Adulteration of Food
Food adulteration may consist in:
1—Extraction of nutritive substances.
2—Addition of substances lowering the quality of the food.
3—Substituting inferior grades of food.
4—Fraudulent labeling of food.
5—Changing the appearance of food by coloring or other methods which will conceal the inferior quality.
6—Adding injurious substances for the purpose of preserving the food.
The Pure Food Act of 1906 makes the following classification in a statement of the methods which are considered in the adulteration of foods:
1—“If any substance has been mixed and packed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength.
2—“If any substance has been substituted, wholly or in part, for the article.
3—“If any valuable constituent or article has been, wholly or in part, abstracted.
4—“If it is mixed, colored, powdered, coated or stained in any manner whereby damage or inferiority is concealed.
5—“If it contains any poisons or other added deleterious ingredient, which may render such articles injurious to health.
6—“If it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, decomposed or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or any portion of an animal unfit for food, whether manufactured or not, or if it is the product of a dis-eased animal or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter.”
Rosenau gives the following as the most common adulterations:
“Cottonseed oil is sold as olive oil; honey may contain glucose; cocoa and chocolate are frequently mixed with both starch and sugar; coffee is extensively adulterated with caramel, pea-meal, chickory and saccharose extracts; lard is mixed with cheaper fats or cotton seed oil; saccharin is substituted for cane sugar; cereals give bulk and weight to sausages; gypsum or bran is added to flour; barium sulphate to powdered sugar, flour to turmeric or corn-meal to mustard; oleomargarine is sold as butter; distilled and colored vinegar is sold as cider vinegar; ground spices are adulterated with cocoanut shells, rice, flour and ashes; water, sugar and tartaric sold as lemonade; wines and liquors are sometimes adulterated with alum; baryta, caustic lime, salicylic acid, wood alcohol and hematoxylin, terra alba, kaolin, and various pigments are sometimes added to candies; gum drops are largely made with petroleum paraffin products; much of the maple sugar formerly sold was made from glucose and coloring matter.”
A good illustration of separating the nutritive substances is the extraction of cream from milk and certain elements from meat. There is really no objection to abstracting nutritive elements from food if afterward that food is properly labeled; there is no objection in taking cream out of milk and selling the skim milk, providing it is not sold for whole milk.
An illustration of lowering the quality of the food is the addition of water to milk, of bran to flour, of bariumsulphate to powdered sugar.
An illustration of substitution would be to substitute saccharine for sugar, oleomargarine for butter, cottonseed oil for olive oil.
CHAPTER XVII
MILK
MILK
COMPOSITION
Milk as a Food
Proteins
CASEIN
LACTALBUMIN
LACTOGLOBULIN
Fat
CREAM
SKIM MILK
BUTTER
Vitamins
FAT SOLUBLE A
WATER SOLUBLE B
WATER SOLUBLE C
Lactose or Milk Sugar
DEFINED
LACTIC ACID
SANITARY MEASURES IN PRODUCTION
Milk, a Germ Medium
Care in the Milking
Care of the Cows
Barns and Barnyards
FREE FROM MANURE
GROUND WELL DRAINED
STABLES PROPERLY VENTILATED
Bottling
STRAINING
IN SEPARATE MILK HOUSE
Proper Temperature
NOT ABOVE 50° F. IN TRANSPORTATION
STERILE MILK
PREPARATION OF MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS
Pasteurization of Milk
DESTROYS SO-CALLED PATHOGENIC GERMS
DOES NOT CHANGE DIGESTIBILITY
FURNISHES PURIFIED MILK
ARTIFICIAL PRESERVATIVES DANGEROUS
Condensed Milk
SOME OF WATER REMOVED
POOR IN VITAMIN C
Dry Milk
IN POWDER FORM
POOR IN VITAMIN C
SUBSTITUTED FOR FRESH MILK
Butter
CHURNING
CONSTITUENTS
OLEOMARGARINE
Cheese
PROCESS
NITROGENOUS SUBSTANCES
CHAPTER XVII
MILK