“‘Ketchup
“‘Made from portions of Tomato and Apple. Contains one-tenth of one per cent. benzoate of soda, one-hundredth per cent. color, and one-hundredth per cent. saccharine.’
“Note that it is called ‘Ketchup,’ not ‘Tomato Ketchup,’ The portions of tomato and apples used are the very refuse of the canning factory; skins, cores, rotten portions and trimmings, unfit for human consumption. Add to this sin, the manufacturer does not supply a single balancing pure and nutritious substance in his product. For sugar he substitutes saccharine. He colors the unwholesome mixture with a coal-tar preparation, and winds up by preserving it with benzoate of soda. This label tells the whole truth, and it should condemn his product in the eyes of every housewife—who takes time to read the label.
“Study your labels on potted meats, flavoring extracts, canned vegetables and cheese boxes. Don’t pay the same price for cheese when the label reads ‘Camembert Type’ as you would pay for genuine imported Camembert. If you buy sausage in the package, look out for the phrase, ‘prepared with cereal’ or ‘Cereal, five per cent.’ The maker who introduces a starchy or cereal factor increases the water-holding capacity of the meat. The housekeeper who buys sausage of this sort at the price of pure meat sausage loses money in water and cereal.
“The difference between high-grade and low-grade flavoring extracts is not in the size of the bottle, but in the quality or flavor. In order to flavor her custard or icing, a housewife must use twice as much adulterated extract as pure.
“I would advise every housekeeper who buys goods in bulk to possess a pair of reliable scales. Weigh your bulk goods. If you use three and a half pounds of sugar a week, and a careless clerk gives you only three and a quarter or less, in fifty-two weeks you have been cheated out of thirteen pounds of sugar. Buy your apples, potatoes, etc., by weight. We weigh every basket of potatoes that leaves our store. They must run sixty pounds to the basket in medium-sized potatoes, like I have here. A basket is supposed to hold four pecks. The grocer on the block where I live fills his baskets with large potatoes and gives in actual quantity only three pecks to the basket.
“Finally, the question of premiums. In modern business methods we merchants never give something for nothing. If you receive premiums for buying a certain quantity of groceries, you must pay in the weight or the quality of the groceries. In a certain chain of stores in this city they sell what they call ‘Our Own Blend’ coffee, which they advertise as pure Mocha and Java. It is sold at thirty-four cents a pound, with a cup and saucer for a premium. Have this coffee analyzed, and you will find that instead of pure Mocha and Java, the blend consists of Mocha, Java and Rio coffee, with chicory, which can be sold at a profit for twenty-five cents. Instead of getting the cup and saucer for nothing, the housekeeper is paying nine cents for them. Now understand, some housekeepers prefer Rio coffee at eighteen or twenty cents a pound, to Mocha and Java at thirty-four. The question at issue is not the flavor of the coffee, but the fact that every housekeeper must pay in some way for the premium ‘presented’ to her.
“I would advise all housekeepers to read the market reports of foodstuffs. Through these reports they can learn when the market is glutted with certain articles, like tomatoes, melons, apples, or oranges, when the price of potatoes is up and the price of eggs is down. As soon as a grocer discovers that a customer reads the market reports he will know better than to attempt any sharp practise in his dealings with her.”