The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1888-05-10
NO PHYSIC WITH OUR FOOD.
A Phosphate Baking Powder That is
Dangerous if not Ridiculous.

That is rather dangerous proposition
put forth by the manufacturers of some
of the patented or proprietary articles of
food, that their products possess SUI
perior wholesomeness because they con-
tain drug of some particular medicinal
property. Phosphates, alum, lime, ar
senic, calomel, ETC., have their places as
specifics for different diseases, and are in
valuable medical remedies, each in it's
place. But they are not cure-alls. The
physician who should perscribeeither cal
| onel or strychnine or rhubarb three
times day to man, woman and child,
sick or well, because either of such drugs
is well known remedy for some certain
disease, would receive but little honor
from the fraternity and less practice from
the community.
No one will controvert this statement;
yet we find manufacturers of baking
powders claiming superior hygienic viz
tue for their productions and urging their
continuous use because they. are alleged
to carry the phosphate used in making
them a cheap substitute for cream of tar
| tar, procured from the bones of dead an
imals) into the food, although well aware
as they must be, of the fact that with the
constant use of SUCH articles this drug
| must pass into our systems daily, no
| matter what may be our physical con-
| ditlons or requirements, or whether or
or not we may be suffering from some
| ailment wherein the use of such drug
would be positively detrimental. Both
alum and phosphates are useful medi-
cants in certain diseases; but they should
no more be taken indiscriminately day
after day and without the prescription of
a physician than arsenic, aconite or cal
| omel indeed, there are conditions of the
system, particularly with women, when
the prudent physician would be loath to
| permit the use of lime phosphates even as
a medicine.
The fallacy of this claim of the manu-
facturers of phosphate baking powders
will be apparent to all when the fact,
well known to physicians, is stated, that
food the body gets more phosphates
than are required or can be assimilated,
as is evidenced by the fact that they are
constantly being expelled in the excre-
tions, both solid and liquid likewise the
statement that it is necessary to add
phosphates to the baking powder to re-
store to the flour those which have been
| lost in the milling, for it is true that fine
-four as at present made, actually con-
tains larger percentage of phosphates
than the grain of wheat itself.
The object of baking powders is not to
provide the body with a medicine, but
simply to vesiculate or make light the
mixture of -four, so as to render It when
baked easy of mastication and perfectly
digestible. The most celebrated experts
in the business have worked for the per-
fiction ofan article that should do this
mechanically, adding to or taking from
the flour nothing, nor in any wav effect
! ing change in its properties or constit-
uents. When this has been done the per-
feet leavening agent has been discovered.
The manufacturers of the Royal baking
| powder have succeeded in this so far as
I to make leavening agent that vesicu-
| 1ates and raises the loaf most perfectly
and without changing the properties of
the -four, while the residium from it has
/ been reduced to minimum. The acid
| employed however to produce this result
is not phosphate, but the acid. of highly
refined cream of tartar, which the health
authorities agree, renders that powder
perfectly pure and more reliable and
healthful than any other. The recent
official tests show, on the other hand,
that the best the phosphate baking pow
der makers can do is to produce an ar
ticie that is one-third or more residium
| or impurity.
We want our food pure; especially do
we not wish to take alum, lime and phos-
pilates with it at the dictum of manu-
facturers who may find it cheaper to
claim virtue for the impurities than to
remove them.