Report of the governor general of the Philippine Islands. [1908]

82

REPORT OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSION.

Many were the deceptive names of food preparations. " Full cream " cheese
simply meant cheese made from the whole milk. "Egg powders" for making
cakes consisted of colored casein or starches. "Raspberry sauce" was frequently made almost wholly from gelatin. Gluten flour always contained
starch, the standard not over 48 per cent.
A frequent form of simple fraud was misnaming a natural product as to its
geographic origin. For example, the Maine herring sold as the European sardine. Horseflesh and other meats of uncertain origin were occasionally utilized
in sausages.
A very frequent kind of adulteration was the addition of coloring matters
and other substances to " improve" the appearance or taste. Such "improvement" is deceptive, and panders to a semibarbaric taste for high colors and
flavors. The natural colors in cochineal, burnt sugar, annatto, saffron, and
chlorophyl are considered harmless, but only a few anilin dyes have escaped
condemnation by experts. There have been several deaths in young children
from eating the concentrated colors. These dyes may contain arsenic or mercury, used as oxidizers in their manufacture. The coal-tar dyes are cheap
and were used very extensively in confectionery, ice cream, jams, jellies,
wines, sausages, mince meat, pie fillers, and maraschino cherries. Practically
all butter was artificially colored, sometimes with marigold, turmeric, saffron,
or annatto, often with coal-tar dyes, especially methyl orange and carotin.
If it is really desirable for butter to have a rich yellow tinge, this can be
accomplished in a natural way by feeding the cows carrots, rutabagas, yellow
maize, and clover hay. Cheese was colored with carrot juice, saffron, annatto,
turmeric, and yellow azo dyes. Naphtha yellow was used in cakes. Curcuma
was commonly added as a coloring agent to ground ginger, mustard, and
rhubarb. Gelatin and caramel were sometimes put into milk or cream to
make them look richer. "Viscogen," a sirup of lime (61 per cent), was used
to give body to creams.
Mineral coloring matters are much more objectionable than vegetable.
The oxides and salts of arsenic, copper, chromium, and lead are especially
injurious, and have been found in confectionery, flour, cakes, and cheese.
Copper sulphate and nickel salts give an intense green color to cucumber
pickles and canned peas which are imported into this country. Stannous
chlorid precipitates the coloring matters from sirups and gives a bright yellow
appearance. Tea leaves were faced with lead salts or Prussian blue.
Bleaching agents in food are of hygienic importance. Sulphurous acid (the
fumes of burning sulphur) is used with dried fruits, starches, wines, and
finished sugars (may contain salts of tin or ultramarine blue). Bisulphite of
sodium or potassium was formerly used with canned corn. Inferior flour was
bleached by electrically generated ozone and oxids of nitrogen. Saponium
was added to soda-water sirups to give a good foam; this often caused
gastritis.
"Soaked" or "floated" oysters looked plump, but readily lost flavor and
frequently became infected from the water or ice used.
Imitation maple sirup was made of extract of hickory bark (mapleine)
with glucose or cane sirup. Synthetic imitation fruit flavors and sirups were
commonly utilized for cakes and ices. Sauces were sometimes rendered
piquant with sulphuric acid. Alcoholics and poisonous flavors (oil of mirbane), though injurious, were made use of in candies.
Alcoholic liquors used to be commonly adulterated; beer with quassia,
gentian, columbo, chiretta, chamomile, kino, cream of tartar, copperas, orris
root, picric acid, strychnine, picrotoxin, wormwood, capsicum, cinnamon, ginger, and other spices. Sodium bicarbonate was used in beer to correct acidity
and increase the bead. Glycerine sweetens the beverage and gives it body.
Poisonous fusel oil is present in young raw whisky and in imitations.
Cheap wines were made from raisins, dried apples, raspberries, and gooseberries. Champagne has been made from gooseberries and water. Gin was
often concocted from a mixture of water, sugar, cinnamon, alum, capsicum,
cream of tartar, and a little alcohol. Prune juice was frequently added to
factitious and fictitious rum. Alum heightens the color of wines; added acids
imitate the reaction of mellow age. Cheap wines were "plastered" with
calcium sulphate, which preserves the product and improves the color by
forming an acid sulphate of potassium and separating out tartrate of potassium.
The question of the use of chemical preservatives in food has long been
a storm center of controversy between sanitarians and manufacturers. Dr.