The Red Cloud chief., 1892-04-29
INJURIOUS ADULrERATloNS.

INJURIOUS ADULTERATIONS.
Some .Thiass We WouIdn,t Eat " We
Knew what Ther Are Made of.
Some very startling facts in regard to
food adulteration have been gathered
by the department Of agriculture.
GlucOSe, it appears, is the greatest o.
all adulterants. Il is used for making
cheap candies, SUGARS, jeltes and sir
ups. A vivid notion of the extent to
which it is employed is obtained from
the fact that ten pounds of it are man
ufactured annually in the United States
for every man, woman and child. 1t Is
prepared from eorn. Most of the less
expensive jellies in the market are
purely artificial products, composed OF
gelatine, sugar, cochineal and havoring
extracts. More costly jellies of various
fruits are simply apple jelly, colored
and favored. Apple is pumpkin
boiled in cider.
Cheap confectionery and liquors are
the articles most i~njuriously adulter-
ated. Candy commonly contains much
fusel oil and other poisons. Strawberry
ice cream, a plate of it, often contains
more fusel ill than five glasses of poor
whisky. II is cClored with red aniline
dye. Licorice drops are usually made
out of candy factory sweepings. Wine Is
frequently nothing but water. with .
percentage of crude alcohol and aniline
co)oring. Brandy is rectified alcohol
from gram On the refuse of beet root re-
fineries, eolOred with burnt sugar, fla
vored with oil of cognac. and given an
agreeable woody taste with a little cat
echu. Among other adultcrants OF
liquors are vitriol, opium, alum, cop
peras. log wood and sugar of lead.
Package coffecs are principally pcase,
rye, roasted and ground, almond shells
treated with molasses, beans, acorns
and chicory. There are twenty differ
ent substances known to the trade as
''cof.ee substitutes" Among these are
the artificial beans, made out of potato
| starch and other materials, which are
imported from Germany in large guam
titles for mixing with the real article.
They can be detected by the fact that
they will sink in water, whereas true
coffee beans will float. Shriveled COFFEE
beans are commonly soaked in Ha&
water to make them look plump. tn
only safe thing is to buy the poor q
looking coffee obtainable. 1t is usdsl
to extract the essential oils from cOfls be
beans before selling the latter as cofSfc.
the ssences being manufactured asp.
arately into extracts.
Spices of all kinds afford an inviting
field for the exercise of fraudulentS rts.
They are almost always sold II the
form of a fine powder, and any rheap
substance serves as a substitute. E'ease
and beans are largely employed frt this
purpose. In fact the prOductidh Of so
called ''spice mixtures or ~)epper
dust" from which any kind cf spice
can be readily manufactured BY the re-
tail grocer, has grown to be an i'm
portant branch of industry. These
products are variously knoHn as ''P.
D. pepper" 'P. d. gingeB "P. ID.
cloves and So on. They trssold by
the barrel and are made to assemble in
appearance the genuine articles they
represent, the merchant having it left
to his discretion how much If the real
stuff he will add in each ces for flavor
ing.
Almost any sort of refuse serves very
well as material for these Preparations.
For black pepper the producer common.
" uses roasted ships bread, mustard
husks, cornmeal, linseed meal. wheat,
rice and particularly co,oenut shells.
Pure ginger is made out of cornmeal by
simply adding red peppyeand salt All.
spice is composed of 3nustard husks,
cracker dust and corn Mace is mostly
flour, cornmeal and buckwheat. Cay
enne pepper is chieflyksr0und rice, flour
and red lead. Mustsrd is flour and
cayenne pepper. Whatever substances
may be employed roasting serves to give
them the proper cSoI, while a sitting
of finely powderedtharcoa will trans
form cornmeal into black pepper at
short notice. Ono firm in New York
City puts ON the nirket five thousand
pounds of ground cocoanut shells
yearly, for purpose Of adulteration, ad-
vertising to supply dealers with ''all
necessary luIOf uisUuDu lOr spice Nldnu
featuring" fM
The flower buds of the Glove tree,
known commercially as Gloves" are
fraudulently subjected before they are
sold to a process u which their volatile
oil is removeE, The latter being mar
keted as ~''essence of Cloves" However,
the thrifty dealer does not permit the
cloves to leave his hands until he has
added to them stems, allspices and
burnt nut iSnells. What is known as
essence OF eodfee' consists mostly of
burnt molaeseel The fiavoring extracts
used in the hdhsehold are nearly all of
them mixtures of acids and other drugs.
They are IA more or less harmful. but
the manufacturer who ATTEMPTED to sell
pure articiea in this line would have no
chance ID tie market. Cream of tartar
often contains as much as FIVE per cent.
Of oxaltsseid. Cider vinegar is apt to
be cord vinegar with sulphuric acid
addedf Itcontains none of the little
eels wih,eA are found in good vinegar,
becauSstAey cannot live in it.
WI pne buys tea at one dollar a
pour one is very likely to pay in real
ity Nodollars a pound, because half of