Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1886-09-21
FOOD FRAUDS.
The Shameful Use Of Lime and Alum In
Cheap Baking Powders.


Cheap Baking Powders.
Many food frauds, such as chlcory
coffee or watered milk, although they
are swindle in a commercial sense,
are often tolerated because they do
not particularly affect the health of
the consumer; but when an article
like baking powder, that enters large
ly into the food of every family, and is
relied upon for the healthful prepare
ton Of almost every meal, is so made
as to carry highly injurious, if no:
rankly poisonous, elements INTO the
bread TO the imminent danger Of. the
entire community, it is the duty of the
press to denounce the practise in the
most emphatic terms.
Among recent important discover
les by the food analysts is that by Prof.
Mott, the Z. S.. Government Chemist,
of large amounts of lime and alum in
the cheap baking powders. These
are, one the most dangerous, and
the other the most useless adulterants
yet found in the low-grade, inferior
baking powders. 1t is a startling
fact that Of over one hundred differ
ent brands of baking powder so far
analysed, comprising all those sold in
this vicinity, not one of them, with the
single exception of the Royal Baking
Powder, was found free from both
lime and alum. The chief service of
lime is to add weight. 1t is true that
lime, when subjected to heat, gives off
a certain amount of carbonic acid gas,
but quick lime is left-a caustic so
powerful that it is used by tanners to
eat the hair from hides of animals, and
In 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 on
the delicate membranes Of the stomach,
intestines and kidneys, more partic-
ular y of infants and children, and
especially when the lime is taken into
the system day after Gay, and 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 water
found in some sections of the West
are noted in every medical journal.
Adulteration with lime is quite as
much to be dreaded as 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 dissolved
and passed off in gas by the heat OF
baking, it is impossible to destroy OF
change the nature of the lime in any
degree, so that the entire amount in
the baking powder passes, with all
its injurious properties, into the stom,
ach. When we state that the chem
lists have found twelve per cent or one.
eighth 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 we'll.
established reputation, like the Royal
of whose purity there has never been
and cannot be a question, it is proper
to avoid all others.