The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1886-04-29
FOOD FRAUDS.
THE SHAMEFUL USEOF LIME AND
ALUMNI CHEAP BAKING
POWDERS

Many food frauds, such as chicory, cof
fee or watered milk, although they are a
swindle in commercial sense, are often
tolerated because they do not particularly
effect the health of the consumer; but when
an article like baking powder, that enters
largely into the food of every family, and
is relied upon for the healthful prepare
ton of almost every meal, is made to
carry highly injurious if not rankly poi
souous elements into the bread, to the
eminent danger of the entire community,
it is the duty of the press to emphaticatly
denounce the manufacturers whose avarice
has prompted them to such diabolical OPP
erations.
Among recent important discoveries by
the food analysts is that by Prof. Mott,
the U. S. government chemist, of large
amounts of lime in the cheap baking
powders. This is, if not the most danger
oIs, certainly the most useless adulterant
yet found in the low grade, inferior baking
powders. 1t is a 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 Powder, was found free from both
lime aud alum. The chief service of lime
is to add weight. it is true that lime when
subjected to heat gives off a certain
amount of carbonic acid gas, but quick
lime is left, 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 upon
the delicate membranes of the stomach,
intestines, and kidneys, more particularly
of infants and children, and especially
when the lime is taken in to the system
day after day 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 seri-
Gus affections of the latter organs from
drinking lime waters found in some sec
tions of the west are noted in every m edi-
cal 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 off in gas by the heat
of baking, it is impossible to destroy or
change the nature of the lime in any de-
gree, so that the entire amount i'll the bak-
ing powder passes, with all its injurious
prophecies into the stomach. When we
state that the chemists have found twelve
per cent or one-eighth of the entire weight
of some samples of baking powder ana
lyzed to be lime, the wickedness of the
adulteration will be fully apparatus
Pure baking powders are one of the
chief aids to the cook in preparing per-
feet and wholesome food. While these
are to be obtained of well established re-
putation like the Royal of whose purity
there has never been and cannot be a
question, it is proper to avoid all others