Smyrna times., 1886-09-22
Food Frauds,
THE SHAMEFUL USE OF LIME AND
ALUM IN CHEAP BAKING POWDERS.

-@' mimi bFA n AANAI ION IEkS.
Many food frauds. such as cbicorv
coffee or watered milk, although thev
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 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 the press to
denounce the practice in the most en-
phatic terms.
Among recent important discoveries
by the food analysis is that bv 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 adulterants yet found
in the low-grade, inferior baking pow
ders. 1t is a startling fact that of over
one hundred different brands of baking
powders so far analyzed, 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 OFT certain amount of carbOnic
acid gas, but a quick-lime is left-a
caustic so powerful that it is used bv
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 uuan-
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
stomach, intestines and kidneys, more
particularly 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 bv
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 affection 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 impossi-
bic to destroy or change the nature of
the lime in any degree, so that the en-
tire amount in the baking powder
passes, with all its injurious properties.
into the stomach. When we state that
the chemists have found twelve per
cent. or One-eight of the entire weight
OF some samples Of baking powder an
alyzed, to be lime, the wickedness of
the adulteratiOns which will be fully
apparent.
Pure baking powders are one 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
purity there has never been and cannot
be question, it is proper to avoid all
others