WHAT THE PUBLIC EAT AND DRINK.

Feilding Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 39, 8 September 1905, Page 3

WHAT THE PUBLIC EAT AND DRINK.

An Eye Opener. A London contemporary has been devoting a good deal of space recently to a correspondence on the subject of "Falsehoods in Business." One of the mo3t striking features of the revelations is the extent to which food is adulterated in the Old Country. Although, says one correspondent, the public analysis assures us that adulteration is decreasing year by year, it is to be feared that the modern Englishman puts into his stomach a quantity of matter which would have killed his ancestors, who lived in the good old days of pure food. Seldom is the food of the city dweller of the nature and quality he it to be. And not only he eat glucose for sugar, mar garine for butter, etc., but most perishable articles are now so mcdi cated that he often gets more mcdi cine from his grocer and dairyman than from bis doctor. There are ex treme cases from which it may be calculated that any one eating a pound of butter per week would consume in a year 4000 full doses of boric acid, equivalent to 324 full doses, according to the British Pharmacopoeia. And some samples of milk are so heavily drugged that a child taking 2$ pints per day would swallow 6887 grains of boric acid in a year, or about three times what a doctor would give if he dosed the child every day, which he would not. These are extreme cases, but the average case is bad enough, as an examination of our ordinary articles of food demonstrates. London milk is the worst in England. It comes in pure from the country, but it must very seldom reach the break fast table unadulterated. In the last published report of the Local Government Board, the medical officer of health is quoted as saying :— " It is the milk dealer in London who acts fraudulently." He has very good reason for his conclusion, for of the samples taken at railway stations only 17 per thousand were condemned, while of the samples taken at the shops 125 per thousand were adulterated. There are three ways in which the dishonest dealer sophis ticatea milk. He adds water, he removes cream, he puts in preservatives and colouring matter. He also increases the bulk by means of a mixture made of unsweetened condensed milk and water. When the concoction is delivered to the consumer it is no longer a wholesome food, and is, as everyone knows, destructive of child life. For one person killed by the motorist, the dishonest man slays his thousands. This is no exaggeration. The figures given by Councillor Shelmerdine, of Liverpool, at tbe Congress of Public Health Authorities laßt year, prove its truth. Among the infants, and they are the poorest, supplied by the municipal diaries, the death was 78 per 1000 In Liverpool, as a whole, tbe death rate of infants was 159 per 1000. In the worst districts it was 212 and 215. Thus, it is estimated in Liverpool half the infants who die owe their deaths to impure milk. This is not surprising. Their food is deprived of much of its nutriment, the fraud being concealed by the addition of annatto, which gives the fluid a rich creamy color. In addi tion it is drugged with borio acid, or formaldehyde, a powerful protoplasm * poison, or with glycerine, or salicyho add, or benoic acid, or naphthol. The greatest evil with regard to milk is that it paßseu through many hands, each of whom may have some chemical preservative, so that it becomes a veritable dose of medicine before it reaches the baby's body or the cup of tea. Cream, too, is very often adulterated. Gelatine or starch thickens it, annatto colours it, and borax or formalin keeps it sweet for days. It seems probable that batter is now seldom sold in an impure state. Of 4329 samples taken in London only 321 were adulterated. But the analysts confess that they cannot cope with the fraudulent butter maker. In Holland a special kind of margarine is manufactured, and, under the direction of skilled scientists, deplorable to relate, as much as 10 per cent of this can be incorporated with batter without fear of discovery. Or, rather, the analysts can note its presence, but they cannot offer evidence to satisfy the magistrates. It is asserted as a matter of fact that scarcely anything on the average breakfast table is free from some inferior admixture or some chemical preservative or dye. Of 198 samples of sugar taken in London (1903) 64 were adulterated, chiefly, however, because they were dyed to imitate Demerara sugar. The grocer wanted the price of cane sugar for the in ierior German beet product. Oneninth of the coffee and one-sixth of the cocoa sampled in London was adulterated. That is, coffee and cocoa sold as perfectly pure articles. Coffee contains chicory, roasted wheat, potato flour, acorns, date stones, etc. ; cocoa is sophisticated with sugar, brick dust, starch, Venetian red, and per oxide of iron. Vinegar, again, contains sulphuric acid (with arsenic, lead, sine, and tin occasionally), capsicum, and colouring agents. Pepper contains its own ground husks, ground olive stones, rice, rape taed, bonedust, and many other adulterants. Mustard is in great part wheat flour, pea flour, cayenne, plaster of tfaris, clay, gamboge, yellow ochre, and turmeric. Olive oil is sometimes half, sometimes altogether, cottonised oil. According to evidence given at an inquiry in America by Professor Wiley, one of the best known firms who import canned meats into this country made their 60,000,00011)8 lard of tbe following materials : 28,000,0001 b cottonised oil, 3,000,00 C lb beef stearine, 29,000,0001bs lard. But tbe fish, bacon, cutlets, etc., thai we cook in the lard all contain chemical preservatives, Sir Andrew Clark said that probably many puzzling maladies are due to them, and Sii Henry Thompson says he "entertains a strong objection to the dietetic use of any drugs."