PRESERVATIVES USED IN CANNING 179 



From the facts already given it will be seen that the 

 presence of borax in canned foods is totally unnecessary 

 provided sufficient care is taken in the canning. Its 

 presence is, therefore, a means of covering up a lack of 

 thoroughness in canning, and it is found in the cheaper 

 products. If the material has not been heated enough to 

 produce complete sterilization, it may still be preserved 

 in cans if sufficient borax is added to it. In large pack- 

 ing factories where a great amount of food, particularly 

 meat, is to be canned at once, it has become quite com- 

 mon to use a certain amount of such a preservative to 

 cover up this lack of complete sterilization and prevent 

 subsequent loss. The method is of course more econom- 

 ical, because it does not require so much heat and 

 because there is a very much smaller per cent of loss. 

 Whether the material thus preserved is unwholesome is a 

 question that has not yet been positively settled and need 

 not here be considered. So far as concerns fruit canning 

 in the household, it may be given as a universal rule that 

 rto disinfectants of any sort should be used. If the house- 

 wife cannot satisfactorily preserve her fruits without them, 

 she would do very much better to depend upon the com- 

 mercial products which she can buy at the store. At all 

 events, no one should under any circumstances resort to 

 the use of borax, preservaline, antifermentine, or any of 

 the other materials put upon the market for preventing 

 fermentation. They are dangerous to use, they are at 

 least partly poisonous, and their use in any form should 

 be absolutely avoided in domestic work. 



Practically any type of food can be preserved by can- 

 ning. Some materials, however, are very much more 



