Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1899 — ADULTERATION OF FOOD. [ARTICLE]

ADULTERATION OF FOOD.

Startling Testimony Given Before the Senate Investigating Committee. The senatorial pure food investigating committee, which has concluded its sessions in Chicago, heard some startling testimony ifi regard to adulteration, of food products. Prof. A. S. Mitchell, chief chemist of the Wisconsin Dairy and Food Commission, made the sworn statement that nearly every butcher in Illinois used preserving liquids on scraps of meat which they laid aside for the manufacture of hamburger steak. This liquid, known as “freezine,” Dr. Wiley, the Government expert, said he identified as practically the same chemical which was used during his experience at a medical college to preserve cadavers and was now occasionally put to service in disinfecting houses where smallpox patients resided. Prof. Mitchell said that the stuff had been used extensively jjy farmers to keep milk and butter. J. J. Berry, manufactures of jellies, preserves and syrup, testified that fruit was one of the least considerations in the modern jelly of commerce. Currant jelly, as • rule, has nothing in it that ever saw a currant bush. Jelly, Berry said, is 50 per cent glucose, 10 per cent sugar, 40 per cent apple juice and a few drops of coloring and add to make it firm. Prof. C. S. N. Hall berg of the Chicago College of Pharmacy, testified that alum in baking powder changes to hydrates in the process of heating, but he could not say what the latter becomes in the acids of the stomach. He insisted, however, that alum proper is an irritant poison. Maurice H. Scully, ot a syrup company, testified that three kinds of* “maple” syrup are made, one of which io 40 per cent glucose.