82 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



''sausage" he has been buying cereals, or vegetable flour, together 

 with the very considerable proportions of water (bey will hold, when 

 in the cooked state, instead of the meat they replace, and at the prices 

 of such meat. For this reason, the right to use such materials, at least 

 without a declaration of their presence, is not to be admitted. 



The manufacturer further claims that the use of such starchy ma- 

 terial in sausage is necessary as a "binder," that is, as a substance 

 loosely cementing the meat particles into a common mass and holding 

 them together, not only during the stufting process, but also during 

 the later storage, transportation, and even the cooking. It is true 

 that certain sausage ingredients, especially lean meats, used without 

 the presence of other usually included meat parts, do not unite to 

 form a coherent mass, particularly when the meats are not projjerly 

 seasoned, and that, therefore, sausages prepared from these materials 

 alone lack certain of the desirable qualities of the best made sausages, 

 and that, in such cases, the presence of cooked starch, holding large 

 amounts of water, does add somewhat to the appearance, and other 

 physical characters, of the sausage, but it is also true that cereals 

 are not used at all generally, where more expensive, good quality pork 

 is included as part of the sausage mass, and that starch serves to 

 give to the inferior sausage, similarity in appearance, and something 

 of similarity during the cooking, to the more expensive, high quality 

 product. 



Under the provisions of the National Meat Inspection Act, all saus- 

 ages to which cereal, potato tlour, or other vegetable flour, has been 

 added, are required to declare such addition upon the labels under 

 which they are sold. These labeling requiiements are quite readily 

 carried out, so long as the product is held in the original, wholesale 

 j)ackage, but are less satisfactorily applicable to the conditions of the 

 retail trade, in the course of which the product is very commonly re- 

 moved from the container, so that the buyer is not informed, as it was 

 intended he should be, concerning the leal nature of the product he 

 is buying. There was a second reason for the course taken by the 

 Pennsylvania Legislature, in framing the present sausage act: Dry 

 starch, when cooked in the presence of water, takes up and holds in 

 the thick paste thereby formed, a number of times its own weight of 

 water. The declaration, therefore, of the presence of (he starch alone, 

 fails to inform the buyer of the much more important added water. 



The statement of the results of the examination of sausages retailed 

 in Pennsylvania during 1911, which Avill be made in a later paragraph, 

 must, I believe, convince the public of the need for this legislation. 



THE MILK AND CREAM ACT 



On June 8, 1911, the Governor approved a new act relating to milk 

 and cream, repealing all earlier acts, or parts of acts, inconsistent 

 with the provisions of the new law, but specifically retaining in force 

 the act of June 10, 1897, prohibiting the adulteration or coloring of 

 milk and cream by the addition of so-called preservatives or coloring 

 matter, and the act of April 19, 1897, amending the first section of 

 the act just mentioned. The general milk acts thus repealed, es- 

 pecially the act of 1909, were similar, in their general intent, to the 

 new act, especially as they related to milk, for both acts prohibited 

 the watering and skimming of milk, although not prohibiting the 



