The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1886-10-15
Foon FRA,iDs.
THE SHAMEFUL USE OF LIME AND ALUM
TN NcuEApnAKINa pnwnE.s

THE SHAMEFUL USE OF LIME AND ALUM
IN CHEAP BAKING POWDERS.
Many food frauds. such as chicory
coffee or watered milk, although they
are 'swindle in commercial sense, are
often tolerated because they do not par
t:aularly affect the health of the consul
mer; but when an article like baking
powder, that enters largely into the food
of every family, and relied upon for the
healthful preparation of almost every
meal, is so made as to carry highly inju
rious, if not rankly poisonous, elements
into the bread to the imminent danger of
the entire community, it is the duty of
the press to dcnounce the practice in the
most emphatic terms.
Among recent important discoveries by
the food analysts is that by Prot. Mott,
the U. s. Government Chemist, of large
amounts of lime and alum in the cheap
baking powders. These are, one of 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
different brands of baking pnwder so far
analysed, comprising all these 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 ser vice of lime is
| to add weight. 1t is true that lime, when
subjected to heat, gives off 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 guam
tity 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 stom-
ach, intestines and kidneys, more partic
ularly of infants and children. and espec-
tally when the lime is taken into the sys-
TEN 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. Instan-
ces 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 emphat-
ic 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, is impossible to destroy
or change the nature of the lime i'll any
degree, SO that the entire amount in the
baking powder passes, with all its injur,
ious properties, into the stomach When
we state that the chemists have found
twelve per cent or one-eight or the en-.
tire weight of some samples of baking
powder analyzed, to be lime, the wicked
ness of the adulteration will be fully
| apparent.
| Pure baking powders are one of tht
chief aids to the cook in preparing per
feet and wholesome food. While those
are to be obtained of well-establshet
reputation, like the Royal, of whose pur
ity there has never been and cannot be
question, it is proper to avoid all others