People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1893 — A Matter of Health. [ARTICLE]

A Matter of Health.

Housekeepers faintly realize the danger of an indiscriminate use of the numerous baking powders nowadays found upon every hand, and which are urged upon consumers with such persistency by peddlers and many grocers on account of the big profits made in their sale. Most of these powders are made from sharp and caustic acids and alkalies which burn and inflame the alimentary organs and cause indigestion, heartburn, diarrhoeal diseases, etc. Sulphuric acid, caustic potash, burnt alum, all are used as gas-produc-ing agents in such baking powders. Most housekeepers are aware of the painful effects produced when these chemicals are applied to the external flesh. How much more acute must be their action upon the delicate internal membranes! Yet unscrupulous manufacturers do not hesitate to use them, because they make a very low-cost powder, nor to urge the use of their powders so made, by all kinds of alluring advertisements and false representations. All the low-priced or socalled cheap baking powders, and all powders sold with a gift or prize, belong to this class. Baking powders made from chemically pure cream of tartar and bi-carbon-ate of soda are among the most useful of modern culinary devices. They not only make the preparation of finer and more delicious cookery possible, but they have added to the digestibility and wholesomeness of our food. But baking powders must be composed of such pure and wholesome ingredients or they must be tabooed entirely. Dr. Eidson, Commissioner of Health of New York, in an article in the “Doctor of Hygiene,” indicates that the advantages of a good baking powder and the exemption from the gangers of bad ones in which the harsh and caustic chemicals are used, are to be secured by the use of Royal Baking Powder exclusively, and he recommends this to alt consumers. “The Royal,” he says* “contains nothing but cream of tartar and soda refined to a chemical purity, which when combined under the influence of heat and moisture produce pure carbonic, or leavening, gas. The two materials used, cream of tartar and soda, are perfectly harmless even when eaten, but in this preparation they are combined in exact compensating weights, so that when chemical action begins between them in the dough they practically disappear, the substance of both having been taken to form carbonic acid gas.” Hence it is, he says, that the Royal Baking Powder is the most perfect of all conceivable agents for leavening purposes. It seems almost incredible that any manufacturer or dealer should urge the sale of baking powders containing injurious chemicals in place of those of a well-known, pure, and wholesome character simply for the sake of a few cents a pound greater profit; but since they do, a few words of warning seem to be necessary.