The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1886-03-24
Food Frauds.
THE SHAMEFUL. USE OF LINE AND ALTN
IN CHEAP BAKING POWDERS.

IN CHEAP BAKING POWDERS.
Many food frauds, such as chickory cot
! Zee or watercd milk, although they are a
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 fami-
~, 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,
10 the eminent danger of the entire CON-
munlty, 1t is the duty of the press to en-
phatlcally denounce the manufacturers
whose ayarice has prompted them to such
diabolieal operations.
Among recent important discoveries by
the food analysts is that by Prof. Mott, the
| United States Government Chemist, of
large amounts of lime in the cheap baking
| powders. ! his is, if not the most danger
| Gus, certainly The most useless adulterant
yet found in the low grade, inferior baking
| powders. Ii 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 and alum. The chief service OF |
aAAiC IL " duQ weight IL II II dC 1AuS
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 10 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 indigestion.
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 here
totOre received the most emphatic con-
demnation from every food analyst, pbysi-
clan, and chemist, for the reason that
while alum is probably partially dissolved
and pasted of 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 prop srties,
into the stomach. When we state that .
the chemists have found twelve per cent OF
One-eighth of the entire weight OF some
samples of baking powder Analysed to be
lime, the wickedness of the aduIteration e
will be fully apparent. II
Pure baking powders are one of the chief D
aids to the cook in preparing perfect and
wholesome food. While those are TO be
obtained of well established reputation
lie the Royal, OF whose purity there has
never been and cannot be question, il is
proper to avoid all others,