The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1894-01-04
FOODADULTERATION
HOW SOME FLAGRANT CASES
MAY BE DETECTED.
Indications OF Healthy Meat Sausage
and Fish Aduiteration-To Tell
Good Butter. Lard and Eggs
Fraud In Spices.
7 DULTERATING articles of
food is by no means an "ir

e but was practiced by our
classical ancestors. During the mid
die nges the cunning baker mixed his
-four with lime, sand and gypsum, and
on discovery was thrown INTO prison
cell and compelled to eat the product
of his entire bakery, which cured him
Of the fraudulent habit.
The most important article of food
in every household is the meat. The
meat which comes from healthy ami
mails is distinguished by pleasant
odor and fresh color. from n delicate
pink to n deep carmine, according TO
the animal from which it cones. IL
must be elastic to the touch. The
dent which is caused by pressing
finger on it must disappear when the
pressure is removed. The fatty sub
4 ,nce OF the meat is good indicator
of its quality. In healthy animals the
fat is yellow aud elastic and has
pleasant odor The fat in the meat
from sick animals is pale, gray and
smeary and has an unpleasant odor
Sausage offers wide field for adul-
terntion OF the most dangerous kind,
and in the pamphlets which vegetar-
ians send broadcast over the land from
time to time they give prominence to
mn anecdote which is rs terse as it is
illustrative OF the esteem in which
they hold the sausage. A Inan saved
the life OF n butcher by endangering
his own. The poor butcher, overcome
with gratitude, cried out in "a moment
of self-forcotfulness: "Never in your
life again, my friend, cat sausage"
The adulterations in this line are
manifold. TO produce the fresh red
color, so alluring in sausage, fuchsine
IS mixed with the ingredients instead
of blood. IL is very common prac-
tice to put -four in sausage, and, while
little of il is harmless, it neverthe-
less leads TO early fermentation of the
article in question. The buyer, how
ever, is very much imposed upon when
-four is added in large quantities, for
1t enables the saL.sage makers TO add
from sixty to seventy per cent. of
water, which is paid for at the rate of
meat. France has lately put stop to
this fraud by limiting the addition Of
-four to three per cent.
Fish are adulterated in the same way
by rubbing their gills with aniline,
which gives them the appearance of
freshness. The aniline iseasily washed
of and the fraud detected. In fresh
fish the eyes are full and protruding,
while in old fish they are Opaque, dull
and sunken. The best way to recog-
nize an old fish is to watch the gills.
which emit an odor of decay il the Fl
! as too o.. for use.
Crawfish or crabs shoulJ always
bought alive. Crabs that are sold n
ready cooked have usually been boiles
after they were dead, and soon decay,
generating very dangerous poison.
A crawfish that has been boiled alive
will show curious and twisted tail.
while, on the other hand, one that was
cooked after death has the tail per.
fectly straight
The best way II tell butter from
oleomargarine is to put piece of it on
hot potato which has been boiled in
the jacket and freshly peeled. The
taste OF butter is more pronounced
when eaten III this way thaa any other.
and the fraud is detected. Ii is also
the safest way to discover the age OF
dairy or creamery butter.
Lard is frequently adulterated with
water to increase its weight, and
mixed with corn-starch, salt, chalk.
etc, TO bind the water to the fat.
This may be discovered by carefully
melting the lard and setting it aside
III II lukewarm place. The fiat not
only separates from the watsr, but
collects ut the bottom of the dish with
oil the other foreign ingredients.
To tell good eggs from bad ones il
is only necessary to put them in
dish filled with water containing from
tive to ten per cent of salt Fresh
eggs drop TO the bottom, old ones
swim on the surface, and those of
medium quality sink half way down.
All spices suffer more or less adul-
teration, but most of all those which
are sold in pulverized state Ground
pepper is mixed with paprica, millet.
bread, powdered olives, almond meal.
dust, sand, gypsum, sawdust, spar,
anu alinost the same ingredients are
used for the adulteration of cinnamon.
Pulverized ginger fares no better. and
is mixed with potato -four, wheat and
cayenne pepper, while the sweet-scent-
ed anlse seed comes in for ~ share of
earth, sand and little brown and black
stones. Housekeepers will always be
more or less cheated in buying DOW.
dered spices, which should be bought
in their natural state and ground at
home. The vanilla bean, before the
invention of the artificial vanilline,
was deprived of its natural aroma and
basted with balm of Peru.
Coffee is adulterated in all forms
and IN every possible way. Machines
have been invented and large factor,
les erected, where artificial coffee
beans are made from acorn -four and
gum arabic, and these are mixed with
! the real coffee. and AVIAN tha -