The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1909-03-11
COMMONEST Of FOOD
ARTICLES ADULTERATED
Anything From Castor Oil to earned
Peaches Likely To Be Impure.
BY Mrs. JOHN A. LOGAN.

ana uncomfortable set OF folks Ii
they are gifted with even little
bit of imagination. These bulletins
tell about investigations made by
the food and drug inspectors and
their finding that the commonest
OF remedies are more or less adul-
terated and sometimes to the great
injury of the consumer. In re-
cent bulletin it is revealed that
adulteration or some other form of
fraud was found in connection
with black pepper, liquid sulphur,
oil of pine compound, caster oil
pills, canned peaches, buchwheat
flour and maple syrup.
1t was certainly most seemly
and fitting that the cases of buck
wheat flour and maple syrup
should be recorded in the same
bulletin AS they were impure,
50 it is no more than poetic
justice that they should suffer
shame and ignomity when they
present themselves all dis figured
and bedraggled after a debauch
with strange and unwelcome asSo-
Clates. In the case of the buck
wheat an inspector bought some
samples of Baltimore product,
which brazenly proclaimed to be
"Selt-Yeasted Mountain Buck
wheat" The bulletin thus tells
what happened "a sample was
subjected to analysis in the bureau
of chemistry, and the results show
ed that the product consisted of
mixture of buckwheat and maize.
In Standards of Purity for
Food Products, established under
authority of the act of March ;,
1908, and published as Circular 10,
office of secretary U. S. department
of agriculture, buckwheat -four is
defined as follows.
'Buchwheat -four is bolted
buck wheat meal and contains not
more than twelve (I2) per cent of
moisture, not less than one and
twenty eight -hundredths I.28)
per cent of nitrogen. and not more
than one and seventy fve-hun
dredths I.74) per cent of ash.
1T was evident that the pro-
duct was both adulterated and
misbranded, adulterated because it
purported to be buckwheat flour
when in fact, another substance,
maize, had been mixed with it and
substituted in part for the article.
1t was misbranded for the reason
that it was labeled 'Buckwheat'
whereas Is consisted of mixture
of buckwheat -four and maize"
The Baltimore manufacturer
was fined only $500. He ought
to have been fined So, 900.
In the maple syrup case the
government seized aud condemned
200 cases and 90 5-gallon cans of
product labeled and branded
Canada Sap Maple and Pure
Sugar Cane Syrup" and which
contained sugar cane syrup in ex-
cess of maple syrup.
Isn't that nice sort of fraud?
Just think of sitting down to our
buCkwheat cakes and maple syrup
of morning now and trying to
feel the least bit of confidence that
the cakes are not half maize and
the maple half sugar cane, There
is a possibility that by knowing
all about buckwheat and maple
syrup and by having a grocer who
lives in the fear of the Lord, those
who have homes of their own NAV
get pure buckwheat and pure
maple syrup; but alas for those
who breakfast in hotels and res
taurants They have no chance
whatever. If by some freak of fate
the pure materials for this most
delicious of all breakfast confec-
tions reaches the realm of the chef,
how easy it is for him to scoop the
maize into the buckwheat and
pour sugar cane syrup into the
maple! And how often he really
does it, too. The pure food law
doesn't go far enough. 1t should
reach out to the table. and if it