San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1886-03-19
FOOD FRAUDS.
The Shameful Use of Lime and Alum in
Cheap Baking Powders.

Many food frauds, such as chicOry cof-
fee OF watered milk, although they are =
swindle in a commercial sense, are often
tolerated because they do not particular
ly affect the health OF the consumer; but
when an article like baking powder, that
enters largely into the food Of every fam
lily, and is relied upon for the healthful
| preparation of almost every meal, is so
made as to carry highly injurious, II not
| rankly poisonous, elements into the
bread to the imminent danger of the en-
tire community, 1t is the duty OF the
press to denounce the practice in the
most emphatic terms.
Among recent important discoveries
by the food analysts is that by Prof.
Mott, the U. S. 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 powders. Ii 10 Il
startling fact that Of the 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 lime is to add weight. 1t
is true that lime, when subjected to
heat, gives off certain amount OF car
bonic acid gas. but a quick-lime is left
a caustic so powerful tuat IL Is used by
tanners to eat the hairfIUn hides of ami
mails, and in disseoIing rooms to more
quickly rot the flesh from the bones of
dead subjects. A small quantity of dry
inn ha fnn { hn
duces painful effects how much more
serious must these effects he upon the
delicate membranes OF the stomach, in
testines 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 by physicians to be
one of the chief causes Of Indigestion.
dyspepsia, and those painful diseases
of the kidneys now 50 prevalent. In
stances Of the most serious affections of
the latter organs from drinking liue
waters found in some sections Of the
West are neted in every medical journal.
Adulteration with lime Is quite as
much to be dreaded as with alum, which
has heretofore received the most en-
phatic condemnation from every food
analyst, physician and chemist, for the
reason that, while alum is probably par
italy 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 passes, with all its
Injurious properties, into the stomach.
When we state that the chemists have
found II per cent, or ome-eighth of the
entire weight OF some samples of baking
powder analysed, to be lime, the wicked
ness of the adulteration will be fully APP
parent.
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 weil-established
reputation, like the Royal, Of whose
purity there has never been and cannot
be a question, it is proper to avoid all
others.