The Bulletin. 11 



CANNED BEANS. 



The State Food Law provides that a food product shall be deemed 

 to be adulterated: if it be mixed, colored, powdered, coated, or stained 

 in a manner whereby damage or inferiority is concealed, or if it contains 

 any added poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may 

 render such article injurious to health. It is and has been quite a prac- 

 tice among packers to green or artificially color canned vegetables with 

 copper salts. 



The question of whether the greening of vegetables for human food 

 with copper salts constitutes a violation of the National Food Law was 

 referred by the Secretary of Agriculture to the Eeferee Board of Con- 

 sulting Scientific Experts in March of 1909. After an exhaustive inves- 

 tigation of the subject the Referee Board reports to the Secretary as 

 follows : 



"Copper salts used in the greening of vegetables may have the effect 

 of concealing inferiority, inasmuch as the bright green color imparted to 

 the vegetable simulates a state of freshness they may not have possessed 

 before treatment. 



"It appears from our investigation that, in certain directions, even 

 such small quantities of copper may have a deleterious action, and must 

 be considered injurious to health." 



As the use in food of an ingredient which may render the latter 

 injurious to health is a violation of the State Food Law, and as the 

 Referee Board of Scientific Experts have said in their report that 

 even small quantities of copper salts may have a deleterious action and 

 must be considered injurious to health, this Department considers the 

 sale in ISTorth Carolina of vegetables colored with copper salts a viola- 

 tion of the State Food Law, and such violations will in the future, if 

 detected, be prosecuted. 



Six samples were examined, 4 of which were adulterated or mis- 

 branded; 3 of the 4 containing copper sulphate, and 1, branded beans 

 with pork and sauce, contained no pork. 



