< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu
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PURE FOOD LEGISLATION

59

season which will enable us to produce a palatable looking article without the color, and relieves us from the necessity of putting away stock and preserving it with benzoate of soda to avoid fermentation.

In a letter from one of the meat packers it is brought out that one manufacturer is required to use boracic acid to maintain a competitive keeping quality with the other manufacturers, if there is no law or enforcement of law to prevent or make public the use of antiseptics in meats.

Writing of the experiment with tomato catsup without an antiseptic, the manufacturing head of one of the large firms says:

I believe that within five years, if that long, we could create ideal conditions in this country, and the consumer could be educated to take better care of such goods as are perishable and liable to spoil on his hands if not consumed within a certain time. Smaller packages would help to a large extent in that direction. In fact, there are numerous ways by which eventually we may accomplish that which is desirable to be done.

The head of the market end of the firm, writing about the experiment later says:

We are making a strenuous effort to have every variety of our goods absolutely pure and free from any antiseptic whatever. But you appreciate thorougly the enormous undertaking this is, and, further, the great interest which we have at stake which makes us proceed slowly. Starting several years ago with our experiments on tomato catsup, we put out at first five or six thousand dozen; the next year we doubled that; the next year we doubled that again; this year we are going to put out approximately four hundred thousand dozen catsup, which will be absolutely free from any coloring matter or antiseptic. With this season's work a success, we will have demonstrated beyond any possibility of doubt the putting up of catsup without any antiseptic. After that you will be free to say to every manufacturer who sells otherwise, 'Look at the thousands of dozens of catsup that. . . has on the market which stand the test of shipping, of climate, and, afterwards, the hot shelf of the grocery store, and still the consumer gets the goods in prime condition and is well satisfied with the flavor.'

Tomato catsup has been claimed to be the most difficult product to put out without some antiseptic.

Added or Otherwise

The provisions of the food laws and of the proposed National Pure Food Law apply principally to adulteration by addition and to adulteration by taking away. There is a third class of adulteration. Foods may be unfit for consumption by reason of inferior methods of production or preparation, carelessness in handling, inherent disease, and the spoilage to which foods are subject by their very nature. Many foods at certain stages of production or preparation are unfit for consumption—a green peach and new whiskey. Many of the fruits and fruit or grain products contain in their composition certain normal poisons, poisons which a food law would prohibit being added. It is

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