OFFICIAI, IxXSPECTlON 1 6. l6l 



The Use of Chemicals in Food. 

 Section 5 of the Maine Food and Drug Law provides that 

 '•the director of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station 

 shall make uniform rules and regulations for carrying out the 

 provisions of this act" and "also adopt or fix standards of 

 purity, quality or strength when such standards are not specified 

 or fixed by law." It further provides that "such rules, regula- 

 tions and standards shall, where possible, conform to and be the 

 same as the rules and regulations" adopted for the enforcement 

 of the National Food and Drugs Act. 



In accordance with these provisions of the law and the action 

 of the United States Board of Food and Drug Inspection, the 

 use of benzoate of soda in vegetable products, alum in limited 

 amount in pickles and saccharine in carbonated beverages is at 

 the present time allowed in Maine provided the presence and 

 amount are clearly and plainly stated on every package of foods 

 containing these chemicals. No other chemicals can under any 

 conditions be lawfully used in foods ofifered for sale in .Maine. 

 This concession should not be taken as evidence that the Food 

 and Drug Official of this State endorses or zuishes to encourage 

 the use of chemicals in foods. 



There has, as nearly everyone is aware, been a very large 

 amount of discussion recently regarding the advisability of pe'^r- 

 mittmg the use of benzoate of soda in food, a discussion largely 

 brought on by the report of the so-called "Referee Board"'" of 

 some of the foremost chemists in this countrv who were 

 appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to carrv on investi- 

 gations in regard to the effect of benzoate of soda upon human 

 beings. Previous experiments under the direction of the 

 Department of Agriculture had generally shown harmful results 

 from the use of preservatives of all kinds. The experiments 

 of the Referee Board would seem to point in the opposite direc- 

 tion. It should be noted, however, in this connection, that their 

 experiments were continued for short periods of time only and 

 that the subjects were mature, healthy individuals. \Miat the 

 results might have been had the experiments been continued for 

 a period of several years, as is the case when one continually 

 uses foods preserved with bezoate of soda, or had the subjects 

 been invalids or infants, they do not pretend to say. 



