Foods and Their Adulteration / Origin, Manufacture, and Composition of Food Products; Description of Common Adulterations, Food Standards, and National Food Laws and Regulations

by Harvey Washington Wiley

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
BUREAU OF CHEMISTRY,
H. W. WILEY, Chief of Bureau.

FOOD INSPECTION DECISIONS 1-25.

INTRODUCTION.

For the information of importers and exporters of food products and of the public it is advisable to publish more widely than would be possible by decisions given to individuals or firms the opinions of this Department rendered by the Secretary under the existing law relating to the examination of food products before shipment to foreign countries and to the examination of food products imported into this country. The following digest shows the principal decisions rendered to date covering these points, together with circulars and other printed matter relating thereto. It is proposed hereafter to issue at convenient intervals similar decisions and opinions which may be rendered.

H. W. Wiley,
Chief, Bureau of Chemistry.

Approved:
James Wilson,
Secretary of Agriculture.
Washington, D. C., June 1, 1905.

(F. I. D. 1.)
LAWS UNDER WHICH THE FOOD INSPECTION IS CONDUCTED.

To investigate the adulteration of foods, condiments, beverages, and drugs, when deemed by the Secretary of Agriculture advisable, and to publish the results of such investigations when thought advisable, and also the effect of cold storage upon the healthfulness of foods; to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate the character of food preservatives, coloring matters, and other substances added to foods, to determine their relation to digestion and to health, and to establish the principles which should guide their use; to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate the character of the chemical and physical tests which are applied to American food products in foreign countries, and to inspect before shipment, when desired by the shippers or owners of these food products, American food products intended for countries where chemical and physical tests are required before said food products are allowed to be sold in the countries mentioned, and for all necessary expenses connected with such inspection and studies of methods of analysis in foreign countries; to enable the Secretary of Agriculture, in collaboration with the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists, and such other experts as he may deem necessary, to establish standards of purity for food products and to determine what are regarded as adulterations therein; to investigate, in collaboration with the Bureau of Animal Industry, the chemistry of dairy products and of adulterants used therein, and of the adulterated products; to determine the composition of process, renovated, or adulterated and other treated butters, and other chemical studies relating to dairy products, and to make all analyses of samples required for the execution of the law regulating the manufacture of process, renovated, or adulterated butters....

To investigate the adulteration, false labeling, or false branding of foods, drugs, beverages, condiments, and ingredients of such articles, when deemed by the Secretary of Agriculture advisable, and report the result in the bulletins of the Department; and the Secretary of Agriculture, whenever he has reason to believe that such articles are being imported from foreign countries which are dangerous to the health of the people of the United States, or which shall be falsely labeled or branded either as to their contents or as to the place of their manufacture or production, shall make a request upon the Secretary of the Treasury for samples from original packages of such articles for inspection and analysis, and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to open such original packages and deliver specimens to the Secretary of Agriculture for the purpose mentioned, giving notice to the owner or consignee of such articles, who may be present and have the right to introduce testimony; and the Secretary of the Treasury shall refuse delivery to the consignee of any such goods which the Secretary of Agriculture reports to him to have been inspected and analyzed and found to be dangerous to health or falsely labeled or branded either as to their contents or as to the place of their manufacture or production, or which are forbidden entry or to be sold, or are restricted in sale in the countries in which they are made or from which they are exported.... (Sections of appropriations act of March 3, 1905.)

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no person or persons, company or corporation, shall introduce into any State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia from any other State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, or sell in the District of Columbia or in any Territory any dairy or food products which shall be falsely labeled or branded as to the State or Territory in which they are made, produced, or grown, or cause or procure the same to be done by others.