The Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1906. FOOD ADULTERATION.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XII, Issue 2373, 1 June 1906, Page 4

The Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1906. FOOD ADULTERATION.

A recent issue ol a London magazine, “The World's Work and Play,” contains an interesting article on the profession of the analysts whose business it is to examine Great Britain's food, or such samples of it as they can manage. These are the health guardians of the people, and the object of their appointment was to prevent poisonous deleterious matter being used in the make-up of foodstuffs. In the course of the article an insight is given into the wide range of the adulterator to 'whose trade-tricks there appears to be no limit. Right back into early English history efforts have been repeatedly made by Parliament to deal with the adulteration of foods, but so far without complete success. Not so long ago it was a common thing to have the taste of alum in bread too pronounced to be enjoyed. The purpose of the alum was to solidify the gluten in damaged or inferior flour, and to give the bread a whiter and more spongy appearance. But such crude methods as these are now out of date. file adulterator of today is an artist ; the latest researches of science are at his disposal, and he takes full advantage of his opportunities. He plays to the public requirements. Their weakness for colour other than the natural one in certain foods forms a plausible excuse for the introduction of foreign substances. The admirers of the beautiful lemon tint in certain lemonade powders would no longer enjoy it if they knew it was produced by sulphate of copper a deadly poison, .lams, cheese, mustard, vinegar, sugar, cocoa, tea, wines and spirits, as well as many other articles of laily use. are faked very freely. Lately we know that butter has been exploited very fully by the adulterator. On this ,K)int the writer to whom wo have referred says: “The substitution of margarine for butter is one of the commonest of f rauds, althou h if cannot he accurately described ;:s adulteration. The fraud is one of s. d. only, as, front a nutritive point of view, margarine is as valuable as butter; in fact, good margarine is distinctly preferable to had butter. .Manufactured from fat ol any (or every) kind, from mutton to cotton-seed oil. it is difficult to determine the percentage present in eases where a small proportion of margarine is added to butter, owing to one tat h"ing very much like allot her. The law should require that manufacturers of margarine must add some substance which would enable tlie presence of margarine in butter to bo detected by the analyst. Sesame oil has been suggested for this 1 purpose, it being a substance which does not. affect the margarine in flavour or any other way. The law as to the labelling of margarine is very precis ■ in its directions, and much ingenuity is expended in evading it. A witness in a recent ease explained that a big block of margarine was placed on tin l counter (unlabelled, of cours'd. At tlie back n small cutting was made in the block, and in this cutting butter was placed. The regular customer was served from the sides of the block with margarine but suspicious persons, who might be inspectors or their agents, were served from the butter at the rear 1” Another arrant swindle is the addition of water to butter—the so-called “milk blended" butter. Butter contains naturally from 12J tier cent.

to 13 per cent, of water, and this by an ingenious process is brought up to 25 per cent, by water artificially added. The profits of this business may be realised when one considers that about 12 per cent, of all this “butter” sold is water—at lOd or lid per pound ! A bill dealing with this abominable imposition has been brought before the British Parliament by two successive Presidents of the Board of Agriculture, and failed to pass into law ; let us hope that the third try will be successful. From a perusal of the article one is persuaded that those who pursue these practices are artists in food swindles, and that we have indeed encountered an age of artful adulteration. The age of chivalry has gone ; this is the age of sorcerers, thieves—and adulterators. It would be against experience to expect tltc fakirs to voluntarily turn from their evil ways, so that the only hope for the future, both at Home and in the colonies, is a rigid application of such pure food laws as may be enforcable. This is a matter that should have been discussed at the farmers’ conference held here on Tuesday and Wednesday, especially in its relation to butter exported from New Zealand to the Mother Country, and adulterated there. A motion deprecating the practice would have strengthened the hands of those who are endeavouring to put a stop to this nefarious practice —in the interest alike of the dairy farmers of this country and consumers in Great Britain.