The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-05-26

been analysed and found to be packed in corn oil or cottonseed oil.
 Saccharine has been found sub stituted for sugar as a sWeetener.
 White poppy seeds have been dyed the same color as the better blue" variety, in order to get the premium price which the latter bring on the market now that imports of Belgian seeds have been stopped.
 Egg Substitutions are some of the most fragrant CornStarch has been substituted for egg in prepared mixes sold to bakers. Artificially colored, the cornstarch gives the same rich, yellow appearance to a cake that a good cook provides through liberal beating in of egg yolks, but the food value just isn't there. In gg-macaroni the stand ard 1-2 per cent egg content has been found to be cut to 3 per cent in some brands, the yellow colorirg in this case being supplied by coal tar dye which is considered injurious to health.
 VIOLATORS IN
 1 MINORITY, BUT ..
 Mayonnaise and salad dressings have been found to contain not the usual olive, cotton, soy bean or other vegetable oils which are scarce but instead contain a min eral oil which has no particular food value and is, moreover, pur- gative.
 These are some of the most glar- ing examples of wartime food adul- terations, but it should not be ima- gined from this list that every can her of sardines, every packer of tea, coffee, spices or processed foods is guilty of these abominations. Vio- lators are decidedly in the minor ity, and as a matter of fact, many of the reports on violations come from responsible food handlers who are as much interested as the pub lie in seeing that the fringe of out law operators is clipped off the car pet of responsibility.
 But the war has brought an in- crease in the number of these cheap cheats. The shortages of staple sup plies have aggravated the tempta- ton to use substitutes so as to meet the demand and make an increased 1 profit, and this has increased the i job of the enforcement agencies of the federal and state governments.
 Food and Drug Administration of- ficialS anticipated this increase in violations, and they got it. In ad- dition to the adulterations, there are numerous cases of offering for sale filthy and decompoSed foods. These are normally the most ire quent and most troublesome cases which Food and Drug Administra- ton inspectors have to handle. Loss of skilled labor, plus let-down in care are the big contributing fac- tors Some of the case histories of Food and Drug Administration in- spections, seizures, criminal prescott tions and injunctions are enough to curl your insides into a permanent wave, not only because of their un- hygienic nature, but also because it is unbelievable that the so-called human beings who run these shad- owy and shady businesses could stoop so low. Black market opera tions just add to this veniality.
 TRICKS OF THE TRADE
 The moral of all this for the con- sumer who must buy and accept sub stitutes in these days of War-im- posed shortages is to know what you're buying Read the labels, not only what it says on the face of the label in big type, but what it says in small type or on the back. In the case of the coffee adultera- tionS, some roasters sought to avoid prosecution by rubber stamping on the bottom of the bag, in blurred type less than a sixteenth of an inch high, the words with filler" or cereal added" It didn't get by.
 Food and Drug Administration is not primarily interested in price control or rationing. It is interested in short weight, which constitutes misbranding, and it anticipates [ increased trouble in chiseling of this type. But adulterations and short weight or short measure constitute lowering of the quantity and quail ity of anything you get for your ra- tion coupon, and as such constitute imitation. Concealed imitation. Just another thing the alert citizen has to be on guard against in WartimeS