BAKING POWDERS. 623 



without drying the chemicals. To this end I used a larger proportion 

 of starch according to the following formula : 



Formula No. 4, made without drying the ingredients, containing 25 per cent, starch filling. 



Cream of tartar ounces.. 



Baking-soda do 4 



Corn starch .. -. do 4 



Total carbonic acid percent.. 12.63 



Available carbonic acid do 10. 91 



This gives a fairly good amount of available gas, considerably higher 

 than the average of the commercial samples. Estimations of the avail- 

 able carbonic acid in the same sample after it had stood over two 

 months in the laboratory showed absolutely no loss in strength. I 

 had it tried in a practical way by several persons in the Department 

 who used it in their kitchens, and reported excellent results, finding 

 it fully as efficient in all respects as the powder they were accustomed to 

 buy. The consumer can pay full retail price for the ingredients and still 

 make it up for about half the price at which a good powder is sold, and 

 if he makes sure of the quality of his cream of tartar he will have an 

 article of which the purity is assured, and which has not lost in strength 

 by being kept in stock an indefinite length of time by the retailer. I 

 can see no reason why all housekeepers should not make their own bak- 

 ing-powder. 



REGULATION OF THE SALE OF BAKING-POWDERS. 



The best plan for the regulation by law of the sale of baking-powders 

 in the present condition of our knowledge of their effect upon the sys- 

 tem would seem to be to require the manufacturer to use a label giving 

 approximately the composition, or analysis, of the powder sold. This 

 is recommended by Professor Cornwall, and it appears to offer the best 

 solution of the whole problem. The testimony that has been adduced is 

 hardly sufficient to justify the prohibition of the sale of the cheaper 

 kinds of powders as being injurious to health, but if they were required 

 to be sold with a label giving their true composition it would soon lead 

 to investigations upon this point. This is in harmony, also, with mod- 

 ern ideas in regard to legal regulation of the sale of food-stuffs, the 

 tendency nowadays being to allow the sale of cheap substitutes for any 

 article of food so long as they are not actually injurious to health, but 

 to make all possible provision to insure that the purchaser should know 

 exactly what he is getting, and that the substitute shall not be palmed 

 off" on him as the genuine article. In the case of baking-powders it is 

 manifestly unjust to the public to allow the sale of a first-class tartrate 

 powder and an alum powder asthe same article, and it is equally unjust 

 to the manufacturer of the higher-priced article. The nature of the sub- 



