1906.] DIETETIC VALUE OF FOODS. 277 



of inferior substitutes. Not only are inferior substances sub- 

 stituted but adulterated ones, so that one hardly knows what 

 they are purchasing as food. 



For instance, skimmed milk cheese is filled with lard as a 

 substitute for the butter fat taken away and which is made into 

 sweet cream butter. The cheese is then sold for full milk 

 cheese. Various kinds of baking powder and pulverized sugar 

 have a large percentage of crushed stone and rock, while it is 

 impossible to purchase pure syrups any more. Most of the 

 syrups sold consist almost wholly of glucose, and it is this sub- 

 stance that is sold in glass jars as strained honey. Glucose is 

 a thick syrup produced from the starch of corn by the action of 

 sulphuric acid and an artificial production that it is well for 

 man to let alone. It also forms a part of most jellies and jams, 

 while the so-called preserved fruits sold in buckets have a large 

 percentage of it, but usually not the faintest suspicion of fruit. 

 Neither, as a rule, do soda water beverages nor ice cream 

 preparations. Hay seed is used as a substitute for berry seeds 

 to further deceive, and the law permits such frauds and we, 

 as individuals, ignore them ! 



Ground spices are found to be largely adulterated with 

 cocoa nut shells, olive stones, wheat brans, ground rice, etc., 

 and I could go on enumerating at length, for there is 

 scarcely a food substance in the stores for sale but what is adul- 

 terated and if not adulterated, preserved, for it is only the first 

 or best grades of vegetables, fruits, and meat that are not pre- 

 served. Fruit in season and perfectly ripened requires no 

 preservative, but the over-ripe and partly decomposed fruit 

 does, as does that which is under-ripe. Fruit necessarily pre- 

 served by the use of chemical preservatives is not fit for use. 

 No one cares to eat decomposed or unripe fruit in its natural 

 state, and surely no one cares to eat such fruit that has been 

 slovenly canned with the addition of a preservative to destroy 

 the life giving elements in the blood. 



It was only last year that Dr. H. W. Wiley, Chief Chemist 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture, demonstrated 

 to the world that food preserved by the use of borax or boric 

 acid was injurious to the human body. He experimented with 

 several young men and for several months the experiments 

 were continued until it became a demonstrated fact that the use 

 of borax or boric acid, used as a preservative, was detrimental 



