Alum in Bread.—A Reply to Dr. Mott's Article in Scientific American of November 16, entitled "Deleterious Use of Alum in Baking Powder."
by w. p. clotworthy, baltimore, md.
On August 13, 1878, I obtained letters patent for the exclusive right to use exsiccated ammonia alum in baking powders. This fact I state that the public may know the reason that elicits this reply to the remarkable article on adulterations in baking powders, in the Scientific American of Nov. 16th, emanating from the pen of Henry A. Mott, Jr. I wish the Professor had been equally candid in stating his reasons for contributing the article. It is rare for a chemist to turn philanthropist without some consideration. The analysis of forty-two baking powders requires no little labor; twenty-one were examined at the expense of the government for the benefit of the Indian Department, the others, no doubt, at the expense and for the benefit of the Royal Baking Powder Company. I hope his services have been liberally requited. The public certainly owe him nothing for his labor or opinions. An excuse can be made for the prejudice existing against the use of alum in any form for baking purposes; it is an inheritance from a preceding age; but no apology can be offered for a practical chemist in this day, who labors to keep alive and foster a prejudice by the suppression of truths and facts. Professor Mott, in attempting to prove a fraud in food, has perpetrated a fraud in facts. That this opinion may not be unwarranted, I will state the facts about alum, which may be new to the public, but familiar to every chemist. Alum was formerly a compound of sulph. alumina and sulph. potash. In the past ten years nearly all manufacturers of alum have substituted sulph. ammonia for the sulph. potash; this change removes from alum a dangerous and objectionable ingredient, and adds a healthful one. Professor Mott recommends the use of ammonia in the form of a carbonate—carbonate of ammonia is one of the results in baking powder of the decomposition which takes place between alum and bicarbonate of soda; in the complete decomposition which takes place pure alumina is eliminated, highly recommended as an antacid. During the process of baking, alum is completely decomposed through the liberation of carbonic acid. Professor Mott must have known this, yet with this knowledge warns the public on the deleterious effect of alum in bread.
About the first of last October I determined to vindicate the use of exsiccated ammonia alum as a substitute for cream of tartar, and accordingly issued a circular to the trade; from this circular I now give the following extract, which enters minutely into the subject:
"To claim that an experience of 35 years in compounding medicines should entitle my opinion on chemicals and chemical compounds to a respectful consideration, is neither presumptuous nor unreasonable. With this simple introduction I now avow myself the originator and patentee of exsiccated ammonia alum baking powder. The use of exsiccated ammonia alum has been declared unhealthful by the advocates of other baking powders, and every manufacturer using it has been held up for public reprobation. This has been done by rival manufacturers, either through ignorance or malice; if from the former they are to be pitied, if from the latter they are contemptible. These opinions have been promulgated by kitchen chemists, whose circle of knowledge begins and ends with cream tartar and soda; and even of these articles they only know that cream tartar is in some way derived from grapes. In this circular I propose to state a few facts in relation to cream tartar and exsiccated alum, and the combinations they form with bicarbonate of soda, and allow you to form your own opinion of their respective merits. Crude tartar is the incrustation found in wine casks. It contains coloring matter and about 15 per cent. of lime. This article is purified and called the cream of tartar, but it is impossible to extract all the lime. Commercially pure cream tartar contains at least 5 per cent. of lime. When cream tartar is used in proportion of two parts to one of bicarbonate of soda, you will have an average of 3 to 4 per cent of lime. In using cream tartar and soda in baking, a chemical change commences as soon as water is added; the cream tartar unites with the soda, setting free the carbonic acid gas, which lightens the bread, and the residue is Rochelle salts. This is what you eat in your bread, the cream tartar and soda entirely disappearing in the process of baking, by forming this salt. Any doctor or chemist will confirm the above statement. When I undertook to manufacture baking powder, I labored to improve the quality and cheapen the cost. The first I accomplished by retaining the carbonic acid until heat was applied, the latter, by manufacturing a more economical acid than foreign cream tartar. After more than a thousand experiments covering a period of six months, I discovered by exsiccating ammonia alum I provided an article that would possess the necessary qualities. This article no more resembles the ordinary alum than charcoal resembles wood—it is light, porous, friable, and without taste. This article, under the influence of heat, combines with the soda and forms Glauber salts. In baking, the alum unites with the soda, just as cream tartar unites. In using the baking powder prepared according to my formula, you have in your bread Glauber instead of Rochelle salts. To your physician apply for his opinion of these salts; I will bow to his decision. Another false impression these zealous guardians of the public health have made is, that I used the exsiccated alum because it was cheap. The fact is that when I commenced its use it cost by the thousand pounds 12 per cent. more than the best cream tartar is worth to-day, and 33 per cent. more than average price of that article for the past year. I have since reduced the cost of manufacturing, and as I did so, correspondingly reduced the price of powder to the public. I regard the quantity of soda in cream tartar baking powders as very objectionable; they generally contain about 33 per cent. In my powder only 20 per cent. The prejudice in the public mind against alum, originated in the habit of the English bakers buying damaged flour, and by the addition of crude alum, made their bread in appearance equal to that made from best flour. Against this practice laws were enacted, not so much against the qualities of alum, as against its use in covering up a fraud in flour. This was the common potash alum and uncombined with any carbonated alkali, and it passed into the stomach unchanged. It is a trick—for it deserves no better name—of our rivals to show by chemical analysis that my powder contains alum, but are careful neither to state the kind nor the change it undergoes in baking. The manufacturer who knowingly misrepresents the goods of a rival, may well be doubted when he speaks of the quality of his own.
"Great stress is laid on the fact that cream tartar is a vegetable acid, the product of the grape, hence it must be healthy. They forget that cream tartar is not entirely vegetable, but principally second handed minerals. It is a compound of tartaric acid, potash, and lime; the last two are minerals, which the grape takes up from the earth, but redeposits them as crude tartar when fermentation converts the grape into wine. In 1807 Sir Humphry Davy from this crude tartar first made the metal potassium. Of lime it is unnecessary to speak. The potash and lime form the bulk of cream tartar. In ammonia alum there is no more mineral substance than in cream tartar. The chemistry of nature is wonderful. Vegetation lives on minerals—wheat, corn, potatoes, are all mineral compounds. Lime, soda, potash, magnesia, sulphur, iron, etc., are all found abundantly in water and grain, and all these minerals are essential in food."
Professor Mott has given the Royal Baking Powder the benefit of his indorsement; it may be all that he claims for it. But baking powders are now judged by constituent ingredients and chemical analysis; to this test I propose to bring the Royal. It is now in the hands of a competent chemist, and when the analysis is complete I will give the public the benefit of a comparison between that powder and the Patapsco. I will take Professor Mott's analysis of Patapsco, which, though not correct, I accept as such. The comparison will be made on the healthfulness of constituents in combination, and the chemical changes they undergo in baking. This is a progressive age. The people want facts, and they will form their own theories. Will the reader believe that in the reign of Henry VIII. of England, a citizen of London was executed for burning coal, which was then a capital offense? A pope about the same time issued a Bull excommunicating all Catholics who used tobacco, calling it the devil's weed. To-day coals still burn, and tobacco solaces millions of the civilized world. If the Royal Baking Powder Company (what a misnomer) possessed royal prerogatives, the advocates of exsiccated alum would fare no better than they did under the sumptuary laws of England. Professor Mott has fulminated ex cathedra his blast, but we survive. "Truth is a torch, the more 'tis shook it shines." Our strength is in the intelligence of the age.
Smith, Hanway & Co., Baltimore.
