The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-03-15
FOOD FRAUDS.
THE SHAMEFUL USE OF LIME AND ALUM IN CHEAP


BAKING POWDERS
Many food frauds, such as chicory coffee or
watered milk, although they are q swindle in q
commercial sense, are often tolerated because
they do not particularly affect the health of the
consumer; but when an article like baking pow
der, that enters largely into the food of every
family, and is relied upon for the healthful prep
araton of almost every meal, is made as to
carry highly injurious if not rankly poisonous
elements into the bread to the imminent danger
of the entire community, it is the duty of the
press to emphatically denounce the manufacture
ers whose avarice has prompted them to such
diabolical operations.
Among recent important discoveries by the
food analysts is that by Professor Mott, the
United States government chemist, of large
amounts of lime in the cheap baking powders.
This is, II not the most dangerous, certainly the
most useless adulterant yet found in the low
grade, inferior baking powders. tits startling
fact that of over one hundred different 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 Pow
der, was found free from both lime and alum
The chief service of lime is to add weight tbs
true that lime when subject to heat gives off a
certain amount of carbonic acid gas, but quick
lime IS left, caustc 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 upon the delicate membranes of
the stomach. intestines, and kidneys, more par
ticularly of infants and children, and especially
when the lime is taken into the system day after
day, and with almost every meal This is said
by physicians to be one of the chief causes of in
digestion, 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 in some sections
of 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 par
TALLY dissolved and passed off in gas by the heat
OF baking, it is impossible to destroy or 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 stomach
When we state that the chemists have found II
per cent, or one-eghth 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 aud 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.