Weekly commercial herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1884-18??, 1886-05-07
ROOD FRAUDS.

The Shameful Use Of Lime and
Alum In Cheap Baking Powders.
Many food frauds, such as chicofJ
coffee or Watered milk, although they
are a swlndle 10 a commercial sense
are often tolerated because they do mol
particularly affect 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 preparation Of
almost every meal, Is so made as to
carry highly injurious, If not rankly
poisonous, elements into the bread to
the imminent danger Of the entire COM
munity, it is the duty Of tie press to
denOunce the practice in the most en-
phatic terms.
Among recent important discoveries
by the food analysts is that by Prof.
Mott, the u. 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, adulteTants yet found
in the low-grade, inferior baking pow
ders. 1t is a startling fact that Of over
one hundred different brands OF bak-
ing power so far analysed, comprising
all those sold ia 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.
It is true that lime, when subjected to
heat, gives off a certain amount of car
bonic acid gas, but a quick-lime is left
Ia 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. Asmall guam
tity 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 chill
dren, and ESPECIALLY when che 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 indigestion, dyspepsia, and
those painful diseases of the kidneys
now 10 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 quite al
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 prob
ably partially dissolved and passed off
in gas by the heat of baking, it is i'm
possible to destroy or change the nature
of the lime in any degree, so that the
entire amount in the baking powder
with all its injurious proper
ties, 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
analysed, to be lime, the wick
edness of the adulteration will be fully
apparent.
Pure baking powders are n of the
chief aids to the cook in preparing per-
feet and wholesome food. While those
are to be obtained of well established
reputation, like the Royal, of whose
there has never been and can
not be a question, it is proper to avoid
II others.