's 
 work or pleasure at least eight or ten ounces of carbo- 
 hydrates and three ounces of fats are needed. These 
 fluffy, flaky materials occupy space, but have little 
 weight compared with more solid food. Therefore the 
 consumer is apt to be deceived as to the quantity. 
 Again, these foods are partly transformed or predi- 
 gested, so that they pass quickly into circulation, giving 
 a satisfied feeling, which soon passes, leaving a hunger 
 liable to be quieted by nibbling at candy, chocolate, 
 or crackers between meals. 
 
 If deluged with rich cream and sugar the food 
 value of the dish is greatly enhanced. The addition 
 of the sugar, however, for a breakfast dish is not to 
 be recommended. Fermentations inimical to the best 
 assimilation of food are Ukely to arise. 
 
 It is interesting to note that in the recent discussion 
 of pure food legislation the clause requiring the weight 
 to be put on the package failed of enactment. That 
 would have affected the cereal foods, for when many 
 housewives realize that they pay twenty-five cents a 
 pound for some fancy name, but for no more food 
 value than they can obtain for two and a half or three 
 cents, then they will count the cost of gas and time 
 to see if they can afford the difference. 
 
 Full analyses and descriptions of the important 
 brands have been made by the states of Wyoming, 
 Maine, and Connecticut, for instance. From the pub- 
 lished facts the following comparison is compiled : 
 
68 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Bulletin No. 84, Maine Experiment Station, 1902, 
 Orono, Me. 
 
 cereal breakfast foods 
 
 Market Price 
 
 Nichols Snow White Samp 
 
 Quaker Oats 
 
 Nichols Pearl Hominy . 
 
 Quaker Rolled White Oats 
 
 Pettijohn's Breakfast Food 
 
 Cream of Wheat . 
 
 Malt Breakfast Food . 
 
 Wheatena 
 
 Grape-Nuts . 
 
 Shredded Whole Wheat 
 
 Force .... 
 
 Flaked Rice . 
 
 Granose Flakes 
 
 Granula 
 
 Cost 
 
 per pound 
 
 Cents 
 
 2.1 
 
 6.3 
 
 7.0 
 
 9.4 
 10.7 
 14.6 
 15.0 
 16.5 
 18.2 
 22.4 
 27.2 
 
 For ten cents one buys of the last named 6j'j heat 
 units of food value, and of the first 8,200 heat units — 
 enough for nearly three days' ration. The cost of gas 
 for cooking is, however, to be taken into account. 
 
 TJie truth about breakfast foods is that the house- 
 wife saves time and trouble at considerable cost to her 
 pocket. 
 
 The Bulletin says : " Of the fifty brands recently 
 collected only twenty-one are found in the list of three 
 years ago. There seems to be a tendency on the part 
 of manufacturers to substitute new and attractive names 
 for a product that has been before the public for some 
 time." 
 
 This is caused in part by the deterioration which 
 
AMD THEIR ADULTERATIONS 69 
 
 the manufacturers permit, either by the packages be- 
 coming stale and even wormy or by less care in pro- 
 duction. During the time of introduction the new 
 name means fresh material. 
 
 Rolled oats, and some other grains, are softened by 
 steaming raw, crushed by rolls, and then dried so as 
 to keep. ■ The starch is then more soluble. Sometimes 
 the heat is dry heat, either at first or after steaming, 
 and then there is a dextrinizing and browning, like the 
 crust of bread. 
 
 The malted foods are mixed with barley and partly 
 predigested. 
 
 These prepared cereals have their place, but the 
 family provider, not the manufacturer, should decide 
 what that place shall be in each case. 
 
 The lazy habit of obtaining information (.?) from the 
 label, instead of developing common sense and real 
 knowledge, is responsible for most of these drains on 
 the pocket. 
 
 As stated before, it is within the power of every 
 housewife to know, and the bureau of information 
 should find a place in every club. 
 
 As to the loss in food value by this predigestion of 
 the prepared foods the last word has not been said. 
 Cooking doubtless changes the relations of the various 
 ingredients, but the waste within the body of the mushy 
 cereals may cause some to be more than double the 
 value of others. 
 
 The steam cooking either does not develop or dis- 
 sipates the flavor, so that one tires of the mush or adds 
 sugar — a dietetic sin — and cream and fruits. In this 
 
yO FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 respect the flaked and toasted varieties are more 
 ''tasty," if not more digestible, as they may well prove, 
 however, if thoroughly masticated. 
 
 BARLEY 
 
 Barley belongs to the genus Hoj'deum. It is prob- 
 ably a native of Northern or Central Asia, but it has a 
 remarkable power of adapting itself to a great range 
 of temperature, and has a wider distribution than wheat 
 or oats. On the eastern continent its culture extends 
 from 70° north latitude to 42° south, and in Amer- 
 ica from 62° north to 20° south. Its use as an article 
 of food is coeval with the history of man. It yields a 
 greater produce per acre than any other grain except 
 rice. It was largely cultivated by the Romans, and 
 used chiefly as food for horses. In England, in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, it was commonly 
 used as the food of the people because it grew readily 
 in any part of the kingdom. Since improved means 
 of transportation have brought all countries within a 
 few days of each other, wheat is carried to lands in 
 which it will not thrive, and people no longer need to 
 live on the produce of their own soil. Barley has less 
 starch and more cellulose, mineral matter, and fat than 
 rice. It is largely used for the manufacture of beer, 
 being better suited for it than the other grains. Its 
 flavor should commend it to the intelligent consumer 
 for more varied use. 
 
 RICE 
 
 Perhaps no other food stuff has been so misrepre- 
 sented as rice. On the one hand, it is often stated in 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS /I 
 
 print and in conversation that rice is " only starch and 
 has no nutritive value." On the other hand, the Chi- 
 nese and Japanese and other East Indian people are 
 said to ''live on rice." It has been represented, in the 
 case of the recent war, that the Japanese soldiers went 
 through this strenuous campaign on rice. 
 
 This only illustrates the need of universal education 
 in the matter of food values. Under the direction of 
 Prof. W. O. At water this subject was thoroughly in- 
 vestigated by the United States government at the 
 time of the Chicago Exposition with reference to sev- 
 eral groups quartered in the Midway, especially in the 
 case of the Java village. Other studies of the dietary 
 habits of so-called rice-eating people have been made 
 on the spot with the same general result, namely, that 
 rice is found to take the place of bread, potatoes, and 
 vegetables — in a word, furnishes the pound of starch 
 a day which other nations take in a variety of forms. 
 
 Since rice contains only a small proportion of either 
 fat or nitrogenous compounds, it cannot form the sole 
 food of human beings for any length of time, but the 
 great bulk of cooked rice has misled many observers, 
 and caused them to overlook the concentrated nitrog- 
 enous food which always accompanies it. For instance, 
 the Java village people brought with them potted fish 
 roe to furnish in large degree the needed nitrogen. 
 The Chinese in San Francisco import from China dried 
 ducks' livers and hard-boiled ducks' eggs. All the 
 peoples who have been investigated use meats, chicken, 
 ducks, fish, or some other form of proteid supply. 
 They do not use this in the wasteful excess in which 
 
*J2 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 American communities usually revel, but in a sufficient 
 quantity, as a rule. It is the fat which is more often 
 lacking in their diet. 
 
 Rice is admirably adapted to serve as a conveyor 
 of fat and proteid, in the form of cheese, for instance. 
 
 Different varieties show differing food values. The 
 Japanese variety is richer in nitrogen substances. 
 
 The rice of commerce is the product of the grass 
 Oryza sativa, probably a native of the East Indies, but 
 cultivated in all portions of tropical and subtropical 
 regions. It forms the principal food of nearly one- 
 third of the human race, and enters largely into the 
 diet of all civilized nations. It has been known in 
 China for 5,000 years. The outer coat of woody fiber 
 does not adhere closely and is easily removed, so that, 
 as sent to market, the shelled grain is the inner or 
 starch kernel. The wild rice of North America be- 
 longs to another genus, Zinania aqiiatica. It grows 
 in the north temperate regions, and deserves more no- 
 tice than it has hitherto received. Rice flour is now 
 largely used in the adulteration of many finely ground 
 foods and of condiments. 
 
 " History tells us that the first rice grown in this 
 country was introduced in 1695 by the captain of a 
 brig from Madagascar, who gave some seed to Governor 
 Smith and his friends to experiment with, and the re- 
 sult has been an important industry. The rices which 
 chance introduction had brought in were looked upon 
 as the finest in quality in the world and were exported 
 to Europe.; but with the call for a whiter and more 
 polished product than the hand-threshed rice of plan- 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 73 
 
 tation days came machine-polished rice, and the center 
 of the rice industry was transferred to Louisiana and 
 Texas by the discovery of artesian wells in those states. 
 
 **The machine-polished rice that we buy in this 
 country today is, as every one knows, a truly beautiful 
 thing to look at, but as tasteless as the paste that a 
 paper hanger brushes on his rolls of wall paper. The 
 leather rollers of the machine not only rub off all the 
 fine outer layer of nutritious matter, and with it the part 
 that gives flavor to the kernels, but they often break 
 the long, slender grains that characterize the famous 
 Carolina golden rice. This breakage is so great that the 
 Louisiana growers begged for assistance, and the new 
 Office of Plant Introduction sent Dr. S. A. Knapp to 
 Japan in search of a short-kerneled variety that would 
 not break in the milling process. Today Dr. Knapp 
 declares that one-half of all the rice grown in Louisiana 
 and Texas is the Kiushu rice that had its origin in the 
 introduction made in 1899. 
 
 '' This new rice has reduced . the breakage from 
 forty to ten per cent, and has at the same time brought 
 into culture a more productive rice. It has not done 
 away with the pernicious practice of polishing, but an 
 interest in the unpolished rice has lately been aroused 
 that, it is hoped, will lead to the abandonment of a 
 practice which robs the buyer of nearly all of the 
 flavoring matter of the rice and leaves only the starchy 
 portion. It is a disgrace that the most intelligent na- 
 tion in the world should be so ignorant of the food 
 value of the crop on which more people live than on 
 any other, that they should insist on having their rice 
 
74 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 made as shiny as polished glass beads, although in so 
 doing they are throwing away the best part of it. No 
 rice-eating people treat their rice as we do, and it is to 
 be hoped that the small markets that have been started 
 for the unpolished rice will lead to a general propaganda 
 in its favor." ^ 
 
 OATS 
 
 Oatmeal is prepared from two species, Avena sativa 
 and Avena orientalis, which belong to the same natural 
 order as wheat. This grain grows best in a cool, moist 
 climate. Its native country is not known with cer- 
 tainty. There is evidence that the plant was known in 
 Britain in 1296, and mention is made of the use of oat- 
 meal porridge as an article of food in 1596. In 1698 
 the consumption of oatmeal was second only to barley, 
 but wheat has gradually taken its place in Southern 
 England. By kiln-drying and removing the husk, 
 groats or grits are obtained, which, when ground, yield 
 oatmeal. The husk is not as completely removed as in 
 the case of rice, and the meal is not as white as wheat 
 meal. Although it contains a large proportion of nitrog- 
 enous matter, it is not in the form of the tenacious 
 gluten of wheat ; hence it will not make light or porous 
 bread. Oatmeal is not as easily digested as wheat flour, 
 and as a staple article of diet it is best suited to persons 
 who are much in the open air ; but a portion of the 
 morning meal may advantageously be of this very 
 nutritious grain. Blyth says that in England it is 
 sometimes adulterated with barley meal. 
 
 1 National Geographic Magazine, April, 1906. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 75 
 
 MAIZE 
 
 Maize (Zea mays) is remarkable in the order of 
 grasses for the large size of its grains, and for the 
 heads into which they are collected. It grows wild in 
 the neighborhood of Mexico and in tropical America, 
 and has now been introduced into every quarter of the 
 globe, though it cannot be relied upon as a field crop 
 in Great Britain. It has been said that what wheat is 
 in Europe and rice in Asia, maize is in America. 
 
 Maize, or Indian corn, as it is called in the United 
 States, was not much consumed in England until the 
 year of the potato famine, in 1846, when hominy 
 was imported. Now millions of pounds are annually 
 imported, chiefly from the Black and Mediterranean 
 Sea borders. It is the leading cereal crop in the 
 United States, four times as much as wheat being 
 grown. It is an excellent food, easily digested and 
 very nutritious. It is much used for the preparation 
 of starch and for ''infants' foods." The starch is 
 separated, and used in place of the more costly arrow- 
 root. It is used in the manufacture of glucose, 
 whisky, etc, and is fed to animals. 
 
 RYE 
 
 As a food rye possesses advantages which entitle it 
 to a more careful cultivation and a wider use. It is less 
 irritating to the digestive tract than wheat, and its flavor 
 in combination with other grains would give a greater 
 variety of breads. 
 
 Rye {Secale ccrale) is nearly allied to wheat. The 
 grains are smaller, and the flour not so white. It is 
 
76 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 very rich in nitrogenous substances. It grows a little 
 farther north than wheat flourishes, and it thrives on a 
 sandy soil too poor for any other grain. The bread 
 made from rye flour is not so white and light as that 
 made from wheat flour, but it is extensively used in 
 Europe. The chief objection to its use is, that it is 
 liable to be injured by a fungus, which produces an 
 appearance like a spur, and which is called ergot. If 
 these swelled grains are ground with the others, the 
 flour is rendered unwholesome and even dangerous. 
 
 WHEAT 
 
 Wheat flour is prepared from the seeds of Triticiim 
 sativum. The cultivation of wheat has superseded that 
 of all other grains in climates where it will thrive (in 
 the temperate zone as far as 60° north), but in the 
 Middle Ages it was food for the wealthy classes only. 
 Its use has been constantly on the increase, until it is 
 now food for all classes. 
 
 The reason seems to be, that bread made from it 
 has no unpleasant or pronounced taste, so that the most 
 fastidious palate does not become weary of it, and has 
 a light, spongy, or porous character, quite peculiar to 
 the wheat loaf. This adapts it for ready digestion, and 
 is due to the peculiar nature of gluten, which in good 
 flour is very elastic, and when the moistened dough is 
 compressed causes it to spring back again to its place. 
 
 The quality of the prepared flour is dependent upon 
 the variety of wheat, the curing of the ripened grain, 
 and the process of grinding. 
 
 There are two kinds of wheat, the hard and the soft, 
 which are referred to in the description of the grinding. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 7/ 
 
 The curing of wheat is of the utmost importance, 
 for if the grain is allowed to become damp and moldy 
 a disagreeable flavor will be communicated to the flour. 
 
 Among other quick methods of producing effects 
 formerly gained only by time is that of aging flour 
 by electricity. This bleaches the flours, and may 
 permit of the admixture of a less white or lower grade 
 flour. According to an advertisement in a recent issue 
 of the Modern Miller, two-thirds of the flour manu- 
 factured in the United States is so aged. Such flour 
 appears to give a test for nitrites by the method used 
 for water. 
 
 For grinding two processes are used, which are 
 known as high and low milling. In early times the 
 kernels were brayed in a mortar, and later they were 
 ground between stones. Low milling is a grinding be- 
 tween two large, round stones, one or both revolving 
 at so small a distance from each other as to crush the 
 kernels, which are caught, as it were, by radial grooves 
 in the stones. The wheat is often moistened in grind- 
 ing, as it is thought to be more readily crushed. The 
 heat developed is considerable, so that the tempera- 
 ture of the flour as it comes from the stones is about 
 120° F. The heating, and the grinding of a portion of 
 the husk so fine that it sifts with the body of the grain, 
 are the chief objections to this method. It is thought 
 that the heat may change somewhat the character of 
 the gluten, rendering it less tenacious, and so the flour 
 less fit for the making of light bread. The action is 
 purely a single crushing, and was used for the softer 
 kinds of wheat. High milling, which is a succession of 
 
78 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 crackings, or of slight and partial crushings, alternating 
 with sifting and sorting, is better adapted to hard 
 wheat. There is also a mixture of the two processes 
 called half high milling. 
 
 In general, the modern commercial process may be 
 described as follows : The wheat is first cleaned, then 
 passes to a series of cylindrical rolls arranged at dis- 
 tances so graded that when the wheat kernel passes 
 between the first set it is merely cracked ; then the 
 fragments drop between the next set and are again 
 cracked, and so on, each set pulverizing a little finer 
 than the preceding one. In this way the husk is no; 
 bruised, only flattened out and loosened so that the 
 dry starch granules drop out. The flour is not heated, 
 since it is not subjected to friction, and since it falls 
 through the cool air between each set of rolls. At each 
 grinding the fine flour is removed by bolting, and finally 
 all the different streams are blended to form different 
 grades of flour. It is thought that the separation of 
 the non-nutritious portion is also more complete, and 
 hence that the flour is richer in the phosphates and ni- 
 trogenous substances which are found in the layer of 
 cells next the husk. Since there are no particles of 
 bran in the high-milled flour it is whiter, and since it 
 has been ground dry it has less moisture and will keep 
 longer. 
 
 Low milling yields about 80 per cent of flours of 
 various grades, differing comparatively little from each 
 other. High milHng yields about 75 per cent of mer- 
 chantable flour, 72 per cent being straight grade or 
 ordinary white flour. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 79 
 
 Flour for household use will perhaps average 70 per 
 cent of starch and dextrin, about 7 per cent each of 
 sugar, mineral matter, and cellulose, i per cent of fat, 
 and about 15 per cent of albuminous or nitrogenous 
 substances. These constituents are so proportioned 
 as to render wheat flour a highly nutritious food, 
 capable by itself of sustaining life and health. 
 
 "The durum wheat, from which the bread of the 
 common people is made in Southern Europe and Russia, 
 was almost an unknown thing on our grain markets 
 until 1900; but today it is a living question in the 
 milling centers of the Northwest. It is a wheat for 
 the dry lands, where the ordinary kinds grow poorly 
 or not at all, and it yields so much more per acre 
 and is so much surer a crop that, even if it should not 
 bring the highest prices, it will pay better than the 
 less drouth resistant species which Western farmers 
 have hitherto tried to grow on the dry farm lands 
 of the Dakotas and Nebraska. 
 
 " Custom still fights the innovation of a new flour, 
 and there are people who think our bread is in danger 
 of being deteriorated by the new introduction ; but 
 they are not the well-informed who have tasted the 
 full-flavored wheat breads of Spain or Italy, or who 
 realize the great and growing future of macaroni as 
 a food in this country. American-made macaroni, 
 prepared with the best of the old American wheats, 
 cannot be compared with the delicate products of a 
 Gragnano factory. But with the culture of this durum 
 wheat in America a change is coming, and the time 
 may come when we shall ship macaroni to Italy instead 
 
80 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 of importing it at the rate of nearly ^2,000,000 a year. 
 This innovation in the great wheat industry has been 
 the result of the efforts of Mr. M. A. Carleton, who 
 was sent to Russia as an agricultural explorer of the 
 Office of Plant Introduction in 1898 and in 1900. 
 The office has distributed thousands of bushels of 
 the durum wheat varieties gathered by him from all the 
 Mediterranean and South Russian countries where it is 
 grown." ^ 
 
 The importance of good flour can hardly be over- 
 estimated, since upon good bread depends the health 
 of the greater part of the human race in all temperate 
 climates. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss physiological ques- 
 tions, or to take part in the war of words over graham, 
 whole wheat, and fine flour. A discussion of the chem- 
 ical side of the question will be found in the Thesis 
 of Miss Charlotte A. Bragg, Technology Quarterly, 
 vol. Ill, No. 3, 1890, from which the following extract 
 is made : 
 
 "The following tables give in a condensed form the 
 results of the analyses of the two samples of wheat, and 
 the products derived from them. A balance sheet was 
 deduced therefrom. 
 
 ST. LOUIS WINTER WHEAT 
 
 
 Water 
 Per cent 
 
 Phosphorus 
 Per cent 
 
 Nitrogen 
 Per cent 
 
 Whole Wheat 
 
 12.85 
 
 0.262 
 
 1.87 
 
 Royal Patent 
 
 13-37 
 
 0.051 
 
 1-39 
 
 iQur Plant Immigrants, by David Fairchild, in National Geo- 
 graphic Magazine, April, 1906. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 
 Water 
 Per cent 
 
 Phosphorus 
 Per cent 
 
 Nitrogen 
 Per cent 
 
 Extra Fancy 
 
 12.51 
 
 O.I 00 
 
 1.78 
 
 Low Grade 
 
 11.94 
 
 O.I 00 
 
 2.08 
 
 Middlings 
 
 II. 21 
 
 0.225 
 
 2.73 
 
 Bran 
 
 12.15 
 
 0.828 
 
 2.62 
 
 MINNESOTA SPRING WHEAT 
 
 
 
 Water 
 Per cent 
 
 Phosphorus 
 Per cent 
 
 Nitrogen 
 Per cent 
 
 Whole 
 
 11.09 
 
 0.230 
 
 2.24 
 
 Patent 
 
 12.29 
 
 0.050 
 
 2.10 
 
 Bakers' 
 
 12.14 
 
 0.091 
 
 2.40 
 
 Low Grade 
 
 11.47 
 
 0.192 
 
 2.59 
 
 Shorts 
 
 11.27 
 
 0.560 
 
 2.78 
 
 Bran 
 
 11.23 
 
 0.830 
 
 2.55 
 
 "The balance sheet defines the position of fine 
 white flour very clearly. It shows that hard spring 
 wheat gives a flour rich in nitrogen, 69.5 per cent of 
 the total being saved in the three grades of flour. 
 Winter wheat does not show quite as well ; not only 
 is there more bran, but it is richer in nitrogen. Nev- 
 ertheless, 62.2 per cent of the total nitrogen is saved. 
 There is, therefore, no need to eat whole wheat bread 
 in order to obtain a food rich in nitrogen. 
 
 " Quite another story is told by a study of the 
 proportion of phosphorus. The two varieties of wheat 
 more nearly approach each other, but the spring wheat 
 loses 79.6 per cent and the winter wheat 77.8 per cent 
 of its total phosphorus. Here, then, is the bone of 
 contention. The fine white flour is sadly deficient in 
 phosphorus, but is the phosphorus which is contained 
 
S2 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 in the bran available for human food ? According to 
 the latest experiments of Professors Voit and Riibner 
 in Munich, it would seem that not only is the bran 
 quite indigestible, but that by its irritating action it 
 causes a loss of both nitrogen and carbohydrates, which 
 would be available in its absence. 
 
 " It would seem, therefore, fair to conclude that the 
 bread made from fine flour, which is most tempting to 
 eyes and palate, may, after all, be the one best adapted 
 to the needs and conditions of the human system." 
 
 Since the amount of gluten in a flour often has an 
 interest for the housewife beyond that of nutritive value, 
 a means of estimating it is often called for. 
 
 Wiley (Agricultural Analysis, vol. Ill, p. 435) gives 
 the following as a method for separating crude gluten 
 from flour : Ten grams of flour (or one-half an ounce 
 may be taken) are well moistened with a nearly equal 
 weight of cool water (not over 60° F.), worked into a 
 ball, and allowed to stand an hour. It is then kneaded 
 in a stream of cold water until the starch and soluble 
 matter is removed. It may be weighed moist as a 
 rough comparison with other flours. 
 
 BUCKWHEAT 
 
 Buckwheat {Fagopyriint escidentiim) a native of Cen- 
 tral Asia, does not belong to the grasses or cereals, but 
 to the family Poiygonaccce, which includes rhubarb and 
 dock. It grows as far north as ^2°, and thus stands 
 next to barley. It matures very quickly — in one hun- 
 dred days — and thrives on sandy soil. It is probably 
 a native of Asia, and is largely grown in temperate 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 83 
 
 countries. The seed, when stripped of its indigestible 
 husk, which composes about 20 per cent of it, is rich 
 in food material. It is often adulterated with cheaper 
 flour. Of 107 samples examined by Winton in 1900, 
 twenty-six contained wheat flour or middlings, nine 
 maize flour, and nine contained them both. The pre- 
 pared or self-raising buckwheats are usually mixtures 
 of flours with baking powder. 
 
 STARCHES, ETC. 
 
 The prepared starches are purified, so that they 
 contain little else than pure starch, and thus are not 
 capable of sustaining Hfe by themselves. Starch may 
 be derived from the cereal grains mentioned before, 
 or from tubers or roots, as the potato, arrowroot, and 
 manihot or yucca, which yields farina and tapioca, 
 and from the stems of plants, as the sago palm. 
 
 Cornstarch is much used in the United States as an 
 article of diet. Farina is another name for a prepara- 
 tion from the starch of maize or wheat, which now 
 takes the place of the farina of manihot. 
 
 Genuine macaroni, spaghetti, and vermicelli are made 
 from wheat rich in gluten, and hence are nutritious, but 
 not more rich than some other wheat preparations. 
 Imitations are made from a less rich flour colored with 
 saffron or other yellow coloring matter. 
 
 Arrowroot is derived from plants of the genus 
 Maranta, of the West India Islands and tropical 
 America, the chief species being M. anmdinacea. 
 The earliest recorded notice of the plant, the knowl- 
 edge of which was obtained from South Am.erican 
 
84 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Indians, refers to the supposed virtue possessed by 
 its roots as an antidote to poisoned arrows ; and it 
 probably derives its name from this. Arrowroot was 
 introduced into England about the beginning of the 
 last century ; but its use has been largely superseded 
 by that of cornstarch. 
 
 infants' and invalids' foods ^ 
 
 Imperial Granum . . . 
 Ridge's Food .... 
 Mothers' Food . . . 
 
 Robinson's Barley . , 
 Horlick's Malted Milk 
 Lactated Food . . . 
 Mellin's Food .... 
 Nestle's Milk Food . . 
 Reid and Carnrick's 
 Baby Food .... 
 
 Starch, 
 fiber, 
 etc. 
 
 76.60 
 72.01 
 69.24 
 
 78.66 
 15.68 
 47.72 
 
 35-34 
 34-54 
 
 Maltose. 
 
 49.00 
 50-60 
 
 Lactose. 
 
 30.00 
 
 8.96 
 
 30.00 
 
 Cane 
 sugar. 
 
 8.00 
 Trace 
 
 36.34 
 8-9 
 
 Wheat starch 
 Wheat starch 
 Corn and wheat 
 
 starch 
 Barley starch 
 
 Wheat starch 
 Soluble dextrin 
 Wheat starch 
 
 These foods for infants and invalids need attention 
 on account of misrepresentations and the fact that physi- 
 cians ignorantly prescribe, or at least do not forbid the 
 use of, those which are far from what they profess to 
 be. Some of them are simply starchy mixtures, more 
 or less cooked, but not converted. 
 
 The milk foods are dried milk, usually too low in 
 fat, Nestle's Food being the only exception. 
 
 MeUin's Food is the only food which does not con- 
 tain starch, but this is too low in fat and should be 
 given with cream. 
 
 1 McGill, Canadian Department of Inland Revenue, Bulletin 59. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 H 
 
 Horlick's Malted Milk, Lactated Food, and Reid 
 and Carnrick's Baby Food are mixtures of which the 
 first has the least starch. 
 
 BREAD AND CRACKERS 
 
 Bread and crackers are so largely purchased that 
 attention should be given to clean manufacture. A 
 poster recently displayed showing a boy and girl hug- 
 ging in their arms several loaves of unwrapped bread, 
 some of which must fall to the ground before many 
 steps, illustrates the careless handling of cooked foods. 
 There is far more danger to health in this direction 
 than in the possible use of alum or ammonia by a few 
 bakers. 
 
 The light weight loaf, " proofed ' ' to an excessive 
 size, furnishes less nutrition than the buyer supposes. 
 
 The cracker manufacturer needs to be watched as 
 to quality of ingredients and care in handling, especially 
 since his products are so largely used by children. 
 
 Composition of the Principal Cereal Grains Tabulated by 
 
 ViLLIER AND CoLLIN 1 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Barley. 
 
 Rye. 
 
 13-65 
 
 13-77 
 
 15.06 
 
 12.35 
 
 II. 14 
 
 11.52 
 
 1-75 
 
 2.16 
 
 1-79 
 
 1-45 
 
 1.56 
 
 0.95 
 
 2.38 
 
 1.70 
 
 4.86 
 
 64.08 
 
 61.67 
 
 62.00 
 
 2.53 
 
 5-31 
 
 2.01 
 
 1.81 
 
 2.69 
 
 1.81 
 
 Oats. 
 
 Water 
 
 Nitrogenous substances 
 
 Fat 
 
 Sugar 
 
 Gum and dextrin . . 
 
 Starch 
 
 Cellulose 
 
 Ash 
 
 12.37 
 10.41 
 
 5-32 
 1.91 
 1.79 
 54.08 
 II. 19 
 3.02 
 
 1 Leach, Food Inspection and Analysis, p. 212. 
 
86 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 
 Rice. 
 
 Corn. 
 
 Millet. 
 
 Buckwheat. 
 
 Water 
 
 I3.II 
 
 7.85 
 0.88 
 
 I 16.52 
 
 0.63 
 I.OI 
 
 13.12 
 9.85 
 4.62 
 2.46 
 3.38 
 
 62.57 
 2.49 
 
 I-5I 
 
 11.66 
 9-25 
 3-50 
 
 ? 65.95 
 
 7.29 
 
 2-35 
 
 12.93 
 
 10.30 
 
 2.81 
 
 55.81 
 
 Nitrogenous substances . . 
 
 Fat 
 
 Sugar 
 
 Gum and dextrin .... 
 Starch 
 
 Cellulose 
 
 Ash 
 
 16.43 
 
 2.72 
 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SUGAR 
 
 THE word sugar, probably of Sanskrit origin, is 
 now used to designate a class of substances 
 possessing a sweet taste and capable of breaking up 
 into alcohol and carbon dioxide under the influence of 
 ferments, such as yeast. 
 
 Common sugar is called cane sugar, because it is 
 obtained principally from the sugar cane, a tall grass, 
 Sacchantni officiiiariim, a native of Southern Asia. 
 It is the sweetest of all the sugars, and is technically 
 called sucrose. It has been known from the earliest 
 historic times. Some early writers spoke of it as 
 "honey made from reeds without bees." 
 
 According to Albertus Agnensis, as stated by 
 Muspratt, in the time of the Crusades sweet honeyed 
 canes were found in great quantity in the meadows 
 near Tripoli in Syria, which reeds were called zticra. 
 The plant was cultivated, and when ripe it was bruised 
 in mortars, the strained juice set by in vessels "till 
 concreted in the form of snow, or white salt ; this, when 
 scraped, they mix with bread, or rub it in water and 
 take it as pottage, and it is to them more wholesome 
 and pleasing than the honey of bees." 
 
 The sucrose of commerce is also obtained from the 
 beet, the palm, and the maple tree, and from another 
 grass, SorgJumi saccJiarattim. 
 
 87 
 
S8 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 The sugar cane contains about i8 per cent of 
 sugar. The canes are crushed and passed through 
 powerful presses. The juice is boiled in vacuum pans 
 with a little milk of Hme, added to neutralize the 
 acids which the juice contains ; this forms a scum, 
 which is taken off. After the boiling has concen- 
 trated the juice sufficiently, it is run into a large 
 vessel to crystallize. 
 
 The mass of crystals formed is drained from the 
 syrup, and is known as raw or muscovado sugar. 
 The non-crystallized portion is known as molasses. 
 
 This boiling down in vacuum pans has deprived 
 the housewife of the old-fashioned West India or New 
 Orleans molasses, with which she made such delicious 
 gingerbread, which even ''mother" can no longer pre- 
 pare. The acid molasses produced by the slow evapo- 
 ration of the sugar cane juice in open pans is to be 
 found only rarely and in small quantity on the market. 
 In 1903-04 only 27,964,292 gallons of molasses were 
 produced in the United States as against 37,000,000 
 gallons in 1902-03. 
 
 The grades of sugar also have changed very much. 
 The dark brown sugars have almost disappeared from 
 the market. This is owing to the improved methods 
 of boiling. The granulated is of the same quality as 
 loaf sugar, only the syrup is stirred while crystallizing, 
 so that the crystals do not cohere. The light brown 
 sugars are the next product, containing some molasses, 
 and therefore they taste sweeter, since the flavor is 
 more pronounced in the colored portion of the juice. 
 
 If the granulated sugar is not quite freed from the 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 89 
 
 syrup, it tastes more decidedly sweet than if it is per- 
 fectly pure. That is, it has more the taste which we 
 are accustomed to associate with sugar. 
 
 It is often said that powdered sugar must be adul- 
 terated, because it does not sweeten as much as loaf 
 sugar ; but such is not the case, and some explanation 
 must be sought. The reason seems to be twofold : 
 first, a spoonful of powdered sugar does not weigh as 
 much as a spoonful of granulated ; second, since sweet- 
 ness is a physical property, the finely divided condition 
 of the sugar has something to do with it. The coarser 
 grains seem to excite in the nerves of taste a stronger 
 vibration, so to speak, in dissolving than do the fine 
 particles. To prove this, equal weights of loaf, of gran- 
 ulated of different degrees of fineness, of powdered, 
 and of coffee-crushed sugar were dissolved in equal 
 volumes of water and then tested by various persons, 
 the tumblers containing the solutions being numbered, 
 so that the taster was an unbiased judge. Some pure 
 honey was added to the list, and the results confirmed 
 the previous suspicions that the taste was not due to the 
 chemical purity of the substance. In every case the 
 coffee sugar was pronounced the sweetest, and that of 
 the solution of honey the least sweet. As to the solu- 
 tions of the other sugars, which were all pure sucrose, 
 judgments varied, showing that the sensation of sweet- 
 ness is not owing solely to the presence of a certain 
 amount of sucrose. 
 
 That beet root contained a sugar identical with that 
 obtained from the sugar cane was first made known 
 by Margraf in 1747. But the beet was not cultivated 
 
90 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 for the purpose to any extent until the middle of the 
 last century. Under the protection of Napoleon I., the 
 industry gradually gained ground. A prize of a mil- 
 lion francs was offered for the successful manufacture 
 of sugar from plants of home growth. As late as 1 860 
 the fate of beet sugar was doubtful, since the disagree- 
 able flavor of the molasses still clung to the crystallized 
 sugar. But applied science has overcome all the diffi- 
 culties. The purest loaf sugar is now made from beets, 
 and there is produced one and one-half times as much 
 beet sugar as cane sugar. The total amount of beet 
 sugar produced in 1840 was 50,000 long tons. The 
 total amount of cane sugar produced in 1840 was 
 1,100,000 long tons. The ^otal amount of beet sugar 
 produced in 1905 was 6,990,000 long tons. The total 
 amount of cane sugar produced in 1905 was 4,908,000 
 long tons. 
 
 The culture of the beet has spread throughout 
 Germany and Russia. It has been tried in England, 
 Ireland, and the Northern United States, and is prov- 
 ing a source of profit in many latitudes where the 
 sugar cane will not thrive. Beets contain up to 10 or 
 12 per cent of sugar. In Belgium and France they 
 extract about 7 per cent, and in Germany 8 or 9 
 per cent. The process of manufacture differs little 
 from that of cane sugar. The molasses from beet 
 sugar is mostly sent to the distillery, as it has a very 
 disagreeable taste. 
 
 In parts of the United States and in Canada sugar 
 is made from the sap of the maple, Acer saccJiarmuni, 
 and other allied species. The sugar is cane sugar, or 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 9 1 
 
 sucrose, and the accompanying substances in the sap 
 give an agreeable flavor quite peculiar to maple sugar. 
 Several million pounds are annually produced. 
 
 The cultivation of the Chinese sugar grass, or sugar 
 millet {Sorghum saccharatitm), has been attempted in 
 the United States, with some success. It seems to be 
 suited to a warm temperate zone, and thus is inter- 
 mediate between the northern maple and beet and the 
 tropical sugar cane. It is used largely for fodder, 
 however. 
 
 The term sugar, as used today, is a very general one 
 covering a wide range of substances, the number of 
 which is constantly growing by virtue of chemical 
 research. 
 
 The housewife has to do with two of the great 
 groups : 
 
 1. The monosaccharids {C^H^^O^), or glucoses. 
 At least fifteen are named, to which belong grape 
 sugar (dextrose), crystal] izable ; fruit sugar (levulose), 
 non-cry stallizable ; and invert sugar, a mixture of the 
 two (made from the sucroses by boiling with acid). 
 
 2. The disaccharids {C^^H^fi^^), or sucroses. To 
 this class belong cane sugar, or sucrose, beet sugar, 
 maple sugar, malt sugar (maltose), and milk sugar, or 
 lactose. 
 
 The sugars are often divided into reducing (those 
 which reduce copper from copper sulphate), maltose, 
 lactose, invert sugar, dextrose, levulose ; and nonreduc- 
 ing, as cane sugar, beet sugar, maple sugar. 
 
 Starch is a polysaccharid, along with cellulose, dex- 
 trin, glycogen, and pectin. It can be considered as 
 
92 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 an aggregation of lOO groups derived from dextrose, 
 CgHj20g (lOO CgHiQOg), by the removal of water from 
 each during plant growth. These water molecules may 
 be replaced and sugar again formed by treating with 
 acid (artificial or unnatural) or by the action of an 
 enzyme, as diastase, the natural ferment found in barley 
 in abundance. 
 
 In the acid hydrolysis the starch breaks up grad- 
 ually into maltose, a dextrin, and dextrose. In the 
 enzyme treatment only the first two result as a rule. 
 
 Much confusion is caused by the loose way in which 
 the term ''glucose" is commonly used. Formerly it 
 was the designation of all the manufactured products, 
 whether solid or viscous, but of late the term " starch 
 sugar," or dextrose, covers the solid sugars and glucose 
 means the syrup form, from the Greek glnkus, meaning 
 sweet. 
 
 While all kinds of starch, and even cellulose, will 
 yield starch sugar when treated (hydrolyzed) with acid, 
 corn is the chief source. The grain is soaked in huge 
 vats, holding some 2,500 bushels, in warm water for 
 several days. Sulphur dioxide is added to sterilize 
 and to soften the hulls. The grain is then ground, and 
 the starch is washed through bolting cloth sieves and 
 allowed to settle. If it is desired to save the germ, 
 a first coarse grinding allows it to float away and a 
 second finer grinding sets free the starch grains. 
 
 The collected starch, mixed with water to a creamy 
 consistency, is run into copper boilers with about six 
 pounds of hydrochloric acid to each 10,000 pounds of 
 starch. It is heated under pressure of some thirty 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 93 
 
 pounds and drawn off, decolorized, and refined in much 
 the same manner as the juice of the sugar cane. 
 
 The demand for starch sugar for candies and jellies, 
 and of glucose for syrups, has caused an enormous 
 production in this country, irrespective of its use in 
 beers. 
 
 Confectionery is usually preferred in a soft or 
 amorphous condition ; rock candy or crystallized sugar 
 is rarely called for. It is for this reason that sugar for 
 making candy is inverted, or changed into reducing 
 sugar (mixture of dextrose, or grape sugar, and levu- 
 lose or fruit sugar), by boiling with some acid, usually 
 cream of tartar or tartaric acid. 
 
 The ''fondant" of chocolate creams and bonbons 
 may be made in this way. Gums and starch pastes, 
 even clay, may be used to dilute the crystals of sugar 
 and keep the mass agreeably soft, but commercial glu- 
 cose is easier to work, healthful, cheap, and pure, 
 therefore is largely used in modern candy making. 
 The pastes and cheap gum drops are made of starch, 
 paste, and glucose. Marshmallows have gelatin added. 
 
 It requires two and one-half times as much glucose 
 as cane sugar to sweeten the same volume of water. 
 This may partly explain the increasing pounds of candy 
 consumed. 
 
 Grape sugar is present in the sacs of flowers, and 
 is the source of honey. It can be readily obtained from 
 grapes by expressing the juice, and after neutralization 
 of the acids the syrup may be refined and crystallized 
 as in the case of beet sugar, but it crystallizes with 
 difficulty and is apt to take on water and become moist. 
 
94 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 It is accompanied by the non-cry stallizable sugar, lev- 
 ulose. Grape sugar made from grapes is too costly 
 for ordinary use. In jellies and preserved fruits a 
 large portion of the cane sugar, or sucrose, is changed 
 into glucose during the heating with the acid juice 
 of the fruit. 
 
 The following table ^ shows the proportion of sugars 
 and acid in various fruits : 
 
 Cane sugar. 
 
 Reducing 
 sugar. 
 
 Apricots .... 
 Pineapples . . . 
 English cherries 
 Lemons .... 
 
 Figs 
 
 Strawberries . . 
 Raspberries . . 
 Gooseberries . . 
 Oranges .... 
 Peaches (green) . 
 Pears (Madeleine) 
 Apples .... 
 Apples .... 
 
 Prunes 
 
 Grapes (hothouse) 
 Grapes (green) . 
 
 6.04 
 
 [1-33 
 0.00 
 0.41 
 0.00 
 
 (^■33 
 2.01 
 0.00 
 4.22 
 0.92 
 0.36 
 5.28 
 2.19 
 
 5-24 
 0.00 
 0.00 
 
 2.74 
 
 1.98 
 
 10.00 
 
 1.06 
 
 "•55 
 4.98 
 5.22 
 6.40 
 4-36 
 1.07 
 8.42 
 8.72 
 545 
 2-43 
 
 17.26 
 1.60 
 
 1.864 
 
 0-547 
 0.661 
 4.706 
 0.057 
 
 0-550 
 1.380 
 
 1-574 
 0.448 
 3.900 
 0.1 15 
 1. 148 
 0-633 
 1.288 
 
 0-345 
 2.485 
 
 Not only may sucrose be converted, but all woody 
 fiber or cellulose can be acted upon by acids so as to 
 form glucose ; hence any woody substance, as sawdust, 
 cotton, etc, can be converted into glucose ; but this 
 is not done for the purpose of sugar manufacture, 
 since corn meal is much more available. Such waste 
 product may be used for spirits. 
 
 1 Buignet (Ann. Chim. Phys., 59, p. 233), taken from Leach, p. 462. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 95 
 
 Milk sugar, or lactose (C^^U^fi^^ H2O), is prepared 
 from skim milk, a waste product of the dairies. The 
 sugar of milk is a valuable product for use in the prepa- 
 ration of modified milk for infants ; in medicine it is of 
 importance as an excipient, or vehicle for active remedies ; 
 and in certain diseases it is a valuable nutrient. 
 
 There is little probability that the use of milk sugar 
 will ever become as universal as that of the other forms 
 of sugar, for the price, from twenty to forty cents a 
 pound, is prohibitive. 
 
 The chief adulterants to be looked for in milk sugar 
 are grape sugar and cane sugar. 
 
 HONEY 
 
 The United States produces the most honey, the 
 annual production as reported in 1900 being 61,196,160 
 pounds. 
 
 It is said, especially by English analysts, that much 
 American honey is entirely artificial, that the comb is 
 made of paraffin and filled with glucose syrup. Two 
 simple tests will show whether this is the case. Normal 
 honey, being collected by the bees from flowers, will 
 contain many pollen grains. The absence of these is 
 a suspicious circumstance. Beeswax is blackened by 
 warm sulphuric acid, while paraffin is not affected. 
 
 The most common adulterants of honey are cane 
 sugar and commercial glucose. Gelatin is also found. 
 Sometimes bees are fed on cane sugar or glucose, which 
 is placed near the hives. In such a case they may 
 supply the adulterants. 
 
 The presence of the comb in honey is by no means 
 
96 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 a proof of genuineness. In at least one sample the 
 Massachusetts State Board of Health found pieces of 
 artificial comb and a dead bee in a mixture of glucose 
 and cane sugar. 
 
 In the Bulletin of the New Hampshire Board for 
 July, 1906, a table is given showing that out of thirteen 
 samples examined, only seven were of legal quality. 
 
 ADULTERATION 
 
 The adulteration of sugar may be considered under 
 three heads. First, the addition of insoluble substances, 
 such as marble dust, which is sometimes found adver- 
 tised among the supplies of confectioners. It is said 
 that sand used to be added. Second, the foreign sub- 
 stances left in from the process of manufacture, such 
 as ultramarine, to give the requisite blue color. If tin 
 were ever found in sugar, it would be in this list. 
 Third, and most frequent at present, is the addition 
 of glucose, or corn sugar, which is much cheaper, but 
 is less sweet, partly on account of its lesser solubihty 
 in water. One quart of water dissolves three pounds 
 of cane sugar, but only one or one and a half pounds of 
 grape sugar. 
 
 Sugar may be so manipulated in refining as to be 
 white and crystalline, and yet contain quite a percent- 
 age of moisture and syrup. Such sugar cakes together 
 on standing. The presence of this moisture may be 
 regarded as an adulteration. 
 
 The adulteration of the granulated and powdered 
 sugars, at least those sold in the Eastern States, is 
 not as extensive as has been supposed. Of the sam- 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 97 
 
 pies examined by the writer in 1879, not one of 
 seventy-three samples from Massachusetts, not one 
 of five from New York, and only one of twelve 
 from Chicago was adulterated. 
 
 Today (1906) granulated sugar is probably the 
 purest food product on the market. 
 
 Syrups, on the contrary, are very liable to be not 
 what they seem. Dr. Kedzie, of Michigan, in 1879 
 found only one out of twenty-one genuine. 
 
 The Kansas Board of Health, in its Bulletin for 
 June, 1906, states the percentage of adulteration in 
 maple sugar and syrup as 95.8. 
 
 The July Bulletin from New Hampshire, the home 
 of the sugar maple, gives only twenty-one samples of 
 legal quality out of forty-one examined. 
 
 The usual adulterants of maple syrup are golden or 
 drip syrup, commercial glucose, molasses, and refined 
 sugar. 
 
 The ordinary table syrup is chiefly glucose or corn 
 syrup. 
 
 CANDY 
 
 The enormous extension of the candy trade demands 
 attention both from the hygienic and the economic point 
 of view. Some years ago Professor Simon N. Patten 
 warned us that we were being eliminated on a sugar 
 diet — women particularly. With the best granulated 
 sugar at say six cents a pound, and commercial glucose 
 at about half that price, the sale of candies at forty to 
 eighty cents means large profits, which are to a great 
 extent used up in fancy boxes, high rents, and expert 
 
gS FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 service, so that even at fifteen cents a pound it is pos- 
 sible to sell candies v^here other expenses are low. 
 A large part of the tons of candy purchased by the 
 young people of our towns is glucose more or less 
 bleached by bisulphite of soda. Commercial glucose 
 of the unrefined sort as it comes from the factory to 
 be used, in beer, for instance, has a yellow cast, and 
 would not sell so readily ; hence the bleaching. Glu- 
 cose itself is a good food, but the sulphites are not 
 exactly wholesome. 
 
 The fancy for brilliant colors in food finds full play 
 in candies. Some 200 coloring substances are named 
 in the National Confectioners' Association list, of which 
 about one-third are recognized as harmful. Mineral 
 colors, such as lead chromate (yellow), formerly fre- 
 quent, are rarely seen. Coal tar dyes, from their 
 intense coloring power, are generally used. The 
 quantity taken at any one time is almost infinitesimal. 
 
 Cheap candies are sometimes stuffed with starch, 
 paste, and paraffin, and the fats used are of doubtful 
 sources. ''Brandy drops" containing fusel oil and 
 alcohol ought to be driven from the market. 
 
 In 1900 thirty-one out of seventy-eight samples of 
 confectionery examined in Massachusetts were adul- 
 terated. Chocolate brandy drops gave in some cases 
 more than 4 per cent of alcohol. 
 
 The Inland Revenue Department, Ottawa, Canada, 
 reports the following results of an examination of highly 
 colored confectionery, samples having been collected 
 during two months : Out of fifty-six samples examined 
 thirty-four contained two colors, twenty contained three 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 99 
 
 colors, and two contained four colors. In but one sam- 
 ple was the presence of arsenic shown, and that in such 
 minute quantity as to be completely harmless. 
 
 USES OF SUGAR 
 
 In Europe it was used only in medicine until about 
 the fifteenth century, and it was not produced in large 
 quantities till about 1800. Only within a few genera- 
 tions has sugar been used as a food, and produced in 
 sufficient quantities to bring the price within the reach 
 of all classes of people. The consumption of sugar is 
 everywhere increasing. In 1899 ^he total consumption 
 was from seven to eight million tons. In 1904 it was 
 from eleven to twelve million. In the United States 
 alone it was nearly three million, having increased from 
 eight pounds a head in 1825 to 75.3 pounds in 1904. 
 
 Until recently, taking the world as a whole, it might 
 be said that sugar was used as a condiment rather than 
 as a food, but at present it seems a very important 
 article of diet, and should be so considered. It would 
 seem that in the north it is taking the place of the 
 starchy foods that sometimes can be obtained only with 
 great difficulty. It is known that the consumption of 
 sugar is large among American farmers and lumbermen. 
 In Switzerland loaf sugar and very sweet chocolate are 
 important elements in the outfits of mountain climbers, 
 and on all polar expeditions sugar is considered an 
 essential. Undoubtedly it is an invaluable as well as 
 an agreeable food for these dwellers in the open air. 
 
 Professor Pfliiger is quoted as saying that without 
 doubt the sugar in the blood is heavily drawn on during 
 
 LOfC. 
 
100 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 violent exercise ; hence the longing for it in a form 
 that can be readily assimilated. 
 
 In Mrs. Abel's Bulletin, ''Sugar as Food,"^ may be 
 found exceedingly interesting accounts of experiments 
 by Mosso and Dr. Schumberg in lessening fatigue by 
 means of cane sugar. A short quotation is in place 
 here : " In effect Dr. Schumberg says, ' The practical 
 conclusion to be drawn is that sugar in small doses is 
 well adapted to help men to perform extraordinary mus- 
 cular labor.' He advises practical tests of his results 
 on a large scale, in which small amounts of sugar in 
 some refreshing drink, as lemonade, will be given to 
 men fifteen or twenty minutes before they begin a 
 piece of very hard work or at the first signs of exhaus- 
 tion. If the sugar is to be taken in solid form he 
 recommends chocolate as the best medium. The appli- 
 cation of these results to the food of soldiers who may 
 be called upon for extraordinary exertion in marching 
 or fighting is very evident." ^ 
 
 In warm countries, where little fat is eaten, sugar 
 as it is found in fruits forms a large portion of the food. 
 It is said that in India the workmen must have each 
 day a large amount of food that is well seasoned with 
 sugar.^ In all tropical lands the natives live largely on 
 dates, figs, and other fruits that have a high percentage 
 of sugar. 
 
 The growing opinion seems to be in favor of its 
 moderate use. It is true that if the stomach is not 
 able to digest it at once it is liable to change into lactic 
 acid instead of being absorbed into the system. This 
 
 1 Farmers' Bulletin No. 93. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS lOI 
 
 only shows that sugar is not suitable for that individual 
 at that time. The very general craving for sweets is 
 undoubtedly founded on a law of demand of the system. 
 Hence a moderate use of it by children is not to be 
 rashly condemned. Like all other foods, sugar may 
 be abused. That it plays a part as a heat-giving food 
 is indicated by the fact that it is not craved to so great 
 an extent in summer as in winter. 
 
CHAPTER Vli 
 
 NUTS 
 
 ONE class of food material worthy of further study 
 from various standpoints has recently come into 
 prominence. *'Nuts as Food " ^ is the title of one of the 
 excellent Farmers' Bulletins. 
 
 Certain facts about these products have been known 
 without attaching due significance to them. 
 
 The plebeian peanut has been rescued from the 
 upper gallery, and as ''butter" has found its way to 
 the most exclusive afternoon tea, as well as to the 
 vegetarian bill of fare, and as ''brittle" is a favorite 
 candy. The pine nut, supposed to be a last resort of 
 the starving Indian, is now imported and deprived 
 of its content of turpentine for the delicate feast of 
 devotees of uncooked foods. 
 
 Nut cakes, nut salads, nut ice cream, etc, all show 
 the new direction in which public taste is tending. 
 
 These nuts are quite different from the most promi- 
 nent variety of forty years ago, which was the cocoanut.. 
 This is today less frequently seen in our markets, being 
 prepared nearer the place of production. Pecans are, 
 for the time, the most abundant, and are worthy of the 
 favor given them. 
 
 The composition of nuts is given as follows : 
 
 1 Maine Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 54. 
 102 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 103 
 
 Edible Portion. 
 
 Brazil nut 
 
 Pignolia 
 
 Filbert 
 
 Hickory nut 
 
 English walnut (California 
 
 bijou) 
 
 Pecan 
 
 Almond (California) . . . 
 Peanut 
 
 Roasted 
 
 Chestnut (average) .... 
 
 Per 
 
 cent. 
 
 5-3 
 6.4 
 
 37 
 
 2-5 
 2.7 
 4.8 
 
 1.6 
 
 42.7 
 
 Per 
 cent. 
 
 17.0 
 
 33-9 
 
 15.6 
 154 
 
 18.4 
 
 9.6 
 
 21.0 
 
 30-5 
 6.5 
 
 Per 
 cent. 
 
 66.8 
 
 494 
 
 65-3 
 67.4 
 
 64.4 
 
 70.5 
 54-9 
 49.2 
 
 ^■3 
 
 Per 
 
 cent. 
 
 7.0 
 
 6.9 
 
 13.0 
 
 II.4 
 
 13.0 
 
 15-3 
 17-3 
 16.2 
 
 43-1 
 
 Per 
 pound. 
 
 3'329 
 2,842 
 
 3432 
 
 3495 
 
 3.305 
 3,566 
 
 3,030 
 2>955 
 3'i77 
 1,188 
 
 Per 
 
 cent. 
 
 49.6 
 
 52.1 
 62.2 
 
 73-1 
 46.3 
 45.0 
 Av. 
 28.0 
 16.0 
 
 Cents. 
 12 
 
 15 
 
 9 
 
 15 
 15 
 15 
 
 7-3- 
 14.6 
 8.4 
 
 A glance at this table will show the high food value 
 of nuts, and will explain why they may take the place of 
 meat in the dietary. 
 
 Since nuts belong to the class of foods that are 
 put up to keep, that is, with little water, they may be 
 transported and used months after ripening. 
 
 They are not as yet liable to adulteration, and their 
 quality is evident to the experienced buyer. 
 
 The United States furnishes a great variety of nuts, 
 and the few not grown here are imported in quantity, 
 Brazil nuts and filberts forming the bulk of the latter 
 class. 
 
 The Brazil, or Para, nut grows on a large tree found 
 in the Amazon forests {Bertholletia excelsd). It is 
 sometimes incorrectly called castanea nut. 
 
 The filbert, or hazel nut {Cory Ins tubulosa L.) is 
 
104 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 more used in Europe than in America, both for the 
 table and for oil, of which it contains a surprising 
 amount for so dry a nut. 
 
 Pignolias, the seeds of pine, are increasing in favor, 
 particularly the Egyptian varieties, although several 
 excellent varieties of pine nuts are grown in the 
 southwest. 
 
 The pecan is a tree native to the United States 
 (Hicoria pecan), growing from Iowa to Texas, where 
 the greater proportion is raised. Its thin shell, being 
 easily removed, makes it a great favorite. 
 
 The English walnut (J?igla?is regia L.) is an Asiatic 
 tree introduced into England in the middle of the 
 sixteenth century. It is now most successfully grown 
 in California, the 1898 crop being estimated at eight 
 million pounds. The black walnut and butternut are 
 seldom found on the market, although both furnish 
 edible nuts. 
 
 The chestnut {Castanea sativa Mill.) is a well-bal- 
 anced food material, and the tree grows in most temper- 
 ate lands. This nut furnishes a staple article of diet 
 for the poorer classes along the Mediterranean, being 
 made into puddings, cakes, and bread. Flour or meal 
 made from it might easily replace many other meals in 
 the diet. 
 
 The cocoanut palm {Cocos nucifera L.) furnishes 
 food, oil, fiber, and adulterating material, especially for 
 ground spices. Various preparations of the oil have 
 been introduced as lard substitutes. 
 
 The pistachio tree {Pistacia vera Z.) is said to have 
 been cultivated in Egypt in the time of Joseph, and is 
 now found mostly along the borders of the Mediter- 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS IO5 
 
 ranean. Other nuts, such as almonds, are sometimes 
 dyed with coal tar dyes to imitate pistachios. 
 
 The almond is not a nut, properly speaking, but a 
 drupe, or stone. The almond tree {Pjinms amygdalus 
 Stokes) is supposed to be a native of Turkestan and 
 closely related to the peach. It is now naturalized in 
 California. The table variety is the sweet or paper- 
 shell. Variety amara furnishes the oil of bitter 
 almonds. Other stones are not commonly substituted. 
 The peanut {Arachis hypogcEa L.) is probably a na- 
 tive of Brazil, but is grown in nearly all temperate and 
 subtropic regions. It is not a true nut, but grows in 
 a pod on vines, and is one of a small group of legumes 
 which bend the flower stalk until the young fruit is 
 buried in the soil to ripen there. The American crop 
 is four million bushels or more, about one-seventh of 
 the world's product. In Europe the oil is used instead 
 of olive oil for a salad oil, and makes an excellent 
 substitute. 
 
 The olive {0/ea EiiropcEa) has been grown in Cali- 
 fornia only from the time of the early Mission fathers, 
 but has attained the proportions of a profitable industry. 
 Some seventy varieties are grown in the State. Olives 
 are sometimes partly dried before crushing in the old- 
 fashioned stone mills for the extraction of the oil. The 
 watery product is allowed to stand for perhaps a month 
 and the clear oil is decanted. This process is claimed 
 to give a delicacy of flavor which the filtered oils lack. 
 The green olives gave on analysis 13 per cent of fat, 
 while the ripe fruit gave 25.5. The oil may be eaten 
 with bread instead of butter. 
 
 Today "salad oil" is derived from many sources 
 
I06 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 besides the olive. Cotton seed oil and corn oil are 
 most frequently used, but other seed oils and peanut oil 
 are found in European samples. The label in more or 
 less correct Italian does not prove the contents of a 
 bottle to have come from the sunny land. At pres- 
 ent a great deal of the salad oil has never crossed the 
 seas, but is known to the dealers for what it is, cotton 
 seed oil. The oil is pressed out from the cotton seeds 
 by powerful presses and makes a very clear, sweet oil, 
 just as wholesome, for aught any one knows, as the 
 oil pressed from the olive, and for home use it is cer- 
 tainly much cheaper. The trouble with the sale of it is, 
 like that of oleomargarine, that it is sold under false 
 pretences and for an exorbitant price. 
 
 In America the cereals are grown so freely and are 
 prepared by machinery so easily that nuts cannot com- 
 pete in price ; but there are compensations, since nuts 
 may be used without cooking, and also since the fat 
 they contain makes them a more valuable food. 
 
 In comparing the cost of nuts with the cost of 
 cereals, the difference in food values must not be lost 
 sight of. Cereals are largely starch. Nuts in general 
 are rich in fat, and therefore pound for pound have 
 approximately twice the food value. The content in 
 proteid of nuts is also higher as a rule than in cereals, 
 and in the peanut more than twice as much. The 
 proteid of nuts seems to be in a very digestible and 
 utilizable form. It should be remembered that nuts 
 are the form of food best suited to replace meat. This 
 is made clear from the comparison in the table. The 
 price should, therefore, be compared with that of meat 
 rather than with that of cereals. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PERISHABLE FOODS MEAT, POULTRY, FISH 
 
 MEAT is a form of food which requires very little 
 expenditure of force for its assimilation, since 
 that work was done by the animal when living, and 
 man avails himself of it. Rightly used, it forms a val- 
 uable addition to man's diet. The consumption of meat 
 has steadily increased in spite of the increase in price, 
 which in England is said to have risen 35 per cent in 
 the last twenty-two years. The amount consumed each 
 day varies from one-tenth of a pound to two pounds 
 a head. 
 
 Since meat contains 40 to 50 per cent of water and 
 moisture is the prime requisite for the development of 
 bacteria, it is readily seen that meat is nearly as perish- 
 able as milk, which has only 10 to 15 per cent more of 
 water. 
 
 Butcher's meat as it has been obtained in small 
 communities was the last food to be suspected. But, 
 as in the case of milk, the concentration of population 
 on small areas has necessitated the transportation of 
 raw or frozen meat and poultry long distances, and the 
 keeping of large quantities for weeks or months. Peo- 
 ple insist on living so crowded together and have devel- 
 oped such an insatiable appetite for meat that the local 
 abattoirs are unable to supply the demand, and a large 
 
 107 
 
I08 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 part of any meat supply, even in the country, comes 
 from the great packing houses of the Middle West. 
 
 Recourse must be had to the wild lands of the semi- 
 arid regions for ranches, and large packing houses must 
 be placed within reach of the ranches in order to save 
 the transportation of so much live weight ; for an animal 
 when dressed shrinks to less than half its weight, and 
 of this no more than one-half goes as meat to the city 
 markets. 
 
 The various reports on the packing houses and the 
 discussions of them in the papers have brought the ques- 
 tion so vividly before the country at large that there is 
 no need of repeating it here. 
 
 It is the demand for meat and the necessity for its 
 long transportation, together with an unwillingness to 
 pay the price of cleanliness (as in the case of milk), 
 which has led to abuses now in a fair way to be 
 remedied. 
 
 There is danger, however, of the public relying on 
 the crusade against unclean methods of packing to give 
 a safe product on the table. 
 
 Perishable foods must be guarded from start to 
 finish if they are to be eaten with safety. The meat 
 must be kept clean from the time it leaves the packing 
 house until it reaches our tables. The retail meat 
 dealer should have means to keep uncontaminated the 
 stock of meat that he gets from the wholesale dealer. 
 
 In the few cities where public-spirited women have 
 looked into the markets there have been revealed low 
 standards of sanitation as bad as anything published 
 about the packing houses. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS lOQ 
 
 Another danger is from the exposure of meats in 
 warm weather to flies. In spite of cook books, meat 
 from the open market ought to be washed (not soaked, 
 but washed clean), and then dried with a cloth. But 
 if the meat is kept under cover on a counter the storage 
 place must be ventilated, since decay sets in sooner in 
 the warmer, close air. 
 
 In cleaning meat, all creases and flaps should be 
 carefully looked to and clots of blood removed, for such 
 harbor the organisms of decay. In institutions, board- 
 ing houses, and kitchens where much work goes on the 
 tendency is to neglect such matters. 
 
 One precaution must be given : Such washed meat 
 should be put at once into the pot or oven, since a 
 watery surface that favors bacterial action is substituted 
 for the dried film of the long exposed surface. A case 
 of severe illness known to the author was undoubtedly 
 caused by the washing of pieces of fowl for fricassee the 
 night before they were cooked and leaving them packed 
 in a mass. 
 
 Protection against diseased meats we must leave to 
 the inspectors, for this should be done at the time of 
 killing, or again in the large markets. In this matter 
 the people should be protected from the greed of any 
 dealer as well as from accidental overlooking of cases. 
 
 Cooked meats exposed for sale should be always 
 kept from flies, since such are not washed before eating. 
 
 The housewife's duty is concerned not so much with 
 the packing house, but rather with the whole period, 
 from the time when the meat leaves the cold storage 
 and is exposed for sale till it reaches her own refrigera- 
 tors and cooking vessels and is served on her table. 
 
no FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 In the market she can insist upon cleanliness in 
 handling, can agitate the matter of hot water for clean- 
 ing the hands, can see that non-absorbent paper is 
 always used, that there is a quick removal of all waste, 
 and the shortest possible exposure of raw surfaces. 
 
 If the slaughter house were as aseptic as a hospital 
 operating room, and if the meat were placed in the 
 refrigerator car in a perfect condition, it would not, 
 with present careless and ignorant habits, come to our 
 tables in a fresh condition. Some change goes on dur- 
 ing the long journey even in the cold. The warm, 
 dusty air of the meat market where it is exposed for 
 sale, the dirty hands coming in contact with it in a 
 dozen ways before it reaches the consumer's kitchen, 
 the woeful lack of cleanliness in most kitchens (I say 
 **most" advisedly from a bacterial standpoint), account 
 for the many cases of ptomaine poisoning that we 
 read of. 
 
 It is much to be desired that Farmers' Institutes 
 should take up the matter of hot water and clean hands 
 in reference to the whole question of clean and safe 
 food. As was said in regard to milk, the old-time 
 care of the farmer's wife has been replaced in too 
 many cases by ignorant ''help," who innocently allow 
 many unsanitary practices which a little teaching would 
 correct. 
 
 It is fortunate that the odor of putrefaction is so 
 pronounced that a cultivated sense of smell may detect 
 danger. Custom has sanctioned so " high " a flavor, 
 however, that poultry especially is frequently set before 
 one in an evident state of decomposition. Some of the 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS III 
 
 worst cases of ptomaine poisoning on record have been 
 caused by eating soup made from such fowls. These 
 toxic substances are not destroyed by heat and are 
 soluble, so that while the meat itself may frequently 
 be eaten with impunity, the broth causes illness. 
 
 The sale of poultry is becoming a matter of strict 
 legislation. Authorities differ, as usual, regarding the 
 comparative danger from the easy access of bacteria to 
 drawn poultry, or from the decomposition of the undrawn 
 entrails. 
 
 *' Ordinarily poultry will remain sweet for a week or 
 more in a temperature of 50° F., but if it is to be kept 
 longer it must be stored in a dry place at a temperature 
 no higher than 34° F. In such cold storage it will 
 keep almost indefinitely." ^ 
 
 It is to be feared that advantage has sometimes been 
 taken of this fact to keep poultry ''almost indefinitely." 
 
 If drawn carelessly, bits of liver or lungs are left 
 and easily decay, and parts become infected by unclean 
 hands, and slow decomposition goes on to burst into 
 flame, as it were, while the article is in transit to the 
 consumer. The Southern practice of killing as needed 
 has much to recommend it from this point of view. 
 
 There is a certain risk of rapid decomposition of 
 cold storage meats in hot weather which may be avoided 
 by the use of superficial preservatives. If the meat was 
 properly washed this would do no great harm, but too 
 many cooks do not clean the surface sufficiently. 
 
 Cured meats, salted, smoked, and dried, should, of 
 course, be prepared from sound material. The fre- 
 
 1 Farmers' Bulletin No. i8o. 
 
112 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 quency with which bad tongue and corned beef are 
 found leads to the conckision that local butchers 
 are careless. There is a temptation to put into the 
 brine for corned beef meat that is too far gone to sell 
 otherwise. 
 
 Meats once decayed cannot be made fit for human 
 food by any process. To find out that they are spoiled 
 is the cook's province before they go into the pot. 
 
 Sausages readily lend themselves both to filling and 
 preserving. In fact, a bright-colored meat is always 
 to be suspected. 
 
 Some preservatives, notably sulphites, prevent the 
 odor and appearance of decay but permit a softening 
 and deterioration of the fiber ; others applied to meat 
 already in process of decay may retard the exterior 
 changes sufficiently to prevent a decided odor and 
 leave the interior in an unfit condition. 
 
 The great danger of these toxic products of meat 
 decay may well make it a crime to place on the market 
 cuts with a possible taint. 
 
 The same general remarks apply to game and fish. 
 There must be freshness and care in handling and 
 cleaning before cooking, and an examination for spots 
 already in process of decay. 
 
 If salted and cured fish are always soaked before 
 preparing for the table, any borax or other preservative 
 that may have been used will be washed off. 
 
 A word may be welcome on the much discussed 
 subject of oysters and clams. 
 
 It seems incredible that any one would even consider 
 fattening oysters under the mouths of sewers or digging 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS I I 3 
 
 clams on a bank washed daily by the diluted sewage 
 of a city ; yet such is the practice. It is only another 
 case of indifference on the part of the public to what 
 is going on under its eyes. The only safe oyster or 
 clam is one knozvn by the purchaser to have been raised 
 and prepared for market in water free from sewage. 
 If one fears preservatives in barreled oysters, they may 
 be washed and the liquid thrown away. 
 
 The best remedy for the condition of the meat 
 market, as well as of the other markets, is to include 
 in all public school education lessons in marketing and 
 the appearance of fresh, untainted, untreated goods, 
 to inculcate an independence which means a self- 
 protection. 
 
 The constant cry for legal protection is a confession 
 of weakness, of indolence, and of lack of fiber to win 
 a way for one's self, which argues ill for the future of 
 the republic. Food is an important element in effect- 
 ive life which should be studied, and to whose safe 
 purchase and wholesome preparation time should be 
 given unstintingly. 
 
 Clean markets mean a higher price for products, but 
 the public will support the endeavor just as soon as it is 
 convinced of the necessity and increased value of the 
 materials. Glass cases are now commonly used in 
 the department stores, and thus an effort is made 
 to eliminate some sources of danger present in the 
 markets. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 PERISHABLE FOODS VEGETABLES AND FRUITS 
 
 T VEGETABLES are usually understood to include 
 ^ certain roots and tubers, as the potato, sweet 
 potato, turnip, onion, carrot, parsnip, and beet, with 
 some fruits, as the tomato, squash, and cucumber. 
 These are used in the fresh condition, and are not 
 subject to adulteration. They are largely composed 
 of water, 75 to 95 per cent. The small nutritive value 
 which they possess is due to the starch and sugar, and 
 not to the nitrogenous material, which is present in 
 small quantity only. The percentage of *'ash" is 
 higher than in cereals, and contains more potassium 
 salts. 
 
 When much salted meat is eaten, fruit and vegeta- 
 bles are very essential correctives of diet on account 
 of the acid and possibly on account of the potassium 
 salts, which are supposed to replace the excess of 
 sodium salts taken with the meat. 
 
 The common vegetables, onions, carrots, parsnips, 
 etc, need not be discussed save to emphasize the neces- 
 sity of cleaning them, and the value of the special 
 substance contained in the diet. They form a large 
 part of the ready diets of the various countries. 
 
 Greens, spinach, asparagus, lettuce, celery, and the 
 like, are to be watched for contamination from soil 
 fertilizers and unclean handling. Peas and beans, if 
 
 114 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS II 5 
 
 purchased shelled, should be washed for the same 
 reasons. 
 
 An illustration of possible dangers in the use of 
 uncooked vegetables is found in the prevalence • of hook 
 worm disease in Panama, where, owing to the fertilizing 
 with night soil of the ground in which lettuce is grown, 
 the lettuce, after being washed in cold water, must be 
 plunged into hot water and then cooled on ice. In 
 Manila special cleaning of vegetables is needed on 
 account of the dysentery amoeba. Many mysterious 
 cases of disease doubtless arise from eating imperfectly 
 cleaned green foods. 
 
 All vegetables which grow in or in contact with the 
 ground, especially today, when spraying with poison is 
 so widely resorted to, should be thoroughly cleaned 
 before cooking. For the same reason currants, goose- 
 berries, and grapes should be washed before eating 
 raw. In short, here, as everywhere, cleanHness is the 
 watchword. 
 
 There is little danger in the use of vegetables and 
 fruits as food if they are fresh, not wilted, and are fully 
 grown or ripened. They add a certain bulk to the 
 meal which seems to favor digestion. 
 
 The seeds of the Legimiinosce, peas, beans, and 
 lentils, may be called meat substitutes, since they 
 contain about 25 per cent of nitrogenous substance, 
 12 per cent of water, and 50 per cent of starch. 
 As dried seeds they should stand next in importance 
 to the cereals ; but since beans and peas especially are 
 eaten green, as vegetables, even more than in the dried 
 state, they cannot be omitted in this list. 
 
Il6 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 This form of food is not sufficiently appreciated, 
 especially by working people. It should be eaten with 
 starch or fat foods. Hence the New England dish of 
 baked beans with pork was a perfectly suitable and 
 well-proportioned food for people whose life was spent 
 largely in the open air in arduous pioneer work. The 
 nutritious seeds are less easily digested than the cereals. 
 The ''ash " contains more lime and less phosphates. 
 
 The vegetarian and some subtropical peoples obtain 
 their proteid food largely from these foods. The fri- 
 joles of the Mexican, the soy bean of the Chinese and 
 Japanese, the lentil of Egypt, and the various European 
 varieties furnish a large portion of mankind with an 
 inexpensive substitute for meat. 
 
 The soy, or soja, bean {Glyciiie Jiispida or Soja 
 hispida) has several varieties, all native of the East. 
 It is being introduced quite extensively into the United 
 States. It contains a high per cent of proteid, and the 
 carbohydrate seems to be different from the other 
 beans. It furnishes the best source of diabetic food, 
 since starch is entirely absent. 
 
 FRUITS 
 
 Fruits, so called — apple, pear, grape, peach, orange, 
 etc. — contain sugar, instead of the starch of the vege- 
 table, and also an acid which gives a pleasant relish and 
 is a stimulant to the appetite. The general composition 
 of fruits may be stated at 85 per cent water, 8 per cent 
 sugar, and i per cent acid. 
 
 The ripening of fruits is a chemical change of the 
 more solid, gummy, or starchy substances to the soluble 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 11/ 
 
 Sugars dissolved in the water juices, for fruits are even 
 higher in water content than milk. The delicate skin 
 of many fruits is readily punctured and access is made 
 easy for micro-organisms always lying in wait, and as 
 soon as the skin becomes cracked decay sets in. 
 
 The exposure on the street of fruits, especially those 
 with rough skins or crushable berries, as raspberries, 
 blackberries, etc. — a collecting ground for dust — ren- 
 ders them unfit for food without more thorough washing 
 than they often receive or it is possible to give them. 
 Children who buy and eat them from the stand run 
 great risks, perhaps not from deadly poisons, but of 
 digestive disturbances which may lead to fatal illness. 
 The great increase of fruit on the market is not an 
 unmixed blessing, since a greater amount of damaged 
 fruit finds its way to the tenement house children and 
 is as responsible for illness among those from five to ten 
 years of age as bad milk is for sickness among infants. 
 More careful inspection of fruit is needed. 
 
 These facts should lead to a more careful scrutinizing 
 of the fresh fruits, before they are put upon the table, 
 for the micro-organisms which are present upon them. 
 
 Apples are the American fruit par excellence. In 
 1905, 2,000,000,000 bushels of this fruit were marketed. 
 The apple is a smooth-skinned, solid fruit, not easily 
 marred, and therefore readily transported without exces- 
 sive loss from decay. It may be cleaned so easily that 
 there is no excuse if it causes trouble. It has an agree- 
 able flavor and serves as a condiment to other foods. 
 The old-fashioned process of drying it in thick sections 
 permitted the browning by an enzyme oxadase which 
 
I I 8 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 somewhat injured the flavor. Moreover, as we now 
 realize, the exposure to flies is an added risk. 
 
 The modern evaporated apples, sliced and dried 
 quickly, serve, when properly cooked, in almost all 
 ways as well as the fresh fruit. Sometimes bleaching 
 by sulphite is resorted to. If the first short soaking 
 water is thrown away after the fruit is washed, nearly 
 all danger from the sulphite is averted. 
 
 Nearly the same statements apply to peaches and 
 apricots and plums. They are not so easily transported, 
 being of softer flesh. Their outer skin is fuzzy, or 
 downy, and hence holds more micro-organisms, and 
 it cracks more easily ; on the other hand, they dry 
 rather more readily. The dried plum is known to us 
 as the prune. 
 
 The peach is short-lived, and at best remains in good 
 condition but a comparatively short time, whereas the 
 apple may be kept for months, or even for a couple 
 of years, in such condition that the cells are appar- 
 ently able to perform their natural functions, though 
 to a somewhat diminished extent. 
 
 Grapes. About 1,500,000,000 pounds of grapes 
 were raised in America in 1905, and of these prob- 
 ably two-thirds went to the consumer in four and 
 eight-pound baskets. 
 
 The banana tree {Musa sapient imi L.), although 
 extensively cultivated in tropical America, is a native 
 of the Old World. It is said to produce more food 
 to the acre than any other plant. Whether eaten as 
 a vegetable, cooked or raw as a fruit, it is a valuable 
 addition to the table. Banana flour is beginning to be 
 found on the market and should come into favor 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 119 
 
 The pineapple {Ananassa saliva Schult.), a tropical 
 American fruit, is somewhat abundant in our markets. 
 The pulp appears to contain an enzyme which is a 
 powerful digester of proteids, and if separated from 
 the irritating outer layer may come into use as an aid 
 to weak digestion as well as a pleasant fruit. 
 
 The date palm {Phcmix dactylifera L.), one of the 
 most ancient trees, has a fruit which furnishes the 
 desert Arabs and other wanderers with their chief food. 
 A more or less well-founded suspicion that the dried 
 packages have not been handled in a cleanly fashion is 
 doubtless the occasion of the prejudice against this 
 most nutritious and tasty fruit. 
 
 That we shall not always be dependent on this 
 supply has been provided by the government. 
 
 '^The transfer from the great deserts of the whole 
 world to those of the new of the unique date industry 
 is an accomplishment of which the government may 
 well be proud. . . . Though the attention of the public 
 was first attracted to the possibilities of growing the 
 foreign date palm in this country through chance 
 seedlings that bore fruit and through an early intro- 
 duction of the pomologist of this department, it was 
 the exploration trip of Mr. Swingle to the Desert 
 of Sahara in 1899 that first proved the feasibihty of 
 starting commercial date plantations in Arizona and 
 California. From the time when the first large ship- 
 ment of palm suckers reached the Southwest until the 
 present, the Office of Plant Introduction has had an 
 explorer in some one or other of the date regions of the 
 Old World, gathering plants for the government plan- 
 
I20 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 tations. Today the list of introduced varieties numbers 
 over 170, and more than 3,000 palms, large and small, 
 have been imported and planted out. The best sorts 
 from Egyptian oases, selected kinds from the valley of 
 the Tigris, the famous dates of Southern Tunis, and 
 even the varieties from uncivilized Beluchistan have 
 been gathered" into what may proudly be called the 
 best collection of date varieties in the world. This 
 search through the deserts of the world has revealed 
 the fact that the dates of our markets are only one 
 or two kinds of the host of sorts known to the true 
 date eaters, the Arabs, and that those we prize as 
 delicacies are by no means looked upon by the desert 
 dwellers as their best. The search has brought to light, 
 as well, the hard, dry date, which Americans do not 
 know at all, and which they will learn to appreciate 
 as a food, just as the Arab has. Already Algerian 
 and Egyptian imported palms have borne and ripened 
 fruit." 1 
 
 DRIED FRUITS 
 
 Dried or evaporated apple, peach, and apricot may 
 be had in various qualities for a low price per pound. 
 If the product on the market was originally good, the 
 "evaporation" does not appreciably injure it. 
 
 It is only when inferior and green fruit has been 
 dried that one fails to receive the worth of one's money. 
 The much derided prune is being so extensively culti- 
 vated in California that it may come into the favor it 
 deserves. Perhaps if it were known by its true name 
 of plum it would gain in favor. 
 
 iFairchild: National Geographic Magazine, June, 1906. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 121 
 
 Raisins, figs, etc, have a nutritive value nearly equal 
 to that of bread, containing 40 to 50 per cent of sugar. 
 Raisins have proved an excellent food for Arctic 
 expeditions, sustaining the animal heat under extreme 
 conditions. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 CANNED FOODS AND JELLIES 
 
 THE habit of apartment house and hotel life makes 
 it impossible to do much home preserving, and 
 the difficulty of doing on the farm all that is needed 
 in the few short weeks of fruiting time makes it inev- 
 itable that the factory must turn out most of the 
 product. It is true that much more may be done on 
 the farm and in the country than is now customary 
 in the way of saving fruits and vegetables when they 
 are in their prime. The United States Department of 
 Agriculture is preparing bulletins on preserving vege- 
 tables as companions to Miss Parloa's on '' Home 
 Canning of Fruits." 
 
 It is possible to supply the table of a dweller in a 
 large city with fresh hothouse grown string beans, peas, 
 beets, tomatoes, etc, every day in the year, but to the 
 country dweller and to the person of limited means 
 there is the possibility of quite as good a flavor from 
 canned goods at a much smaller price. Because the 
 forced products never have the same fully developed 
 flavor that the same products have in their proper 
 season, many city people have forgotten, if they ever 
 knew, the real flavor of fresh vegetables. The canned 
 vegetables, when of the good quality that are put up 
 in their prime, retain more of the true flavor than 
 do those that are forced. They are more difficult to 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 23 
 
 prepare than fruits, partly because of the starchy nature, 
 which favors fermentation. 
 
 Just a word here on the fundamental principles of 
 preserving such perishable articles. It means killing 
 all the low forms of vegetation, such as molds and bac- 
 teria on the surface of the fruit or vegetables, together 
 with any that may get in during the handling neces- 
 sary in preparation and any clinging to the vessels used 
 in the process. Heat is the best sterilizer, and if it did 
 not injure the flavor and appearance it would be a sim- 
 ple matter to "put up" any of these things. It is, 
 however, a nice distinction to draw the line between 
 the degree of heat needful to kill the undesirable plant 
 life and that which harms the subject of the operation. 
 Mr. E. F. Pernot, of Oregon, has made experiments on 
 canning vegetables and fruits. He finds that the most 
 successful method is the heating of clean, fresh vegeta- 
 bles in jars of sterilized water. The jars are sealed 
 and heated to 165° F. for fifteen minutes. They are 
 then allowed to stand for twenty-four to forty-eight 
 hours, after which the operation is repeated. Still 
 a third time the jars were heated and the process 
 completed. 1 
 
 Again, these objectionable plants, while easily killed, 
 have '* seeds," or '* spores," which endure a greater heat, 
 and so sprout in a few days. This necessitates a second 
 heating and greater danger to flavor and appearance. 
 To obviate this, various preservatives have been added. 
 In our present ignorance as to the effect of such 
 additions on health it is wisest to omit them and cook 
 
 1 Oregon Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 87. 
 
124 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 sufficiently to preserve the fruits and vegetables without 
 them. 
 
 It goes without saying that, other things being 
 equal, a tall, narrow jar or can will serve better than 
 a short, wide one. The cans of French peas are a 
 case in point ; the narrow bottles of our grandmothers 
 offer another. 
 
 Vegetables contain more proteids, as a rule, than do 
 fruits ; they also harbor more organisms, and are cor- 
 respondingly difficult to keep. Compare sweet corn 
 and pears, for instance. The small kernel is attached 
 to the cob by a narrow hook, with plenty of room 
 around the socket for the hiding of molds and fungi; 
 these mingle with the corn as cut from the cob, and 
 it is no wonder that the keeping of corn is more 
 difficult than that of the large, smooth-coated pear. 
 
 Great use is made of canned goods, from the house- 
 wife's dozen jars to the tons put up in tins by large 
 concerns. Most of these are wholesome and valuable 
 additions to the bill of fare. When put up whole 
 defects are visible, and it is chiefly from preservatives 
 that there is danger. These are more probable in the 
 handsome product in glass jars. Benzoic acid has been 
 found, and in some brands both this and the sulphites. 
 Sulphite preparations have been sold to the housewife 
 to enable her to compete with the shop in appearance. 
 
 The universal use of tin cans has led health authori- 
 ties to watch closely for excess of tin and lead from 
 careless soldering, with the result that today only the 
 best quality of tin and lap solder on the outside are 
 found on standard goods. In the earlier days of can- 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 25 
 
 ning even condensed milk has contained enough lead 
 to give rise to lead poisoning of children. It was not 
 uncommon to pick out lumps of solder, several of 
 them as large as peas or beans, from a can of toma- 
 toes. With better knowledge, these poor quality cans 
 are little used ; still the housewife will do well to 
 scrutinize a few cans of each new brand to see if the 
 joints are lap joints, that means, showing no solder 
 inside, and if the tin is without evidence of action by 
 acids. The poor quality tin is an alloy much more 
 readily acted on. 
 
 The danger from the solution of tin and lead is 
 much greater when canned goods are depended upon 
 for staple foods in camp in distant regions. It is 
 undoubtedly true that time does increase the amount 
 dissolved, so that dating would have a certain value. 
 
 The cry has gone over to the coloring matter intro- 
 duced as coal tar color. This is added from purely 
 aesthetic considerations, and it is wholly in the house- 
 wife's power to stop it by refusing to buy decorative 
 fruits, jams, and jellies. 
 
 Meats which are to be used for canning are usually 
 partly cooked first, and then put into cans and heated 
 and sealed. If the meat is in good condition there is 
 no occasion for adding any preservative or extraneous 
 substances. 
 
 The housewife should see to it that each can is 
 examined when opened, for both appearance and odor 
 will reveal bad conditions nine times out of ten. Also 
 explicit directions should be given to empty the metal 
 can as soon as it is opened, and to put the can where 
 it cannot hold water to breed mosquitoes. 
 
126 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 When proper precautions are taken the danger from 
 canned goods is no greater than from articles purchased 
 in the open market. 
 
 From the extensive investigation being made in the 
 state laboratories from one end of the country to 
 the other this year (1906), it seems fair to conclude 
 that many of the " minced " products sold under the 
 name of meats have been "filled" with corn meal, 
 which also allows more water to be held in the mate- 
 rial than in meat only. Occasionally an excess of zeal 
 for utilizing waste products has made these canned 
 goods a dumping ground for scraps better sent to 
 the fat extractor or the fertilizer house. In some 
 cases preservatives have been added. 
 
 But the public should know that the temptation to 
 extend a finely divided substance, which to the unaided 
 eye is homogeneous, is too great to be resisted by 
 unscrupulous manufacturers. 
 
 As in the case of meats, the products in which the 
 original form of fruit or vegetable is not kept offer 
 the widest field for both sophistication and adultera- 
 tion, that is, catsups, sauces, jams, jellies, etc. It is 
 said that, as in pickling of meats, these materials are 
 often collected during other processes and kept in bar- 
 rels or tanks until enough has accumulated for putting 
 up. It is reasonable to suppose that this is sometimes 
 done and that preservatives are added to such tanks. 
 
 " Sterilized by heat and sealed from contamination 
 by germs, there is no class of food stuffs in so little 
 need of preservatives. It should be taken as almost 
 positive evidence of careless methods in packing if 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 12/ 
 
 preservatives are found present. These may have 
 been used to prevent stock spoiling while awaiting the 
 final process of canning, or to assist in preserving it 
 from further deterioration, fermentation having set in. 
 In many cases artificial coloring is resorted to in order 
 to make the goods more attractive. This is especially 
 the case with tomatoes, and indeed with them the 
 matter is often overdone and they are colored beyond 
 the natural degree. "^ 
 
 JELLIES 
 
 In the case of jams, jellies, and preserves, the igno- 
 rance of the consumer who has never seen the processes 
 of "putting up" fruit has permitted the manufacturer 
 to palm off unsuitable articles. The buyer has no 
 knowledge of and takes no pains to inform himself 
 about the appearance of the pure article, and is easily 
 persuaded that an inferior one is just as good. He 
 pays the usual penalty of ignorance, in money, in health, 
 and in self-reproach. It is possible to know all about 
 the goods we buy, as was said earlier. The taxpayer 
 supports laboratories for the purpose of protection, 
 but all their efforts are multiplied because the buyer 
 will not take the trouble to read the labels that the 
 law has made plain. 
 
 The people have this matter in their hands. The 
 use of preservatives has prevailed because, as in many 
 other directions, appearance is valued before quality, 
 color before flavor. Indeed the average palate seems 
 to have no discrimination. 
 
 1 Report of Professor Willard in the Bulletin of the Kansas State 
 Board of Health, June, 1906. 
 
128 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Jellies are a sort of dried fruit juice. Many fruits 
 contain a substance called pectin or pectose^ which forms, 
 when heated with sugar, a gelatinous mass that will 
 keep for a long time if put in a cool and dry place. 
 
 Substitute jellies and jams are abundant on all 
 markets, for they can be sold at a profit at a price 
 which brings them within the means of all, and in 
 most cases they furnish a wholesome variety and add 
 a needed flavor to a monotonous diet. 
 
 According to law these mixtures are to be labeled 
 for what they are, so that no one need be deceived. 
 Perhaps right here the author's suggestion of a high 
 school museum, showing the characteristics of the local 
 market, may be emphasized. A case in the hallway 
 or some other convenient place where all the pupils 
 may spend a few idle moments any day in reading the 
 labels and familiarizing themselves with the appearance 
 of pure and adulterated goods will do more than any 
 one thing toward the enforcement of legal restrictions. 
 As has been said repeatedly, it is ignorance which has 
 permitted such a state of things as has been revealed 
 in certain quarters. The Kansas Bulletin just quoted 
 describes a brand of "compounded" preserves: 
 
 *< On the label, which is covered as much as possible 
 by the word Columbia, appears this statement : * Twenty- 
 five per cent selected fruit, thirty-one per cent apple 
 juice, thirty-seven per cent corn syrup, six per cent 
 granulated sugar. This sample is colored with coal tar 
 dye, preserved with sodium sulphite, and sweetened 
 with glucose.' " 
 
 Find out from your state bulletins which are the 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 29 
 
 best brands on your markets, and do not try every new 
 thing that you see advertised. 
 
 The extension of these various processes for keeping 
 perishable food for months and for transporting it hun- 
 dreds and even thousands of miles has been so great 
 a boon to explorers, to prospectors in the mountains, 
 to dwellers in the desert, to campers and vacationists, to 
 the housewife with unexpected company, that the good 
 far outweighs the evil of a few spoiled cans, even of 
 occasional preservatives. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CONDIMENTS 
 MUSTARD 
 
 THE mustard of commerce is the seed of the plant 
 Sinapis, of different species, ground into flour. 
 It belongs to one of the most useful families of our 
 temperate zone, the Mustard family {Criccifercs). It is 
 a hardy plant, and grows very readily in our climate. 
 The famous Durham mustard was originally made 
 from the wild charlock {Sinapis arvensis), which grew 
 abundantly around Durham and has a pleasant, 
 mildly pungent flavor. The name is still retained 
 as a trade-mark. The charlock grows as a weed in 
 our wheat fields and furnishes a product known in the 
 trade as Dakota mustard. Along the coast of Ire- 
 land the fields, as seen from the passing steamer, 
 look yellow with the blossoms of the wild charlock, 
 or Charlie, as it is familiarly called. Black and white 
 mustard are the two kinds usually found in the mar- 
 ket, the seeds of Siiiapis 7iigra and Siiiapis alba. 
 Since the whole seeds are to be had, the best way 
 to study the condiment is to purchase some seeds 
 and grind them. Several points of difference between 
 this undoubtedly pure article and that which is bought 
 ground will be noticed. 
 
 In the first place the ground seeds have much oil. 
 This is not the pungent, volatile oil {Ally I siilpJiocya- 
 
 130 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS I3I 
 
 nide) which gives the flavor, but a bland, fixed oil 
 which is always expressed from the seeds before they 
 are manufactured into mustard. Next the color of 
 the pure mustard will attract attention. There is no 
 mustard of a bright yellow color, the brightest possi- 
 ble color being a dull yellow. The bright yellow of the 
 shops is either largely rape seed or artificially colored 
 to suit a popular taste. Another noticeable difference 
 is in the pungent smell and taste of the home-ground 
 article. If such mustard is used for a time that of the 
 shops seems very insipid. 
 
 Mustard is one of the most universal and wholesome 
 condiments, but its use in medicine is even more impor- 
 tant. It is of the utmost consequence to have a genuine 
 article when it is to be used as an active remedy in 
 sudden illness. The balance of life and death may 
 depend upon the quality of the mustard used for the 
 emetic, the plaster, or the bath. Every housekeeper 
 should see that her medicine chest is supplied with pure 
 mustard, whatever may be the quality of that in her 
 spice box. 
 
 The adulterations are many. Probably two-thirds 
 of the mustard sold is anything but pure ground seeds. 
 The principal ingredients are starch from wheat, rice, 
 or corn flour, turmeric to color the too white starch, 
 rape seed, old turnip and radish seed unfit for planting, 
 linseed, etc. 
 
 Of thirty samples examined in the laboratory of 
 the writer, twenty-one contained more or less starch. 
 Hardly any seeds of Criiciferce contain starch ; hence 
 its presence is a proof of adulteration. The blue or 
 
132 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 dark purple color which iodine causes in starch grains 
 and the thickening in boiling water are the simplest 
 tests. In eleven samples turmeric was added. This 
 is readily detected by the microscope, as are also the 
 other seeds. The per cent of oil may be used to deter- 
 mine the relative strengths of a number of samples, 
 since it is upon the volatile, pungent oil that the peculiar 
 properties of mustard depend. 
 
 PEPPER 
 
 Peppercorns are the berries of the plant Piper 
 nigrum, which grows only in tropical climates. Has- 
 sall says that Malabar, Penang, and Sumatra are the 
 three kinds most prized. Black and white pepper are 
 from the same plant, the only difference being that 
 black pepper is the whole berry dried while green, 
 while the white, after ripening, has been deprived of 
 the husk or outer layer of the berry, which is black. 
 White pepper is milder than the black, for the husks 
 are quite pungent The best is that from the whole 
 berry. A good way to secure pure pepper is to use 
 a little mill on the table, and to grind the whole berries 
 as wanted. The active properties of pepper depend 
 upon three substances : about 1 6 per cent of acrid resin 
 and piperine, and i to 2 per cent of volatile oil. 
 
 The adulteration of pepper is extensive. Indeed it 
 is the exception rather than the rule to find a pure 
 article in the market. Wheat flour, ground rice, Indian 
 meal, husks of the London-made white pepper, husks 
 of mustard, nutshells, charcoal, peas, poppy seeds, 
 exhausted pepper and the mysterious "P. D." pepper 
 
AND THEIR ADULtERAtlONS 133 
 
 dust, said to be the sweepings of the warehouses, can 
 be imported for as many cents a pound as the prepared 
 article can be sold for an ounce ; so that there is great 
 temptation to use these harmless but not tempting 
 mixtures. Time and trouble are saved by the purchase 
 of ready ground condiments, but the price paid is too 
 great in proportion. 
 
 Of sixteen samples examined three were fairly good ; 
 nine were made up of pepper and mustard husks, flour, 
 and Indian meal. Most of the adulterations can be 
 detected by the microscope, after a careful study of 
 the structure of the various seeds and husks ; but expe- 
 rience has taught the writer that considerable practice 
 is required to become expert at the detection of the 
 kind of foreign matters used. 
 
 CAYENNE PEPPER AND PAPRIKA 
 
 Red or Cayenne pepper is made from the ground 
 pods of various species of Capsicum, a plant of the 
 Nightshade family. The cayenne of commerce is 
 derived from tropical species, but the pods of the red 
 peppers which are commonly cultivated for pickles, 
 when ground, make a very good cayenne. The pecul- 
 iar pungent taste is due to the presence of about 
 4 per cent of an acrid resin. The earher English 
 writers state that cayenne is more liable to adulteration 
 than black pepper, and alarming stories are told of the 
 presence of red lead, mercury, etc. But the results of 
 examinations made in this country do not show any 
 poisonous addition, and the addition of flour, etc, is 
 rather less than in black pepper. 
 
134 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 The Hungarian red pepper, or paprika, is a mild 
 variety of Capsicum aitmiuni which is coming into favor 
 as being less biting. 
 
 Sawdust from red sandalwood and coal tar colorings 
 are sometimes found in these peppers. 
 
 The following figures are taken from official reports 
 from Massachusetts : 
 
 In 1 90 1 of thirty-nine examined nine were adulter- 
 ated with plaster, wheat, corn meal, coal tar dye, dirt, 
 ginger, pepper shells, olive stones, sawdust. 
 
 In 1902 of sixty-six examined six were adulterated 
 with plaster, wheat, corn meal, coal tar dye, dirt, ginger, 
 pepper shells, olive stones, sawdust. 
 
 In 1903 of sixty-one examined one was adulterated 
 with plaster, wheat, corn meal, coal tar dye, dirt, ginger, 
 pepper shells, olive stones, sawdust. 
 
 In 1904 of seventeen examined six were adulterated 
 with plaster, wheat, corn meal, coal tar dye, dirt, ginger, 
 pepper shells, olive stones, sawdust. 
 
 Samples examined in Michigan show : 
 
 In 1 90 1 of twenty-seven examined nineteen were 
 adulterated as above. 
 
 In 1904 of 129 examined seventy-four were adulter- 
 ated as above. 
 
 SPICES 
 
 Those spices, hke nutmeg, cloves, stick cinnamon, 
 mace, and allspice, which are bought by weight and in 
 the form in which they are gathered are not exactly 
 capable of adulteration. But there is a certain decep- 
 tion to be guarded against. An inferior or cheaper 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 35 
 
 quality of the same or of a similar kind of spice may 
 be mixed with or substituted for better or more costly 
 sorts without any corresponding diminution in price. 
 
 For instance, wild nutmegs are mixed with cultivated 
 ones, bearing about the same relation to the best quali- 
 ties that a cider apple does to a fine Baldwin. It is the 
 same with mace and cloves, while cassia is so largely 
 substituted for cinnamon that it is almost impossible to 
 find stick cinnamon that is not mixed with cassia. 
 To learn to know the genuine species with certainty 
 is our only safeguard. Then if we choose to buy cassia 
 we shall do it with our eyes open and without paying 
 the price of the delicate and costly cinnamon. 
 
 NUTMEGS 
 
 There are three species of Myristica which furnish 
 nutmegs. The best are the kernels of the Myristica 
 fragrans^ and are called queen nutmegs. The tree is a 
 native of the East India islands, but is also cultivated 
 in India and Central America. The best nutmegs are 
 those from Penang, which are about an inch in length, 
 shaped like a damson plum. The kernels are usually 
 pickled in lime water, to ward off the attacks of insects 
 to which they are particularly liable. The weight of 
 good nutmegs should be, on an average, one hundred 
 to the pound, or nearly seven to the ounce, grocers' 
 weight. Very fine ones weigh eighty and one hundted 
 to the pound, or five or six to the ounce. If pricked 
 with a pin the oil exudes visibly, and the pin also pene- 
 trates readily. Wild nutmegs are small and pointed. 
 They are inferior in the amount of oil and in the 
 general fragrance. 
 
136 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 MACE 
 
 Mace is the aril of the nutmeg, and its quaHty 
 depends very greatly upon the kind of kernel on 
 which it grows, the aril of the queen nutmeg being 
 the best. 
 
 CINNAMON 
 
 The best cinnamon comes from Ceylon, It is the 
 bark of a tree of the Laurel family, which gives us, even 
 in this temperate climate, such plants as our sassafras 
 and our spicebush. The trees are topped like osier 
 willows, and the cinnamon used is the bark from the 
 young shoots which form the bush at the top of the 
 tree, and which are cut twice a year. A tract not 
 much more than a quarter of a mile square forms the 
 great cinnamon orchard of Ceylon. No other country 
 produces so fine a quality, or so great a quantity, as 
 the fertile and siliceous tracts of Ceylon and the 
 neighboring islands. 
 
 The most noticeable character of true cinnamon is its 
 splintery, fibrous quality. It tears rather than breaks, 
 and is in small, thin rolls. The taste is sweet and 
 spicy, and it retains its flavor long in the mouth. 
 
 CASSIA 
 
 Cassia is used to mix with cinnamon, being cheap 
 and abundant. It is coarser and in thicker rolls. It 
 breaks readily but does not tear, and if chewed is gran- 
 ular and rather mucilaginous. It lacks the deHcate, 
 sweet taste and smell of cinnamon, having a peculiar 
 woody, strong flavor of its own. 
 
 China or Canton cassia, the Cassia lig?iea of the 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 3/ 
 
 pharmacists, is the commonest and cheapest, costing 
 about half as much as that of Batavia and one-fifth 
 that of Saigon. It is the bark of a small evergreen 
 found in Southeastern China. 
 
 The tree from which Saigon cassia, the most pun- 
 gent and expensive of all the cassia or cinnamon barks, 
 is taken grows in Cochin China. It is not unusual to 
 find 4 or even 5 per cent of oil in good samples. 
 
 CLOVES 
 
 Cloves are the unexpanded flower buds of the 
 CaryopJiyllus aromaticiis , a tree of the Myrtle family, 
 which is a native of the Moluccas, but which is culti- 
 vated in the East and West Indies, Guiana, Brazil, 
 and the Philippines. Like all the spices under con- 
 sideration, the active principle is due to one or more 
 oils, which may be and are extracted and sold as oil 
 of clove, oil of cassia, etc. Whole cloves containing 
 15 to 25 per cent of essential oil can hardly be said to 
 be adulterated, although the stalks are sometimes in 
 excess of the buds. Advantage is taken of the property 
 of imbibing a large portion of moisture to increase the 
 weight, and exhausted cloves are sold after distillation 
 of the oil. 
 
 PIMENTO, OR ALLSPICE 
 
 Pimento is the berry of the Etcgenia pimento^ a tree 
 of the Myrtle family, a native of the Caribbee Islands, 
 and also cultivated in the East Indies. The berries 
 have a fragrant odor, supposed to resemble a mixture 
 of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmegs ; hence the name of 
 allspice. 
 
I3S 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 GINGER 
 
 The ginger plant {^Zingiber officinale) belongs to the 
 order from which turmeric and East India arrowroot 
 are obtained. It is a native of India and China, and 
 is cultivated in tropical America and Africa. The 
 ginger of commerce is derived from the fleshy, creep- 
 ing rootstalks, which are dug up when about a year 
 old, and, if scraped and dried, give white or Jamaica 
 ginger ; if left coated, or unscraped, black or East 
 India ginger. Calcutta exports the principal part of 
 the ginger used. Ginger contains, besides the volatile 
 oil, an aromatic resin. 
 
 African and Calcutta ground ginger is brown ; that 
 from Jamaica, Japan, etc, being from scraped roots, is 
 white or light buff. 
 
 After being treated with alcohol in the manufacture 
 of ginger extract, or with water for ginger ale, the 
 residue is used to adulterate fresh materials. Rice, 
 bran, linseed meal, cereals, and turmeric are also found 
 as adulterants. 
 
 Massachusetts reports give the following figures 
 with regard to ginger : 
 
 Examined. Adulterated. 
 
 1 i 
 
 Adulterants. 
 
 1 901 
 1902 
 1903 
 
 246 
 224 
 
 20 
 
 9 
 
 \ Wheat, rice, dirt, 
 
 i turmeric, buckwheat 
 
 CURRY 
 
 Curry is not so extensively used in America as it 
 deserves, yet it is found so often as to justify a word. 
 
AND THEIR. ADULTERATIONS I 39 
 
 It is composed of a mixture of spices and highly colored 
 with turmeric. It is liable to variations of strength, 
 as are the spices of which it is composed. 
 
 ADULTERATION OF SPICES 
 
 In ground spices, as a rule, we find much reason 
 for dissatisfaction. Their only merit now is conven- 
 ience, not quality. Nutmegs, mace, and cloves are so 
 oily that to grind them easily some absorbent like saw- 
 dust or starch is added, and this becomes a part of 
 the ground spice as the first step, whatever may be 
 added later. There is, however, but little demand for 
 ground nutmeg, American housekeepers having the 
 good sense to prefer the whole nuts. 
 
 Twelve specimens of cinnamon were examined. 
 Only three of these contained any cinnamon at all. 
 Even these were mixed with cassia and sawdust. The 
 other nine were chiefly cassia and sawdust, mahogany 
 sawdust being distinctly identified in some of them. 
 Two contained a very little cassia and a great deal of 
 sawdust, and the third was nothing but sawdust, there 
 being no trace of any spice in it. 
 
 All these spices may be examined under the micro- 
 scope 1 for adulterations ; but, as has been said before, 
 only experience will give the training of the eye which 
 will render an opinion worth anything. Each kind of 
 spice here mentioned has its own peculiarities, and 
 after these are thoroughly studied the additions may 
 be at once determined. The adulterations are much 
 
 iSee Microscopy of Vegetable Foods. A. L. Winton and 
 J. Moeller, 
 
140 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 the same in all this class — starch in some form, 
 turmeric for color, mustard husks for pungency. 
 
 The following table is taken from the Massachusetts 
 report for 1904 : 
 
 Allspice 
 
 Cassia 
 
 Cayenne 
 
 Ginger 
 
 Mace . , 
 
 Mustard 
 
 Nutmeg 
 
 Pepper 
 
 Vinegar . 
 
 Examined. 
 
 192 
 
 50 
 216 
 
 31 
 
 226 
 
 16 
 
 54 
 
 Genuine. 
 
 154 
 191 
 
 212 
 19 
 
 195 
 15 
 
 333 
 34 
 
 Adulterated. 
 
 5 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 4 
 12 
 
 31 
 I 
 
 13 
 
 20 
 
 Per cent, 
 adulterated. 
 
 31-4 
 
 0-5 
 
 0.0 
 
 1.9 
 
 38.8 
 
 11.6 
 
 6.3 
 
 3.8 
 
 37-1 
 
 VINEGAR 
 
 Vinegar (vin aigj'e)y as its name implies, was 
 originally made from sour wine, that is, from wine in 
 which the alcoholic fermentation had given place to 
 that which produces acetic acid. The whole of the 
 alcohol may be changed into acetic acid by means of 
 the vinegar ferment (^Mycodenna aceti), commonly called 
 "mother of vinegar." A very Uttle of this in the 
 presence of air is sufficient to convert a large quantity 
 of alcohol. 
 
 In the United States and Canada vinegar is derived 
 chiefly from cider. The best of it is made by a long 
 process of fermentation in casks. The casks are half 
 filled and left, with bungholes open to allow the free 
 circulation of air, in a warm cellar or exposed to the 
 air. This process requires two or three years unless 
 the change is hastened by the addition of old vinegar. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS I4I 
 
 A lack of patience impels most manufacturers to 
 resort to a quicker method, known as the '' generator " 
 process, by which the cider is allowed to percolate 
 through a filter of beech wood shavings or birch twigs 
 saturated with old vinegar. This process requires only 
 two or three days. 
 
 In France and Germany pure vinegar is understood 
 to be made from wine, while in England vinegar means 
 malt vinegar. 
 
 Proof vinegar contains about 5 per cent of acetic 
 acid, but that sold in the shops often contains only 
 3 per cent, or even less. 
 
 The methods of adulteration of vinegar are (i) by 
 dilution, (2) by mixing with cheaper sorts, (3) by the 
 substitution of cheaper grades, with the possible addi- 
 tion of mineral acids, coloring matter, or spices for 
 flavoring. Entirely artificial substitutes for vinegar 
 are made up of distilled or spirit vinegar, that is, 
 vinegar made from distilled whisky, brandy, or grain 
 alcohol, colored with caramel and thickened with a jelly 
 made from exhausted apple pomace (the refuse left after 
 all the juice has been expressed from the apple stock 
 by the cider mill). 
 
 Wood vinegar from pyroligneous acid, derived from 
 wood by distillation, is sometimes flavored with acetic 
 acid. 
 
 Simple tests of vinegar may be made by evaporating 
 in a shallow dish. The residue from cider vinegar has 
 the odor of baked apples and a slightly acid flavor ; the 
 odor and taste of the residue from wine vinegar are 
 decidedly vinous. 
 
142 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 PICKLES 
 
 Cucumbers and various other vegetables, such as 
 onions, cauHflower, string beans, beets, and peppers, 
 are preserved in vinegar as pickles. For the finest 
 qualities the pure cider, wine, or malt vinegar is used. 
 These are usually preserved without cooking. The 
 cucumbers and other hard vegetables, having been first 
 soaked in brine, the soft vegetables, like beans, having 
 been soaked in water, are then treated with boiling 
 vinegar. 
 
 In the case of pickles, a depraved taste has led to 
 the demand for bright green pickles, and this taste has 
 sometimes been gratified by adding copper sulphate or 
 by boiling the pickles in copper kettles with vinegar 
 and a little alum. The acetic acid of the vinegar acts 
 upon the copper, forming a little acetate of copper, one 
 of the most poisonous of all the salts of copper ; and 
 this, being absorbed by the pickles, colors them green. 
 Cheap pickles are put up in so-called ** white wine," or 
 spirit vinegar. For the presence of copper, immerse 
 a strip of clean, bright iron in the Uquid, and if copper 
 is present the iron will become coated with a thin film 
 of metallic copper in a few minutes. 
 
 Olives are usually pickled before they are wholly 
 ripe. They are soaked first in a solution of potash and 
 lime, then in cold water, and finally preserved in a brine 
 which may or may not be flavored with fennel, laurel 
 leaves, coriander, or vinegar. 
 
 A queen olive is simply a large-sized fruit and not 
 a special variety. The ripe olive is growing in favor 
 and is said to be more digestible than the green. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS I43 
 
 Capers are the flower buds of Capparis spinosa 
 pickled in vinegar. 
 
 SALT 
 
 Salt is of universal use, and it has been known from 
 the earliest times. It is found in a solid, rocklike form 
 in many countries. Salt springs are not uncommon, 
 and on the coast the evaporation of sea water gives 
 sea salt. Rock salt is mined in Austria and at North- 
 wick, near Liverpool, in England. A mine is now 
 worked in Louisiana. Much salt is made in New 
 York, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia by 
 evaporating the water of salt springs. Salt is nearly 
 pure sodium chloride, but it almost always contains 
 small quantities of chloride of magnesium, which causes 
 the salt to become moist in damp air, and which gives 
 it the bitter taste often noticed. 
 
 A little cornstarch may be mixed with salt to • keep 
 it dry. If this is done by the manufacturer it should 
 be so stated on the label. 
 
 There is a difference of opinion as to the healthful- 
 ness of salt when taken with food. Habit, rather than 
 common sense, seems to govern the amount used. 
 
 FLAVORING EXTRACTS 
 
 These have had, periodically, highly sensational 
 stories told about them. In the two or three dozen 
 samples examined in the laboratory no harmful ingre- 
 dient was found. There was a great deal of difference 
 in the strength of the different brands. 
 
 Most of the ''pure fruit flavors" on the market 
 should be sold for what they are — artificial essences. 
 
44 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Since it is, in many cases, impossible to keep the true 
 fruit flavor in extracts from the fruits themselves, cer- 
 tain compounds are mixed to imitate the fruits as nearly 
 as may be. 
 
 Raspberry, peach, and orange essences are most 
 complex in composition when artificially prepared, rasp- 
 berry being made up of fourteen ethers and acids in 
 glycerin added to alcohol. 
 
 LEMON 
 
 In lemon extract a large proportion of alcohol is 
 required to hold in solution the valuable oil of lemon, 
 which is insoluble in water. The temptation, there- 
 fore, is to use weak alcohol, which does not dissolve 
 the oil, or to substitute artificial acids and flavors. 
 Methyl alcohol has been known to be used. 
 
 The flavor of the cheap extracts is enhanced by 
 citral, oil of citronella, and of lemon grass in minute 
 quantities. The extracts of standard quality are col- 
 ored with lemon peel, but as this coloring does not last 
 coal tar dyes and turmeric are used extensively. 
 
 Table of Lemon Extracts Examined in Massachusetts 
 
 No. examined. 
 
 Adulterated. 
 
 Adulterants. 
 
 1 901 
 
 1902 
 1903 
 1904 
 
 167 
 
 (representing 
 
 100 brands) 
 
 16 
 
 27 
 3- 
 
 39 
 
 Foreign color and 
 insufficient amount 
 of lemon oil 
 
 In 1903-04, of fifty-three examined by the New 
 Hampshire State Board thirty-four were adulterated. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 45 
 
 A convenient test by which the consumer may get 
 some idea of the quaUty of a sample of an extract of 
 lemon is the addition of about three times as much 
 water. If the liquid becomes turbid on account of the 
 separation of the oil of lemon, the sample contains a 
 fair amount of this oil ; but if it does not become cloudy 
 on the addition of water, the extract is of a very poor 
 grade. 
 
 VANILLA 
 
 The source of vanilla extract is the vanilla bean, the 
 fruit of the Vanilla planifolia, which is an epiphyte 
 belonging to the Orchidacece. It is a native of Mexico, 
 but is cultivated in tropical regions. 
 
 The flavoring principle, vanillin, is found in fine 
 crystals on the surface of the bean. It occurs in from 
 I to 2.75 per cent, according to the variety of the bean. 
 Curiously enough, it is least in the most valued grades. 
 
 The following analysis of Tiemann and Harmann 
 shows : 
 
 Per cent vanillin 
 
 Mexican beans 1.69 
 
 Bourbon beans 2.48 
 
 Java beans 2.75 
 
 Vanilla is abundantly adulterated by artificial or 
 synthetic vanillin and coumarin and with tonka bean 
 extract. The latter is tjie seed of Coiimaronna odorata 
 and some other varieties. The flavoring principle is 
 coumarin, the same as found in sweet grass, vernal 
 grass, and in sweet clover. 
 
 Prune juice is also used to increase the bulk and 
 give flavor to vanilla. 
 
14^ FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Table of Vanilla Extracts Examined in Massachusetts 
 
 
 Examined. 
 
 Adulterated, 
 
 Adulterants. 
 
 1 901 
 1902 
 
 1903 
 
 73 
 18 
 
 25 
 
 54 
 
 15 
 12 
 
 > Coumarin and vanillin 
 
 ALMOND 
 
 Almond oil, according to the United States Pharma- 
 copoeia, has the following composition : 
 
 Oil of bitter almonds . . . 10 c.c. 
 
 Alcohol 800 c.c. 
 
 Distilled water sufficient to "make 1,000 c.c. 
 
 The oil of almonds is obtained by the distillation of 
 crushed bitter almonds or apricot seeds. Most of the 
 commercial oil is from apricot and peach seeds, which 
 give practically the same product. 
 
 Since prussic acid, which exists in the unpurified oil 
 of bitter almonds, is known to be highly poisonous, its 
 presence in almond extract should be considered a 
 harmful adulteration. 
 
 Nitrobenzol, or oil of mirbane, is a heavy yellow 
 liquid that is used as a substitute for the almond extract. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 OTHER MATERIALS USED IN COOKING 
 
 SINCE light, sweet bread is one of the most impor- 
 tant articles of diet, and since in the United States 
 such bread is largely made in homes, and not in bak- 
 eries, as is the case in Europe, the substances which 
 produce this digestible food deserve consideration. 
 
 YEAST 
 
 Yeast is a cryptogamous plant, a simple cell which 
 grows by multiplication or budding in a slightly sweet- 
 ened liquid, converting the sugar into carbonic acid 
 gas and alcohol, at the same time that it acts upon 
 starch, converting it into dextrin and then into starch 
 sugar. The process is technically called alcoholic fer- 
 mentation, and yeast a ferment. Different kinds of 
 fermentation are distinguished by the name of the 
 principal product to which they give rise, as alcoholic 
 or yeast fermentation, acetic or vinegar fermentation, 
 lactic, butyric, etc. 
 
 It is because of the evolution of carbonic acid gas, 
 which is held in the sponge in little bubbles by the 
 tenacity of the gluten of the wheat, that yeast is used 
 in the preparation of bread. Wild yeast germs are 
 floating in the air, and the leaven of olden times owed 
 its efHciency to the cells which fell into the open vessel. 
 The objection to this spontaneous fermentation is that 
 
 147 
 
148 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 not only the cells of alcoholic fermentation fall in, but 
 those that produce the other kinds, notably the lactic, 
 so that bread-making by leaven is a somewhat haphazard 
 process ; the result may be fairly good, and it may be 
 very bad. The black sour bread of Germany and other 
 European countries is made in this manner. The 
 addition of hops retards decay of the yeast. Modern 
 yeast is brewers' or beer yeast, even homemade prepa- 
 rations being mostly started by it ; because both for 
 beer and bread the alcoholic fermentation is desirable, 
 and brewers, by careful study and experiment, have 
 learned so to control the process as to obtain a yeast 
 consisting of only one kind of organisms, Saccharomyces 
 cere vis ice. 
 
 When yeast is added to batter it is like the scatter- 
 ing of a multitude of little Uving cells or seeds, ready 
 to grow with extraordinary rapidity in a medium suited 
 to their nutrition. These cells in well-mixed batter 
 are present at every point ; and as each cell in decom- 
 posing sugar gives off tiny bubbles of carbonic acid 
 gas these bubbles are in every part of the dough, ren- 
 dering it porous or "light." Although wheat flour 
 contains only about one per cent of sugar, when fer- 
 mentation is once started the starch is rapidly con- 
 verted into sugar, and the sugar so formed into carbonic 
 acid gas and alcohol ; thus the fermentation of bread 
 goes on at the expense of the starch of the flour. 
 Cooked starch is acted on more readily than raw, and 
 therefore the addition of some boiled potatoes to the 
 sponge causes a more rapid rising. 
 
 There are two divisions of beer yeast, high {Jiaiite) 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS I49 
 
 and low {basse). According to Pasteur the high buds 
 more rapidly, floats, and is produced by fermentation 
 at from 50° to 75° F. The low sinks, the cells are 
 more separate, it buds only for a short time, is pro- 
 duced at a lower temperature (forty to fifty degrees), 
 and is of late much used for beer. The best yeast 
 for bread is that which floats. It is now prepared for 
 the purpose, and when ready for use is skimmed off, 
 drained, pressed in sacks, cut up into squares, covered 
 with tin foil, and sold as compressed yeast. In this 
 condition it is next best to the fresh brewers' yeast, 
 with the advantage of small bulk and ease of trans- 
 portation. If kept cool and dry it will be good for 
 days ; and if dried, not in the sun or in the oven, 
 but in a current of warm air, it will keep indefinitely. 
 Packages of dry yeast are composed for the most part 
 of yeast mixed with corn or rye meal and then dried. 
 
 Yeast germs are killed by a temperature of boiling 
 water, and freezing arrests their growth. The best 
 temperature for fermentation of beer yeast is from 
 60° to 70° F. 
 
 Since the sole object of bread fermentation is the 
 production of a porous loaf, Miss Corson's recommen- 
 dation of the quick process of raising bread in two 
 hours by the use of two squares of yeast seems to have 
 a reasonable basis ; and if the bread is, as it should be, 
 well baked, so that the inside of the loaf has reached a 
 temperature of boiling water, there will remain no yeasty 
 flavor. Many loaves do not become heated to this point 
 even when burned on the outside, consequently the 
 yeast germs are not killed. Such slack-baked bread 
 is not wholesome. 
 
I50 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Yeast is not often adulterated, but its quality may- 
 vary, owing to carelessness in preparation, especially if 
 it is homemade. There is no doubt that the com- 
 pressed or Vienna yeast is the best article now at hand 
 for producing the so-called raised bread. The color 
 of good yeast is yellow or grayish yellow ; the browner 
 its tint the more dead germs there are. It should be 
 only a mass of cells with no fiber or tissue. Occa- 
 sionally a blue line is seen ; this is due to the presence 
 of Miicors, or molds. Such yeast makes bread which 
 will become moldy in a very short time. 
 
 SODA, BAKING POWDERS, ETC. 
 
 The problem of making porous bread without the 
 long process of fermentation, and the consequent loss 
 in material which is converted into carbonic acid and 
 alcohol, has often occupied the thought of chemists of 
 reputation. The results have been : 
 
 First, aerated bread, made by forcing into the 
 dough, just before baking, carbonic acid gas prepared 
 by chemical means in another vessel. 
 
 Second, the so-called soda bread of this country, 
 in which the carbonic acid gas is liberated from bicar- 
 bonate of soda by the use of an acid, as muriatic, 
 tartaric, lactic (sour milk), and the acid tartrate of 
 potassium (cream of tartar), acid phosphate of calcium, 
 or acid lactate of calcium. 
 
 Third, baking powder bread, which is almost uni- 
 versally used in the United States in place of soda 
 bread. The great advantage to the community is, 
 that while baking powders are composed of the same 
 
And their adulterations ii^l 
 
 materials as those mentioned above, they are carefully 
 mixed, so that neither acid nor alkaU shall be in excess. 
 
 SODA 
 
 Soda (bicarbonate, supercarbonate, or cooking soda) 
 is chemically a sodium hydrogen carbonate, prepared 
 by subjecting recrystallized sal soda, or washing soda, to 
 an atmosphere of carbonic acid gas. The only impuri- 
 ties likely to be found are some sulphates and chlorides 
 remaining from the process of manufacture of the 
 sal soda. 
 
 CREAM OF TARTAR, ETC. 
 
 The substances used to liberate the carbonic acid 
 gas are practically reduced to two — cream of tartar and 
 acid phosphate of calcium. The first is prepared from 
 imported argols, a substance used by calico printers 
 and dyers. It is the crust which is formed on wine 
 casks in the process of fermentation. In its refined 
 and purified condition it is sold for bread-making. One 
 baking powder manufactory, at least, is said to use only 
 that which has been chemically prepared. The price 
 being from forty to eighty cents a pound, and in times 
 of disturbance of foreign commerce even twice that, 
 cream of tartar is the most liable to be adulterated of 
 all the articles used in cooking. 
 
 Terra alba, sulphate of calcium, or, as it is com- 
 monly called, gypsum, is the substance most frequently 
 used to make up lo to 90 per cent of the weight of 
 cream of tartar. It is reported that fine bone ash 
 has been found in some samples from the Western 
 States. In Eastern Massachusetts the most frequent 
 
152 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 adulterant is the much cheaper acid phosphate of cal- 
 cium ; and since this is itself used as a substitute for 
 cream of tartar, the effect on the bread is not as 
 much to be feared as if gypsum were used. If it 
 shall be proved that a certain amount of potassium 
 salts is desirable to counteract the excessive use of 
 salt and salted foods, the much discussed cream of 
 tartar bread may find its place as a recognized article 
 of diet. 
 
 Acid phosphate of calcium is prepared from bones 
 by treating them with sulphuric acid, setting free a 
 portion of the phosphoric acid. It is supposed to be 
 a useful ingredient of bread, since it restores some 
 of the phosphate said to be lost in the bran. 
 
 Acid lactate of calcium is used for a cream of tartar 
 substitute, and in many respects it promises well. It 
 contains the same acid as sour milk, and is prepared 
 from starch by the action of the lactic ferment. 
 
 BAKING POWDERS 
 
 Baking powders, prepared from soda and cream of 
 tartar chiefly, are, when put up in tin cans with the 
 maker's name on the label, much more reliable than 
 any other form of bread-raising preparation. Some- 
 times a very little bicarbonate of ammonia is added 
 to secure a complete neutralization of the acid without 
 leaving an excess of soda. If this amount does not 
 exceed i per cent it can do no harm. As they are 
 made in large quantities they are of a more even com- 
 position than when cooks guess at the proportions by 
 spoonfuls. The chief adulterant used is starch or 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 153 
 
 rice flour, sometimes to the extent of 50 per cent. 
 There is not so much adulteration as has often been 
 supposed, if the articles are purchased of the large 
 firms and of reliable dealers. Alum is not infrequently 
 found in powders sold in bulk. The following simple 
 tests may be of use to those who have had a little 
 practice in chemistry. 
 
 Good cream of tartar is soluble in eighteen parts of 
 boiling water. Good baking powder is also soluble; 
 a small quantity of starch present will give a certain 
 opacity to the solution, but if in excess a paste may 
 be formed stiff enough for laundry use. If there is in 
 either case much residue insoluble in water which dis- 
 solves in hydrochloric acid, phosphate or sulphate of 
 calcium is to be suspected. 
 
 A few drops of barium chloride added to the hydro- 
 chloric acid solution will cause a white precipitate if 
 sulphates are present in the substance under examina- 
 tion. If the phosphates are to be tested for, the acid 
 to be used for a solution is nitric, and to the solution a 
 few cubic centimeters of molybdate of ammonia are 
 added. A fine yellow color or precipitate indicates 
 phosphates. Ammonia is sometimes found in baking 
 powders. If present, a small lump of potassium hydrate 
 added to the strong aqueous solution will, on heating, 
 cause the ammonia to be given off in the steam, which 
 will then turn red litmus paper blue. 
 
 To test for alum prepare a fresh decoction of log- 
 wood ; add a few drops to the solution or substance, 
 and render it acid by acetic acid. A yellow color 
 proves the absence of alum ; a purplish red or a bluish 
 
154 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 color, more or less decided, means more or less alum. 
 If the substance were not acidified the test might be 
 vitiated by the presence of an alkali, as in the case of 
 a baking powder. Caution : Use a new solution, or a 
 new portion of an old one, for each test. 
 
 To judge of the quantity of any of the substances 
 it is necessary to have a standard article with which 
 to compare the suspected one. If the same quantity 
 of each is taken, and it is subjected to the same tests, 
 a very correct judgment of its quality may be formed. 
 Acids should be used in glass or china vessels only. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 RECAPITULATION 
 
 GOOD Food for Little Money means those ma- 
 terials which may be sown, gathered, and prepared 
 largely by machinery, or those which, growing abun- 
 dantly in distant lands, are dry and hard, and may be 
 transported without serious loss and kept in ordinary 
 storage. All such materials are too abundant and of 
 too low cost by the pound to be subjected to substi- 
 tution or adulteration. Wise providers make these the 
 chief articles of diet. 
 
 Good Foods Costing More Money are such as 
 are perishable because of high water content, making 
 a satisfactory food for the ever present micro-organisms 
 of decay. The transportation of so much water (80 to 
 90 per cent in fruits, 75 per cent in meats) and the 
 need of cold storage add to the original cost, also to 
 the inevitable waste, because of the soft character and 
 frequent accidents in transportation causing delay and 
 the risks of storage. Such foods grown out of season 
 are those of which the supply for the market of the 
 world is Umited, of which there are " not enough to go 
 around." There is a temptation to use preservatives 
 with this class of foods. All these should be scruti- 
 nized carefully and used sparingly if the pennies must 
 be counted in the week's accounts. 
 
 155 
 
156 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Expensive Foods, reckoned by the pound, are 
 those valued for some special reason ; imported from 
 the tropics ; or without competition in the market. Cer- 
 tain of these lend themselves to adulteration or sophis- 
 tication or to both, as mustard, cinnamon, vanilla, and 
 lemon extracts, etc. The ready manufacture of arti- 
 ficial flavors and colors adds to the probability of this 
 practice. The remedy is a knowledge of the pure 
 article ; then the others will have no attractions. 
 
 Nutritious Foods are those that contain consider- 
 able amounts of either or all of the three chief constitu- 
 ents of human food : 
 
 Carbohydrates (starch, sugar, gums, etc.). 
 
 Fats and oils (meat fat, nuts, olive oil, etc.). 
 
 Nitrogenous substances (albumen, gluten, casein, etc, 
 found in meat, eggs, cheese, peas, peanuts). 
 
 Foods Valuable for Quality Rather than 
 Quantity of Constituents : 
 
 Fruits for acids and potassium. 
 
 Vegetables for essential oils (onions, cabbage) and 
 potassium salts. 
 
 Coffee for flavor and exhilarating effect. 
 
 Tea. 
 
 Such gastronomic qualities are widely imitated and 
 frauds are to be looked for. 
 
 Foods that May Become Dangerous : 
 
 Liable to putrefactive decay with production of 
 toxins (meats and milk). 
 
 Liable to harbor germs in quantity (berries and 
 vegetables exposed to street dust, hence to some 
 disease-giving organisms). 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 157 
 
 Liable to carry animal or vegetable organisms, be- 
 cause of mode of cultivation (as lettuce fertilized 
 with night soil) ; or because of handling (ice cream 
 stirred by unwashed hands, ice drawn over spu- 
 tum-covered sidewalks.) 
 
 Unwholesome Foods : 
 
 By nature : 
 Green fruits. 
 
 Strawberries for some people. 
 Potato skins. 
 Over-ripe fruits harboring worms. 
 
 By preparation : 
 
 Too salt, too sweet, too dry. 
 
 By storage : 
 Too long. 
 
 Tainted before preparation. 
 Diseased. 
 Contaminated by dirt. 
 
 Foods Safe and Wholesome by Themselves, 
 but liable to superficial contamination by exposure and 
 handling : 
 
 Bread, etc. 
 
 Berries. 
 
 Vegetables. 
 
 Meats. 
 
 Sophisticated Foods, a drain on the pocketbook : 
 
 Coffee containing peas and wheat. 
 
 Mustard containing starch. 
 
 Candy containing glucose and dextrin starch paste. 
 
 Adulterated Foods — more or less harmful : 
 
 Milk containing formaldehyde. 
 
158 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 ■ Dirty or watered milk. 
 
 Jellies and fruit extracts containing coal tar dyes (in 
 excess) or benzoic acid. 
 
 Cereal coffee containing real coffee. 
 
 Extent of Adulteration. It is clear that the 
 great bulk of the staple articles of daily diet are of 
 excellent quality, with the one exception of milk, and 
 that is now in a fair way to be much improved. Exam- 
 ine any of the published hsts of the state chemist. The 
 names of staple foods other than milk are rarely found. 
 P'or the tons of flour and sugar and vegetables and 
 fruits used, the alarmist is able to make a collection 
 of a few ounces of spices, catsups, and flavoring ex- 
 tracts, and to run up the numbers of these samples 
 into hundreds. There is hardly a necessary article 
 among them. It is only a depraved taste which 
 requires green candy, pink gelatin, and yellow icing. 
 
 Sophistication. The moral question is far more 
 serious. It is degrading alike to producer and con- 
 sumer to make and to buy things which are not what 
 they claim to be. To trade upon the ignorance and 
 superstition of the mass of the people is the lowest 
 form of money greed. The quickest remedy for this 
 is education, and the quickest means of educating the 
 public is through the introduction of courses in domes- 
 tic economy in the public schools. Once it was held 
 to be necessary to read and write and cipher in order to 
 be a valuable citizen of the state. To that we must now 
 add a course in marketing in the broad sense, in spend- 
 ing wisely. The pubhc must protect itself from its 
 enemies from within as well as from without. To 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 59 
 
 realize how far-reaching this one element of sophisti- 
 cation has gone, it is only necessary to consider recog- 
 nized conditions. The cost of living has risen some 
 forty per cent within a few years. During that time 
 the market has sold : 
 
 $.025 worth of grain at $ 
 
 .05 worth of sugar at 
 
 .001 worth of fruit juice at 
 
 .02 worth of starch at 
 
 .01 worth of lemon oil at 
 
 25 
 
 .60 to .80 
 .05 a glass 
 .20, as candy 
 .25, for extract 
 
 Housewife's Duty. Look over your own house- 
 hold bills and see what part these things play in the 
 year's expense, take to heart the counsel of your state 
 authorities, and put your work where it will tell on the 
 care of the perishable materials exposed for sale. Then 
 see that there are cooking classes which teach these 
 principles. The manufacturers and the writers in the 
 newspapers and magazines have much to answer for, 
 if the coal tar colors are harmful, for they have fostered 
 pink teas and orange luncheons, which can be harmo- 
 niously arranged only through these dyes. The great 
 American people have the remedy in their own hands. 
 If they will buy intelligently, with the purpose of 
 securing nutritious food and not decorative material, 
 if they will keep to the staple articles and not be led 
 by the will-o'-the-wisp of skillful advertising (we should 
 be ashamed to be taken in by such bare-faced state- 
 ments), they will save money and increase national 
 prosperity by a higher degree of health, which will 
 give more real enjoyment than is now momentarily 
 
l60 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 obtained by the consumption of these highly rated, 
 sophisticated goods. ^ 
 
 The Ethical Side. This would not have mattered 
 so much if the taste of the wage-earner had not been 
 brought to like these gaudy things, if he had not 
 been made to believe that they were necessary to self- 
 respecting living. He naturally wishes to have all 
 that any one has, and he is made to think that these 
 are desirable things. The fact is that intelligent con- 
 sumers do not suffer from these frauds, either in 
 stomach or in pocket. The great remedy for the 
 oppressive increase in the cost of living is to educate 
 the mass of the people in actual economic values and 
 to make the most stringent laws to protect them from 
 unclean handling of food. The crusade for clean milk 
 must be followed by as vigorous a struggle for pro- 
 tected window displays by ordering all food off the 
 streets, and again by education as to the necessity 
 for these regulations, for the greatest danger to health 
 is found in these directions. 
 
 Professor Willard, summing up the question in the 
 Bulletin of the Kansas State Board of Health for June, 
 1 906, says : 
 
 " There can be little doubt that in the case of most 
 preservatives, if not all, their presence interferes with 
 digestive processes. Whether more so than results 
 from the use of certain natural, almost unquestioned 
 articles is debatable. If this be the case it would 
 seem that the first and most strenuous efforts in food 
 control should be directed toward securing correct 
 branding. The label should show what preservatives, 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS l6l 
 
 if any, are used and the quantities. An individual 
 would then be free to use the article or not, just as 
 he may partake of raw onions or leave them alone. 
 With the conscious use of articles containing preserva- 
 tives a fund of knowledge on the part of the public 
 would be accumulated which would serve as a basis 
 for legislation based on general experience. This 
 might result in the complete prohibition of certain 
 preservatives, while others would be permitted under 
 proper restrictions. 
 
 '' In respect to adulterations the problem to the 
 writer seems simpler. An adulteration has but one 
 purpose — that is, of passing off an article of a quality 
 inferior to that which the consumer supposes it to be. 
 Such deception should be repressed without mercy. 
 Akin to this, though not identical, is the sale of pure 
 goods of inferior, representing them to be of first, qual- 
 ity. Against such frauds perhaps we will have to set 
 the common sense and experience of buyers." 
 
 It is not without interest to compare the results 
 obtained in one of the earliest state surveys, by the 
 author, at the request of the State Board of Health of 
 Massachusetts in 1878-79. These results were the 
 foundation of the first edition of this book. 
 
 The author and her assistants personally visited the 
 chief towns and purchased the samples, choosing those 
 which seemed from local experience most Ukely to be 
 below standard. It must be remembered that the num- 
 ber of brands was at that date very limited. There 
 were only half a dozen manufacturers of spices, for 
 instance, and only a few sugar refineries contributed 
 
1 62 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 to the grocers' list. Chemistry had not then been 
 impressed into the service of the manufacturer to the 
 extent that it is at present. 
 
 It was found that of 400 samples, purchased from 
 141 dealers in forty towns, 284, or 71 per cent, were 
 good and 29 per cent adulterated (chiefly cream of 
 tartar and baking powder). This was before the day 
 of the coal tar coloring. 
 
 At a later date spices were examined, with the 
 following showing : Twelve samples of cinnamon exam- 
 ined, all adulterated, only three containing any cinna- 
 mon at all. Cassia, powdered wood, and mahogany 
 sawdust were found. 
 
 Of thirty-two mustards examined, twenty-seven were 
 adulterated, two only slightly. Only five were good. 
 Starch, Indian meal, turmeric, ground rape seed, and 
 turnip seed were found. 
 
 Sixteen samples of pepper were examined. Thirteen 
 were adulterated with ground rice, mustard husks, coarse 
 pepper husks, and dirt. 
 
 Twenty-eight samples of ginger, on the other hand, 
 showed twenty-one good and only seven adulterated 
 with starch, turmeric, and mustard husks. 
 
 That laws do restrain manufacturers from adulter- 
 ating their goods is proved by over twenty years of 
 experience in Massachusetts. Laws were first passed 
 in 1882. The State Board of Health's report in 1883 
 shows the situation before the effect of the new law 
 had been felt. Then the percentage of milk adultera- 
 tion was 83.9; in 1890 it was 42.6; and in 1900, 28.9. 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 1 63 
 
 Foods Other than milk were adulterated in 1883, 31.2; 
 in 1890, 18.6; and in 1900, 14.2. Percentage of drugs 
 adulterated in 1883 was 40.8; in 1890, 187; and in 
 1900, 50.2, the only increase shown. 
 
 The final word, therefore, is, first inform yourself, 
 then work for better conditions in the community and 
 nation. 
 
THE NATIONAL PURE FOOD LAW 
 
 Extracts from the text of the national pure food law, passed 
 by Congress on June 29, 1906: — 
 
 An Act for preventing the Manufacture, Sale, or Transportation 
 of Adulterated or Misbranded or Poisonous or Deleterious 
 Foods, Drugs, Medicines, and Liquors, and for regulating 
 Traffic therein, and for Other Purposes. 
 
 . . . The term "food," as used herein, shall include all articles 
 used for food, drink, confectionery, or condiment by man or other 
 animals, whether simple, mixed, or compoundo 
 
 Sec. 7. That for the purposes of this Act an article shall be 
 deemed to be adulterated: 
 
 Second, If its strength or purity fall below the professed 
 standard or quality under which it is sold. 
 
 In the case of confectionery: 
 
 If it contain terra alba, barytes, talc, chrome yellow, or other 
 mineral substance or poisonous color or flavor, or other ingre- 
 dient deleterious or detrimental to health, or any vinous, malt or 
 spirituous liquor or compound or narcotic drug. 
 
 In the case of food: 
 
 First. If any substance has been mixed and packed with 
 it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or 
 strength. 
 
 Second. If any substance has been substituted wholly or in 
 part for the article. 
 
 Third. If any valuable constituent of the article has been 
 wholly or in part abstracted. 
 
 Fourth. If it be mixed, colored, powdered, coated, or stained 
 in a manner whereby damage or inferiority is concealed. 
 
 Fifth. If it contain any added poisonous or other added 
 164 
 
AND THEIR ADULtERATlONS 16$ 
 
 deleterious ingredient which may render such article injurious 
 to health : Provided, That when in the preparation of food 
 products for shipment they are preserved by an external appli. 
 cation applied in such manner that the preservative is necessarily 
 removed mechanically, or by maceration in water, or otherwise, 
 and directions for the removal of said preservative shall be 
 printed on the covering or the package, the provisions of this 
 Act shall be construed as applying only when said products are 
 ready for consumption. 
 
 Sixth. If it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, decom- 
 posed, or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or any portion 
 of an animal unfit for food, whether manufactured or not, or if 
 it is the product of a diseased animal, or one that has died 
 otherwise than by slaughter. 
 
 Sec. 8. That the term " misbranded," as used herein, shall 
 apply to all drugs, or articles of food, or articles which enter 
 into the composition of food, the package or label of which 
 shall bear any statement, design or device regarding such article* 
 or the ingredients or substances contained therein, which shall 
 be false or misleading in any particular, and to any food or 
 drug product which is falsely branded as to the State, Territory, 
 or country in which it is manufactured or produced. 
 
 First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the 
 distinctive name of another article. 
 
 Second. If it be labeled or branded so as to deceive or 
 mislead the purchaser, or purport to be a foreign product when 
 not so, or if the contents of the package as originally put up 
 shall have been removed in whole or in part and other con- 
 tents shall have been placed in such package, or if it fail to 
 bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of 
 any morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, 
 chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any 
 derivative or preparation of any of such substances contained 
 therein. 
 
 Third. If in package form, and the contents are stated in 
 terms of weight or measure, they are not plainly and correctly 
 stated on the outside of the package. 
 
1 66 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Fourth. If the package containing it or its label shall bear 
 any statement, design, or device regarding the ingredients or the 
 substances contained therein, which statement, design, or device 
 shall be false or misleading in any particular : Provided, That an 
 article of food which does not contain any added poisonous or 
 deleterious ingredients shall not be deemed to be adulterated 
 or misbranded in the following cases: 
 
 First. In the case of mixtures or compounds which may be 
 now or from time to time hereafter known as articles of food, 
 under their own distinctive names, and not an imitation of or 
 offered for sale under the distinctive name of another article, 
 if the name be accompanied on the same label or brand with a 
 statement of the place where said article has been manufactured 
 or produced. 
 
 Second. In the case of articles labeled, branded, or tagged 
 so as to plainly indicate that they are compounds, imitations or 
 blends, and the word "compound," "imitation," or "blend," as 
 the case may be, is plainly stated on the package in which it is 
 offered for sale: Provided, That the term blend as used herein 
 shall be construed to mean a mixture of like substances, not 
 excluding harmless coloring or flavoring ingredients used for the 
 purpose of coloring and flavoring only: And provided further, 
 That nothing in this Act shall be construed as requiring or com- 
 pelling proprietors or manufacturers of proprietary foods which 
 contain no unwholesome added ingredient to disclose their trade 
 formulas, except in so far as the provisions of this Act may 
 require to secure freedom from adulteration or misbranding. 
 
REFERENCES 
 
 For more complete bibliography see Leach's "Food Inspection 
 and Analysis" and Winton's "Microscopy of Vegetable Foods." 
 
 Bailey 
 
 Eccles 
 
 Frankland, P. 
 
 and G. C. 
 Green 
 
 Harrop 
 
 Leach 
 
 Richards 
 
 Richards 
 
 Richards and 
 Woodman 
 Snyder 
 
 Thurber 
 
 Winton and 
 Moeller 
 
 Sanitary and Applied Chemistry 
 
 Food Preservatives and Their 
 
 Proper Uses 
 Bacteria in Daily Life 
 
 Food Products of the World 
 
 Flavoring Extracts with Essences, 
 
 Syrups, and Coloring 
 Food Inspection and Analysis 
 
 First Lessons in Food and Diet 
 
 Cost of Food 
 
 Air, Water, and Food 
 
 Chemistry of Plant and Animal 
 Life 
 
 Packing-house Industries, Cot- 
 tonseed Oil, Manufacture of 
 Leather and Soap 
 
 Coffee from Plantation to Cup 
 
 Chocolate Plant and Its Products 
 Microscopy of Vegetable Foods 
 
 Macmillan Co., 
 
 New York 
 Van Nostrand & 
 
 Co., New York 
 Longmans, Green 
 
 & Co., London 
 Hotel World, 
 
 Chicago 
 Harrop & Co., 
 
 Columbus, O, 
 Wiley & Sons, 
 
 New York 
 Whitcomb & Bar- 
 rows, Boston 
 Wiley & Sons, 
 
 New York 
 Wiley & Sons, 
 
 New York 
 Macmillan Co., 
 
 New York 
 
 International 
 Text-Book Co., 
 Scranton, Pa. 
 
 American Grocer 
 Pub. Asso., New 
 York 
 
 Walter Baker Co. 
 Wiley & Sons, 
 New York 
 
 PERIODICALS 
 
 Leffman Milk Inspection and Milk 
 
 Standards 
 McFarlane Flavoring Extracts 
 
 167 
 
 Medical News, 
 Feb. 2, 1895 
 
 In. Rev. Dept. 
 Canada, Bui. 89 
 
1 68 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 McGill Jams, Marmalades, and Jellies 
 
 McGill Olive Oil 
 
 McFarlane Highly Colored Confectioner)' 
 
 Clean Milk, an Experiment in 
 Its Production at the Ware- 
 lands, Highland Lake, Mass. 
 
 Lab.In.Rev.Dept. 
 Canada, Bui. 104 
 
 Lab. In.Rev. Dept. 
 Canada, Bui. 1 1 1 
 
 Lab. In. Rev. Can- 
 ada, Bui. 112 
 
 Woman's Educa- 
 tional and In- 
 dustrial Union, 
 Boston 
 
 Richards and Story of the New England Kitchen 
 Abel 
 
 National Geographic Magazine 
 
 Technology Quarterly, Vol. Ill, No. 3 
 
 Agricultural Analysis, Vol. Ill 
 
 Proceedings of Lake Placid Conference, 1904 
 
 UNITED STATES BULLETINS 
 
 Atwood, D a - 
 V i d s o n , 
 Moncure 
 
 Bigelow and 
 Howard 
 
 Bigelow 
 
 Chemical Composition of Apples 
 and Cider 
 
 Some Forms of Food Adulter- 
 ation 
 
 Food and Food Control 
 
 Experiment Stations Record (monthly) issued by United States 
 Department of Agriculture. 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 88 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 100 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 69 
 (revised Part 8) 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr,, Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 94 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 97 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 97 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 66 
 
 Bigelow, Gore, Studies on Apples 
 Howard 
 
 Bigelow 
 
 Chase, Tol- 
 man, Mun- 
 son 
 
 M u n s o n , 
 Coleman, 
 Howard 
 
 Studies on Peaches 
 
 Chemical Composition of Some 
 Tropical Fruits and Their 
 Products 
 
 Fruits and Fruit Products 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 169 
 
 Richardson 
 
 Food and Food Adulterants 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 13, 
 Part 2 
 
 Tolman, Mun- 
 son 
 
 Olive Oil and Its Substitutes 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 77 
 
 Wedderburn 
 
 Food Adulteration 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 25 
 
 Wedderburn 
 
 Food and Drug Adulteration 
 Laws 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 41 
 
 Wiley 
 
 Foods and Food Adulterants 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 13, 
 Parts 4, 5, 6, 7, 
 8,9 
 
 Wiley 
 
 Experiments in the Culture of 
 Sugar Cane and Its Manufac- 
 ture into Table Syrup 
 
 U. S. Dept. of 
 Agr., Bureau of 
 Chem., Bui. 93 
 
 Abel 
 
 Sugar as Food 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 No. 13 
 
 Atwater 
 
 Foods, Nutritive Value and Cost 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 No. 23 
 
 Atwater 
 
 Poultry as Food 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 No. 182 
 
 Hubbard 
 
 Maple Sugar and Syrup 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 No. 252 
 
 Langworthy 
 
 Eggs and Their Uses as Food 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 
 No. 128 
 
 Langworthy 
 
 Fruit and Its Uses as Food 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 Reprint from 
 Year-Book for 
 
 Parioa 
 
 Canned Fruit 
 
 1905 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 
 No. 203 
 
 Parloa 
 
 Preparation of Vegetables for 
 the Table 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 No. 256 
 
 Woods 
 
 Meats, Composition and Cooking 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 No. 36 
 
 Woods and 
 Snyder 
 
 Cereal Breakfast Foods 
 
 Farmers' Bulletin, 
 No. 294 
 
I/O 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Experiment Station, Farmers' Bulletin, No. 42 
 
 Bureau of Animal Industry, Farmers' Bulletin, No. 20 
 
 Office Experiment Station, Farmers' Bulletin, No. 72 
 
 Office Experiment Station — Meats, Farmers' Bulletin, No. 180 
 
 STATE REPORTS AND BULLETINS 
 
 Illinois State Board of Health : Recommendations to Municipalities 
 Concerning the Sale of Undrawn Poultry. February, 1906. 
 
 Miller 
 
 Baking Powders 
 
 Fla. Agr. Expt. 
 Sta., Bui. 52 
 
 Norton 
 
 Food Adulteration in Arkansas 
 
 Ark. Agr. Expt. 
 Sta., Bui. 88 
 
 Pernot 
 Richards 
 
 Canning Fruit and Vegetables, 
 
 Preserving Fruit Juices 
 Adulterations of Groceries 
 
 Ore. Sta., Bui. 87 
 
 Reprint from Re- 
 port to Mass. 
 State Board of 
 Health, 1880 
 
 Robinson 
 
 Breakfast Foods 
 
 Mich. Expt. Sta., 
 Div. of Chem., 
 Bui. 21 
 
 Short 
 
 Fat in Milk 
 
 Univ. of Wis. Agr. 
 Expt. Sta., Bui. 
 16 
 
 Storrow 
 
 Composition of Prepared Cereal 
 Foods 
 
 Wyo. Expt. Sta., 
 Bui. 33 
 
 Snyder 
 Snyder 
 
 Studies in Bread and Bread 
 
 Making 
 Milling Tests of Wheat 
 
 Minn. Agr. Expt. 
 
 Sta., Bui. loi 
 Minn. Agr. Expt. 
 
 Sta., Bui. 96 
 
 Snyder 
 
 Digestibility and Nutritive Value 
 of Bread 
 
 Minn. Agr. Expt. 
 Sta., Bui. 126 
 
 Snyder, 
 Frisky, 
 
 Composition and Digestibility of 
 Potatoes and Eggs 
 
 Minn. Agr. Expt. 
 Sta., Bui. 43 
 
 Bryant 
 
 Weida Analysis of Chocolate and Cocoa Univ. of Kansas 
 
 Bulletins of the Kansas State Board of Health, March, June, July, 1906 
 Kansas State Board of Agriculture 
 Kansas Academy of Science, Vols. 1-20 
 Illinois Expt. Sta., Bui. 91 
 Illinois State Board of Health Sanitary Investigations, 1901 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS l^j 
 
 Quality of Milk Affected by Common Dairy Practices. Conn Agr 
 Expt. Sta., Bui. 42 
 
 Connecticut Agr. Expt. Sta. Annual Reports 
 
 New Hampshire Sanitary Bulletins (quarterly), Reports of Food In- 
 spection, October, 1904; July, 1906 
 New Hampshire State Board of Agriculture, Vol. 13 
 Wisconsin Dairy and Food Commission (quarterly), Buls. 5, 6, 7 
 Bulletin of University of Wisconsin (bi-monthly) 
 Maine Expt. Sta., Bui. 84 
 Nuts as Food, Maine Expt. Sta., Bui. 54 
 
 Massachusetts State Board of Health Reports for 1883, 1890-93, 
 1 900-04 
 
 Massachusetts State Board of Health Monthly Bulletin 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acid, Acetic, 140 
 
 Benzoic, 124 
 
 Carbonic, 150 
 
 Phosphate, 151 
 
 Prussic, 146 
 
 Salicylic, 12 
 Acids, Effect on Tin, 124 
 
 in Butter, 58, 59 
 
 in Fruit, 94 
 Adulterations, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 
 23, 27-29, 35-37, 44. 49. 55. 
 58, 59. 95. 96, 126, 131-134. 
 138, 139, 141. 153. 158. 160, 
 161, 162 
 
 Proportion of, 12 
 Aerated Bread, 150 
 Allspice, 134, 137 
 Almond, 105 
 
 Extract, 146 
 
 Adulteration, 146 
 Alum, 152 
 Analyses of Cereal Foods, 67-68 
 
 Cereal Grains, 85-86 
 
 Cheese, 61 
 
 Chicory, 36 
 
 Cocoa, 42 
 
 Eggs, 61 
 
 Milk, 47 
 
 Nuts, 103 
 
 Tea, 29 
 
 Wheat, 79, 80-81 
 Apples, 117 
 
 Dried, 1 17, 120 
 
 Evaporated, 118 
 Apricots, 118 
 Arrowroot, 83 
 Auto-Infection, 2, 12 
 
 Baking Powder, 10, 150, 152, 153 
 
 Adulteration, 152, 153 
 Banana, 118 
 
 Flour, 118 
 
 Barley, i, 64, 65, 70 
 Beans, 115, 116 
 
 Soy, 116 
 Benzoate of Soda, 12 
 Benzoic Acid, 124 
 Berries, 19, 115, 117 
 Board of Health, iii, 10, 13, 35, 
 48, 96, 97, 127, 144, 160, 161, 
 162 
 Books of Reference, 167 
 Brazil Nut, 103 
 Bread, 1,85, 147-150 
 Breakfast Cocoa, 43 
 
 Foods, 66-70 
 Buckwheat, 82 
 
 Adulteration, 83 
 Bulletins, 10, 13, 17, 18, 22, 39, 48, 
 50, 52, 96, 97, 100, 102, III, 
 122, 127, 128 
 Butter, 55-60 
 
 Colors, 59, 60 
 
 Composition of, 56 
 
 Renovated, 59 
 Butterine, 58 
 Butternut, 104 
 
 Caffeic Acid, 33 
 
 Caffeine, 33 
 
 Calcium Acid Phosphate, 152 
 
 Candy, iv, 93, 97-99 
 
 Cane Sugar, 88 
 
 Canned Fruits and Meats, iv 
 
 Foods and Jellies, 122-129 
 Capers, 143 
 
 Carbohydrates, 67, 82, 116, 156 
 Cassia, 135, 136, 137 
 Catsup, iv 
 Cayenne Pepper, 133, 134 
 
 Adulterations, 133, 134 
 Cellulose, 65, 70, 91, 94 
 Cereal Foods, 64-86 
 
 Coffee, 40, 41 
 
 172 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 173 
 
 Cheese, 60-61 
 
 Composition of, 61 
 
 Filled, 61 
 Chestnut, 104 
 Chicory, 35, 36 
 Chocolate, 42 
 
 Adulteration, 44 
 
 Preparation of, 44-45 
 Cider, 140 
 Cinnamon, 134, 136, 139 
 
 Adulteration, 136 
 Clams, 112, 113 
 Clean, 19, 53,85 
 
 Fruits, 117 
 
 Markets, 113 
 
 Meat, 108-110 
 
 Milk, 51, 52 
 
 Vegetables, 114, 115 
 Cloves, 134, 137 
 Coal Tar Dye, iv, 13, 59, 98 
 
 128, 158, 159 
 Cocoa, 20, 41-45 
 
 Breakfast, 43 
 
 Nibs, 43 
 
 Shells, 43 
 Cocoanut, 104 
 Coffee, 20, 31-41 
 
 Adulterants, 35, 37 
 
 Cereal, 40 
 
 Houses, ^^ 
 
 Making of, 38-39 
 
 Preparation of, 37 
 
 Substitutes, 39-41 
 Cold Storage, 62 
 Compressed Yeast, 149, 150 
 Condensed Milk, 53, 125 
 Condiments, 130-146 
 Confectionery, 93, 97-99 
 
 Adulteration, 98 
 Conference, Lake Placid, 8 
 Consumption of Cocoa, 42 
 
 Coffee, 23 
 
 Meat, 107 
 
 Sugar, 99 
 
 Tea, 24 
 Cook Books, 18 
 Cooking Classes, 17 
 Corn, 124 
 Corn Meal, 126 
 
 Starch, 83, 143 
 
 Crackers, 85 
 Cream, 49, 50, 54-55 
 
 Adulteration, 55 
 
 Certified, 55 
 
 Sterilized, 55 
 Cream of Tartar, 11, 15, 151, 153 
 
 Adulteration, 11, 15, 151 
 Curry, 138 
 
 Dairies, 50-53, 56-57 
 Date, 1 1 9-1 20 
 Desiccated Eggs, 63 
 Dextrin, 91, 92 
 Dextrose, 91, 92 
 Diet, 18 
 
 Articles of, i 
 
 Errors of, 2 
 
 Milk, 47 
 
 Principles of, 1-3 
 [25, Dietaries, 2 
 
 Disease, 2, 18, 19, 48, 115 
 Domestic Economy, 5 
 Dried Fruits, 1 20-1 21 
 
 Economy, 16, 17, 26 
 
 Domestic, 5 
 Education of Girls, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 
 
 of Public, 13, 163 
 Efficiency, 9, 19 
 Efficient Living, 8 
 Eggs, 61-63 
 
 Desiccated, 63 
 
 Methods of Preserving, 62 
 
 Substitutes, 63 
 Enzyme, 92, 117, 119 
 Ergot, 76 
 Essences, 144 
 Exhausted Coffee Berries, 34 
 
 Tea Leaves, 26, 28, 29 
 Experiment Station Bulletins, 42, 
 52,67, 123 
 
 Farina, 8^ 
 
 Farmers' Institutes, 1 10 
 
 Fat, 43,67, 156 
 
 Fermentation, 147, 151 
 
 Figs, 121 
 
 Filbert, 103 
 
 Filters, 21, 22 
 
 Fish, 112 
 
174 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Flavoring Extracts, 143 
 Flies, 48 
 Flour, 65, 79-82 
 Food, I, 19 
 
 Composition of, 17 
 
 Habits, 19 
 
 Infants', 75 
 
 Infants' and Invalids', 84 
 
 Materials, 19 
 
 Milk as, 84 
 
 Preparation of, 17 
 
 Purpose of, 3, 4 
 
 Unclean, 18 
 Fraud, 13, 16, 29, 58 
 Frijoles, 116 
 Fruit, 94, 114, 116, 120, 122 
 
 Dried, 120-121 
 
 Sugar, 91 
 
 Syrups, 
 
 Game, 112 
 Ginger, 138, 162 
 
 Adulterants, 138 
 Glazing, 35 
 
 Glucose, 91, 92, 93, 94, 98 
 Gluten, 65, 76, 82 
 Glycogen, 91 
 Graham Flour, 80 
 Grapes, 118 
 
 Juice, 13 
 
 Sugar, 91, 93, 94 
 
 Habits, 3, 18, 19 
 Health, 4, 18, 123 
 Home Economics, 8 
 Honey, 95-96 
 
 Adulterants, 95 
 Hook-worm Disease, 115 
 Housekeeper, iii, 6, 14 
 Housewife, 9, 10, 14, 18, 159 
 Housework, 7 
 Hygiene, 8, 9 
 
 Ice, 19 
 
 Indian Corn, 75 
 Infants' Foods, 75, 84 
 Infection, 49 
 Invert Sugar, 91 
 
 Jellies, 122, 127-129 
 Adulteration, 128 
 
 Laboratories, iii, 126, 127, 131 
 Lactose, 91, 95 
 Lake Placid Conference, 8 
 Law, National Pure Food, 164-166 
 Leach, 28, 29, 85, 94 
 Lead in Canned Foods, 124-125 
 Leguminosae, 115 
 Lemon Extract, 144 
 Adulteration, 144 
 Lentils, 115, 116 
 Lettuce, 115 
 Levulose, 91, 94 
 Lime Juice, 13 
 
 Macaroni, 79, 83 
 Mace, 134, 136 
 Maize, 64, 75 
 Making of Cocoa, 44, 45 
 
 Coffee, 38, 45 
 
 Tea, 30, 31,45 
 Malted Foods, 69 
 Maltose, 91, 92 
 Manihot, 83 
 Maple Sugar, 90 
 
 Adulteration, 97 
 Markets, 108, no, 113 
 Meal, 65 
 Meat, 107-113 
 
 Canned, 109 
 
 Adulteration, 126 
 
 Cured, 11 1 
 
 Preservatives, in, 112 
 Middlings, 81, 83 
 Milk, 47-54 
 
 Adulteration, 49 
 
 Buttermilk, 50 
 
 Cans, Washing of, 22 
 
 Carrier of Infection, 49 
 
 Certified, 53 
 
 Clean, 51-52 
 
 Composition of, 47 
 
 Condensed, 53 
 
 Evaporated, 54 
 
 Food Value of, 47 
 
 Skim, 40, 50, 60 
 
 Sugar of, 91, 95 
 Adulterants, 95 
 Mining Wheat, 77, 78 
 Molasses, 88 
 Mustard, 130-132, 162 
 
 Adulteration, i;ji 
 
AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS 
 
 175 
 
 National Geographic Magazine, 
 
 74, 80 
 National Pure Food Law, 164-166 
 Nitrobenzol, 146 
 Nitrogen in Wheat, 81 
 Nitrogenous Food, 156 
 Nutmegs, 134, 135 
 Nuts, 102-106 
 
 Oatmeal, 74 
 
 Adulteration, 74 
 Oats, 64, 74 
 
 Rolled, 69 
 Oil, 156 
 
 Almond, 146 
 
 Clove, 137 
 
 Corn, 106 
 
 Cottonseed, 106 
 
 Nut, 104, 105 
 
 Olive, 105 
 
 Adulteration, 106 
 
 Salad, 105 
 Oleomargarine, 58 
 Olive, 105, 142 
 Oysters, 11 2-1 13 
 
 Packing Houses, 108, 109 
 Paprika, 134 
 
 Adulteration, 134 
 Peach, 118 
 Peanut, 105 
 Pears, 124 
 Peas, 115 
 Pecan, 104 
 Pectin, 91, 128 
 Pepper, 132-134, 162 
 
 Adulteration, 132 
 Perishable Foods — Meats, Poul- 
 try, Fish, 107-113 
 
 Fruits and Vegetables, 1 14-120 
 Phosphorus in Wheat, 81 
 Pickles, iv, 142 
 Pickling, 126 
 Pignolias, 104 
 Pimento, 137 
 Pineapple, 119 
 Pistachio, 104 
 Plums, 118 
 Potato, 83 
 Poultry, 1 10- 1 11 
 
 Ptomaine Poisoning, iii 
 Preservatives, iv, i 
 
 112, 123, 124, 
 
 129, 155, 160 
 Preserving, 122 
 
 Eggs, 62 
 Proteid, 116, 124 
 Prune, 118, 120 
 Pure Food Law, iv, 
 Shows, 15 
 
 55, 60, III, 
 25, 126, 127, 
 
 [63-165 
 
 Raisins, 121 
 
 Recapitulation, 155-163 
 Reducing Sugar, 91 
 Renovated Butter, 59 
 Rice, 64, 65, 70-74 
 
 Flour, 16 
 
 Kiushu, 73 
 Rye, I, 64, 75-76 
 
 Sago, S^ 
 
 Salicylic Acid, 12 
 Salt, 143 
 Samovar, 30, 31 
 
 Tea Tablets, 29 
 Sausage, 112 
 School Museum, 128 
 Soda, 12, 150, 151 
 Sophistication, 14, 126, 158 
 Sorghum, 91 
 Soy Bean, 116 
 Spaghetti, 83 
 Spices, 12, 134-162 
 
 Adulteration of, 139 
 Spirit Vinegar, T41 
 Springs, 23 
 Standards, False, 60 
 
 for Fat in Butter, 57 
 Starch, 65, 69, 70, 71, 79, 83-84, 
 85, 91, 93, 114, 116 
 
 Sugar, 91, 92 
 Substitute Coffee, 40, 41, 59 
 
 Egg> 63 
 
 Jellies, 1 28 
 
 Tea, 25 
 Sucrose, 87, 89, 91, 94 
 Sugar, 87-101, 114, 116 
 
 Adulteration, 96 
 
 Beet, 89-90 
 
 Brown, 88 
 
176 
 
 FOOD MATERIALS 
 
 Sugar, Cane, 88 
 
 Granulated, 88 
 
 Grape, 93-94 
 
 Kinds of, 91 
 
 Lactose, 91, 95 
 
 Loaf, 89 
 
 Maple, 90-91 
 
 Maltose, 91 
 
 of Milk, 95 
 
 Powdered, 89 
 
 Uses of, 99 
 Sulphites, 124 
 Syrup, 97 
 
 Fruit, 12 
 Swindling of the Housewife, 10 
 
 Tables, 18 
 
 Composition of Cereal Break- 
 fast Foods, 68 
 Cereal Grains, 85-86 
 Cheese, 61 
 Chicory, 36 
 Fruits, 94 
 Infants' and Invalids' Foods, 
 
 84 
 Nuts, 103 
 Vanilla Bean, 145 
 Tannin, ^3 
 Tapioca, 83 
 Tea, 20, 23-31, 33 
 Adulterations, 27-29 
 Green, 24 
 Labrador, 25 
 Making of, 30, 31, 45 
 
 Tea, Sage, 25 
 
 Taster, 29 
 Tests, for Coal Tar Dyes in 
 Butter, 59 
 for Milk, 50 
 Tea, 28 
 Water, 23 
 Theine, 25, 33 
 Tin Cans, 124 
 
 in Food, 124, 125 
 Transportation of Meat, 107-108 
 Turmeric, 131, 132, 140, 162 
 
 Uncleanness, 18 
 Unsanitary, 18 
 Utility, Law of, 8 
 
 Vanilla, 145 
 
 Adulteration, 145 
 Vegetables, 11 4-1 16, 124 
 Vermicelli, 83 
 Vinegar, 140, 141 
 
 Adulteration, 141 
 
 Walnut, 104 
 Water, 20-23 
 Wells, 20, 21, 23 
 Wheat, 64, 76-82 
 Durum, 79-80 
 Whole Wheat Flour, 80 
 Wood Vinegar, 141 
 
 Yeast, 147-148, 149 
 Yucca, 83 
 
OCT I 1908 
 

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