The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1894-01-18
ADULlTER "A, 4 u 10 FOOD

PERCEPTIONS ESCORTED TO BY 4 ssEE
GREEDY AND uNsc JUS,
InSormation Whieh Will Enable the Houss-,
wife q Tell the Genuins From tho Doe.
tored ArticleA Little joke ~ che.
Butchers Expense Bogus Spices.
~ The adulteration Of articles Of food
Is W no means an invention 1T modern
times, but was practiced by our classic
al ancestors. During the middle ages
the cunning baker mixed his -four with.
lime, sand and gypsum, and on discovery
was thrown into prison cell and com
PEELED to eat the product Of his entire
bakery, which cured him o. the fraudu-
lent habit. NJ Il s .}y| ~. NOM N
The most important article Of food il
every household is the meat. The meat
which comes from healthy animals Is.
distinguished BY q pleasant odor and
fresh color, from q delicate pink to q
deep carmine, according to the ami nal
irom which 1t comes. II must be elias
tic to the touch. The dent which ID
caused by pressing 9 finger on it must
disappear when the pressure is removed.
The fatty substance Of the meat Is, d
good indicator Of It's quality. IN healthy
animals the fat is yellow and elastic
and has q pleasant odor. The fat in the
meat from sick animals is pale, gray
and smeary and has an unpleasant
odor. l, .1 A ss ~ 5ss
Sausage ofEelF a wide field for adul-
teration Of the most dangerous kind,
and in the pamphlets which vegeta-
rians send broad cast over the land from
time to time they give prominence to
an anecdote which is as terse as it is IL
Illustrative Of the esteem in which they
hold. the sausage. M man saved the
life of butcher by endangering his
own. The poor butcher, overcome with
gratitude, cried out in a moment Of self
forgetfulness, Never il your life again, I
my friend, eat sausage.
The authorizations in this line are
manifold. To produce the fresh red
color, SO alluring in sausage, uchsine is
mixed with the ingredients instead Of
blood. It is q very common practice
to put -four in sausage, and while q lit-
tie of it is harmless, it nevertheless
leads to early fermentation of-.the ar
ticle In question. The buy :, however,
is very much imposed upon when -four
is added in large quantities, for it en-
ables the, sausage makers to add from
so to 70 per cent Of water, which ISL
paid for at the rate Of meat. France
has lately put a stop to this fraud by
limiting the addition Of flour to 8 per,
cent. &
Fish are adulterated in the same way
BY rubbing their gills with aniline,
which gives them the appearance Of
freshness. The aniline is easily 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-
snize, an old fish is to watch the gills,
which emit an odor Of decay if the fish
is too old for use.
Crawfsh Or crabs should always be
bought alive. Grabs that are sold al
ready cooked have usually been boiled
after. they were dead, and soon decay,
generating q very dangerous poison. a
crawfish that has been boiled alive will
show curled and twisted tail, while,
on the other hand, one that was cooked
after death has the tail perfectly
straight.
The best way to tell butter from ole
somargarlne is to put a piece of 1t on a hot
potato which has been boiled in the
jacket and freshly peeled The taste Of
butter is more pronounced when eaten
in this way than any other, and the
fraud is detected. It is also the safest
way to discover the age Of dairy or
creamery butter.
s Lard is frequently adulterated with
water to increase its weight, and mixed
with cornstarch, salt, chalk, ETC., to
bind the water to the fat. This may
be discovered BY carefully melting the
lard and setting it aside in a lukewarm
place. The fat not only separates from
the water, but collects at the bottom
Of the dish with all the other foreign |
ingredients. III,
To tell good eggs from bad ones it is
only necessary to put them in a dish
filled with water containing from 5 to
10 per cent of salt Fresh eggs drop to
the bottom, old ones swim on the sur
face, and those Of medium quality sink
half way down. 5.i.
All spices suffer more or less adulter
alton, but most Of all those which are
sold in pulverized state. Ground pep.
per is mixed with paprica, millet,
bread, powdered olives, almond meal.
dust, sand, gypsum, sawdust, spar, and
almost the same ingredients are used
for the adulteration Of cinnamon. Pull
verified ginger fares no better and is
mixed with potato -four, wheat and
cayenne pepper, while the sweet scent
ed anise seed comes in for a share Of
earth, sand and little brown and black
stones. Housekeepers will always be
more or less cheated in buying powder
ed spices, which should be bought in
= n.