The Brookhaven leader., 1886-05-13
FOOD FRAUDS.
The Shameful Use of Line and
Alum In Cheap Baking Powders.

Many food frauds such a. chicory cof-
fee or watered milk, although they are a
swindle in commercial sense, are often
tolerated because they do not particular
ly affect the health of the consumer but
when an article like baking powder,
that enters largely into the food of every
family, aud Is relied upon for the health
full preparation for almost every meal, Is
so made as to carry highly injurious if
not raukly poisonous elements into the
bread to the iminent danger of the entire
community, it is the duty ofthe press to
emphatfcally denOunce the manufactnr-
ers whose avarice has prompted them to
such diabolical operations.
Among recent important discoveries by
the food analysis is that by Prof. Mott,
U. S. Government Chemist, of large
amounts of lime in the cheap baking pow
ders. This is if not the most dangerous,
certainly the most useless adulterant yet
found in the low, inferior baking pow
ders. 1t is startling fact that OF over
one hundred different brands of baking
powder so far analysed, comprising all
those sold i'll this vicinity, not one OF
them, with the single exception OF the
Royal Baking Powder, was found free
from both limo and alum. The chief
service of lime is to add weight. 1t is
true that lime when subjected TO heat
gives off q certain amount of carbonic
acid gas, but a quick lime is left, cans-
tic so powerful that it is used by tanners
to eat the hair from hides of animals, and
i'm dissecting rooms to more quickly rot
the flesh from the bones of dead subjects.
A small quantity of dry lime upon the
tongue, or in the eye, produces painful
effects; how much more serious must
these effects be upon the delicate mem
branes of the stomach intestines, aud kid
news, more particularly of infants and
children, and especially when the lime is
taken into the system day after day ana
With almost every meal. This Is said by
physicians to be one of the chief causes OF
indigestion, dyspepsia, and those painful
diseases of the kidneys now so prevalent.
Instances of the most serious affections
of the latter organs from drinking lime
waters found i'll some sectiOus ot the west
are noted in every medical journal.
AdulteratiOn with lime is even more to
be dreaded than with alum, which has
heretofore received the most emphatic
condemnation from every food analyst,
physician and chemist, for the reason
that while alum Is probably partially dis
solved and passed of in gas by the heat
of baking, it 8 impossible to destroy or
change the nature OF the lime in any de-
gree, so that the entire amount III the
baking powder passes, with all its in
furious properties, into the the stomach
| When we state that the chemists have
found twelve per cent or one Gig nth OF
the entire weight of some samples OF
baking powder analysed to be lime, the
wickedness OF the adulteratiOn will be
fully apparent.
Pure baking powders are one of the
chief aids to the cook in preparing perfect
and wholesome food. While those are to
be obtained of well established reputation
like the Royal of whose purity there has
never been and can not be question, II
is proper to AVOID all others.