Deadly Adulteration and Slow Poisoning Unmasked / Disease and Death in the Pot and Bottle

by Anonymous

Bread to be good, should be made of wheat flour; but the adulteration trade in this prime article of human consumption display no less ingenuity in the art of fraud and deception than their rivals in iniquity do in the wine and spirit and beer sophistications: convictions are on record of bakers having used pulverised gypsum or plaster of Paris, whiting, slacked lime, chalk, finely powdered granite, pipe-clay, particularly the white Cornwall clay, the flour of garden peas and horse beans, potatoes, bone-ashes, alum, spirits of vitriol, ammonia, magnesia, &c. They allege that, as they are often supplied by the mealmen with flour made from the worst kinds of foreign damaged wheat, and which is frequently mixed with a variety of other cereal grains in the course of grinding, they cannot produce bread of a sufficient degree of whiteness, lightness, and porosity, to please the caprice of the London palate, without having recourse to the conjoint aid of alum, ammonia, and potatoes.[L] This is the allegation made by the respectable part of the trade, and those who, with sufficient disposition to wickedness, are deficient in the knowledge of the art of slow and imperceptible poisoning. What excuse the irrespectable part of the trade can make for their nefarious traffic in the remaining portion of the enumerated articles must be left to the tender and honest consciences of those gentry.

“The baker,” says Mr. Accum, in his Preliminary Remarks, p. 11, “asserts that he does not put alum into bread; but he is well aware that, in purchasing a certain quantity of half spoiled flour, he must take a sack of sharp whites, (a term given to flour contaminated with a quantity of alum,) without which it would be impossible for him to produce light, white, and porous bread, from a half spoiled material.

“The wholesale mealman frequently purchases this spurious commodity, (which forms a separate branch of business in the hands of certain individuals,) in order to enable himself to sell his decayed flour.

“Other individuals (namely, the “gentlemen” druggists) furnish the baker with alum mixed up with salt, under the obscure denomination of stuff. There are wholesale manufacturing chemists, whose sole business is to crystallize alum in such a form as will adapt this salt to the purpose of being mixed with crystals of common salt, to disguise the character of the compound.

The mixture called stuff is composed of one part of alum, in minute crystals, and three of common salt.”

I omit to object to the adulteration of flour produced by the sand, which is unavoidably occasioned by the rubbing of the mill-stones together. The author of the “History of Inventions,” vol. i. p. 98, estimates that every person swallows 6lbs. yearly, in the quantity of flour and bread which he consumes.

The foregoing statement of artist ingenuity displayed by the Messieurs “Crust,” must be allowed to be liberal treatment of poor Mr. John Bull, in comparison with the acts of their rivals in the noble art of sophistication, the gin-shop-keeper, the brewer, the publican, and the other “trading interests of the nation.” But it will be better treatment to furnish the old gentleman with a test or two to enable him to detect the frauds of his said good friends, Messieurs les Crust and their compatriots, the mealmen.

The ready tests or methods for ascertaining those adulterations are: If an undue proportion (for bakers contend that the bad quality of the flour sold to them by the miller renders the addition of potatoes advantageous to the purchaser as well as to the baker) of ground or grated potatoes has been used, the bread will be moist, have a sourish smell, and, when stale, if a pressure be made upon it with the finger, a fracture will appear in the bread, that is, it will not recover its texture as sponge will do when compressed. Also, it will not keep, but in a few days become mouldy. Where bean-flour has been used, which bakers generally prefer, on account of the great portion of gluten which it contains, (and for this reason it bears a higher price in the market than flour itself,) the bread will soon dry and crack; or the fraud may be discovered by the smell on toasting a slice of the bread before the fire. The adulteration, by means of flour of peas is more common among bakers, and more difficult of detection than that of beans: the only means for ascertaining the fraud, by inspection, that I am aware of, are those of its drying and cracking soon, and being more heavy and considerably less porous than bread made entirely of wheaten flour. The admixture of clay, gypsum, chalk, whiting, slacked lime, bone-ashes, &c. is to be ascertained by the close texture, brittle or crumbly nature, undue weight, smell, and taste of the article. But analysis in each case is the truest test; and this may be performed in the following manner.

Cut the crust of the loaf into very thin slices, and, breaking these into pieces, put them into a glass cucurbit, with a large quantity of water; set this into a sand furnace, and let it stand therein with a moderate warmth for about the space of twenty-four hours. By this time the foreign ingredients will have separated from the genuine flour; the alum will have dissolved in the water, and may be extracted from it in the usual way. The jalap, if any have been used, (for it is not all the fraternity or brotherhood that have the consideration or humanity to introduce it into their life-destroying compositions,) will swim upon the top in the form of a coarse film; and the other ingredients, being heavy, will sink quite to the bottom, while the genuine flour will remain above them in the consistence of pap, which, being drawn off, will leave the adulterated articles in the form of a white powder at the bottom.

But as cucurbits and sand-furnaces are not “a part and parcel” of every family’s household chattels, if the off-hand tests above mentioned are not satisfactory, slice the loaf as before directed, and, putting the slices, with a sufficient quantity of water, into a pipkin, over a gentle fire, you will find in the course of a little time that the bread will be reduced to a pap, and, on drawing that off, the bone-ashes and other adulterating ingredients may be found in the form of a white powder at the bottom.