March, 1921 



n I, K A X T X (i s IX n r e c u i, t r r !•: 



155 



A 



c 



a 



Ur 



C E RTAIN 

 man wliosc 

 work is 

 with the pub- 

 licity e n (1 of 

 selling h o ai e y 

 said to me re- 

 c e n 1 1 y, " Mrs. 

 Boyden, I wish 

 you would 



touch on tlie necessity of emphasizing the 

 purity of honey. ' ' And that calls to mind 

 an incident of which I am going to tell 

 you. 



A few weeks ago at a dinner, while we 

 were enjoying our coffee a professional man 

 who sat next to me said: "You know a 

 large percentage of what we buy as coffee 

 is not coffee at all. It is a clever substitute 

 pressed into the sliape of the coffee berry." 

 I politely tried not to look as incredulous as 

 I felt. I suppose some of the coffee which is 

 sold ground may be adulterated, altlio Uncle 

 Sam 's pure food laws are such as to make 

 it unpleasant for the offender if he is' 

 caught; but I cannot think it would pay to 

 make expensive machinery to press the stuff 

 into the form of the coffee berry, even if 

 such a business could remain undetected. 



Perhaps it was the more difficult for me 

 to believe such a story, told by the narrator 

 in good faith, of course, because of that old 

 story of artificial comb honey, which seems 

 to be such a hardy perennial. Years ago, 

 when I was a very small girl, A. I. Eoot 

 offered $1,000.00 reward for a sample of ar- 

 tificial comb honey and had cards printed 

 to that effect; but, altlio the cards were 

 widely distributed and the offer is still open, 

 no one ever claimed the reward. Perhaps the 

 story originated from the fact that beekeep- 

 ers' supply houses buy quantities of wax 

 and make it into foundation, and the unini- 

 tiated do not know how little resemblanc-e 

 there is between the strip of foundation and 

 the finished comb. 



Man has more or less successfully imitated 

 flowers and fruit in surface appearance only. 

 I don 't believe anyone has ever even at- 

 tempted to make an artificial fruit like the 

 original in texture, juice, and flavor, one 

 that could be eaten. But did it ever occur 

 to you that comb honey with its fragile, 

 translucent, i^ale golden beauty simply can- 

 not be successfully imitated, even as to 

 outward appearance. You have doubtless 

 seen artificial fruit which might deceive one 

 at a distance, but you never saw a rubber 

 or composition model of a section of comb 

 lioney, did you? And artists and photog- 

 rapliers will tell you it is one of the most 

 difficult subjects to jiaint or photograph sat- 

 isfactorily. 



And yet that absurd story of artificial 

 comb honey has been told within the past 

 year not 50 miles from Medina, which is 

 sometimes referred to as "the sweetest town 

 on earth," on account of the amount of 

 honev handled here. 



OUR FOOD PAGE 



CONSTANCE ROOT BOYDEN 



IStancy Piierdeiii 



1 



A 



S to extract- 

 ed h o n ey, 

 that is a 

 different s t m r y 

 a 1 t o g e ther. It 

 u n d o u b t e dly 

 could be adul- 

 terated in a way 

 that would de- 

 ceive the aver- 

 ago family buyer. Notice I say "could be," 

 not "is." In a State whicli has inadequate 

 pure food laws the unscrupulous dealer 

 could Sell an adulterated honey in a small 

 way, and perhaps does for a short time. But 

 if his business grew to such an extent that 

 his honey was shipped into another State, 

 then the long arm of Uncle Sam would reach 

 liim and make him realize that lie was en- 

 gaged in a very unprofitable occupation, to 

 put it mildly. For the Federal laws are very 

 strict when it comes to shipping impure or 

 adulterated foods from one State to an- 

 other. And in most States there are pure 

 food laws which protect the consumer just 

 as adequately. 



Someone may say, "The honey dealer or 

 packer may have the best of intentions and 

 yet in buying honey he may unwittingly get 

 hold of a lot of adulterated honey from an 

 unscrupulous shipper. ' ' That is only too 

 true, and that is why the largest honey bot- 

 tlers in the country maintain a well-equipped 

 chemical laboratory where a sample of every 

 shipment is analyzed. 



Now you want to know, don't you, 

 whether many samples of adulterated honey 

 have been detected by the chemists whose 

 duty it is to guard the houey-j^acking busi- 

 ness. Some adulterated honey has been de- 

 tected, it is true, but I believe I am safe in 

 saying it is only enough to be the exception 

 wliieh proves the rule that the bulk of honey 

 on the market is pure. 



I 



N a recent issue I mentioned a sanitarium 

 where the only sweet allowed to the pa- 

 tients is honey. The head of that institu- 

 tion, Bernarr McFadden, Avho also founded 

 the magazine Physical Culture^ writes on 

 "Breaking a Fast," in the January issue 

 of Physical Culture. Wliether we approve 

 or not of the modern fad of curing various 

 ills by fasting, we beekeepers can heartily 

 endorse the method of breaking the fast and 

 rejoice that a prominent health writer, not 

 particularly interested in bee culture, ap- 

 preciates the food value of honey. The fol- 

 lowing is a quotation from his article: 



' ' But tlie principal thought to bear in 

 mind in breaking a fast is the use of very 

 minute quantities of food and large quanti- 

 ties of water, warm or cold, whichever nuiy 

 be the most pleasing. It is frequently de- 

 sirable to flavor the water with a little fruit 

 juice or with honey. In fact, water sweet- 

 ened to taste with lioney is perhaps the 

 safest method of breaking a long fast. 

 Honey taken in this manner is absorbed al- 



