IS YOUR FOOD PURE?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 2 June 1906, Page 15

IS YOUR FOOD PURE?

To test the presence of coal-tar dyes

in such things as jam, fruit syrups, or any other very red -article of food, all that is neeessarf is to boil a piece of white woollen cloth, first wet thoroughly with boiling water, in the suspected article for five or ten minutes and then wash out the cloth in boiling water. The natural colouring of the fruit will leave the cloth only a dull pink in hue, while artificial dyes make it a brilliant red. Honey is often adulterated with glucose. and its presence can be discovered by putting some of the honey in strong spirit of wine. If glucose is present, it will cause turbidity in the spirit, and will settle at the bottom in a thick gummy mass, while genuine honey forms into a flocculent precipitate, and when it has settled, leaves no turbidity. Adulterants are not always added because they are cheaper than the genuine article, but the public have a right to know when they are used: and it would be a distinct gain if, in ease of suspicion, a simple test could always be applied.