232 



RECREATION. 



grain and the bran from the flour. The 

 bread, in fact, was made from both wheat 

 and rye that had only been soaked a little 

 and then crushed, but not ground up, to 

 that made from the finest flour. 



"As a result, the coarse breads are con- 

 demned. They are not suitable for feed- 

 ing large numbers of persons, and espe- 

 cially soldiers. The more completely the 

 bran is removed, also, the better is the 

 flour and the bread made from it. Even if 

 finely ground, bran is not a satisfactory 

 food for man, and cannot be made so by 

 baking into bread. It is therefore urged 

 that the present ordinary army bread, as 

 used by the German army, can be im- 

 proved very much by the removal of the 

 outer covering of the grain, even if the 

 resulting flour is not ground more finely 

 than at present." 



I cannot close without a word in regard 

 to the adulteration of flour, of which millers 

 of the country have been accused. There 

 is not a mill in the United States that adul- 

 terates its flour with corn flour or any 

 other substance. Flour is one article of 

 food which is absolutely pure! 



In 1897 and the early part of 1898 a few 

 irresponsible mills did mix corn flour with 

 wheat flour. The milling trade became 

 alarmed, and itself arose and suppressed 

 the evil practice. It was done by an act 

 of Congress, under the war revenue meas- 

 ure, taxing adulterated flour and appoint- 

 ing inspectors, whose business it is to hunt 

 out breakers of the law. 



Furthermore, the millers' associations 

 had standing rewards offered, for over a 

 year, for proof that would lead to the con- 

 viction of any miller or other person who 

 mixed his flour. These rewards were 

 never claimed. 



PURE FOOD NOTES. 



DR. S. B. BUCKMASTER. 



Dr. W. H. Wiley, government chemist, 

 was one of the principal witnesses before 

 the Pure Food Commission of the United 

 States Senate recently, holding sessions in 

 Chicago and other cities. His testimony, 

 based on knowledge and experiment, gave 

 the commissioners decided evidence as to 

 the necessity of a pure food legislation, 

 and a bill will probably be passed by the 

 present Congress prescribing penalties for 

 food adulterations. 



In 1897 over 100,000,000 pounds of cot- 

 ton seed oil were exported from the United 

 States to Marseilles, France, and much 

 more than that in 1898. The oil is there 

 treated so that it tastes like olive oil, and 

 as such it is shipped all over the world. It 

 is also used in making soaps, cosmetics, 

 etc. Owing to its cheapness it is driving 

 other oils from the market, and the French 



crushers of oleaginous seeds are trying for 

 legislative prohibitive duty on the Ameri- 

 can oil. The French soap makers are re- 

 sisting this legislation, and a compromise 

 may result, by which a harmless substance 

 may be mixed with our cotton seed oil, 

 making it too unpalatable for use as food. 



Each person in the United States spends, 

 on an average, $2 a week for raw food and 

 $150 a year for clothing. Carroll D. 

 Wright, the statistician, says that 2/3 of 

 the money earned in the United States is 

 spent for food and clothing. This means 

 that it requires more than $10,000,000,000 

 to pay the yearly food and clothing bills. 

 Prof. Wedderburn, of the Department of 

 Agriculture, says all food, drugs and 

 drinks are adulterated at least 15 per cent, 

 of the whole. Much of our clothing also 

 has inferior material mixed with it; so 

 that $1,500,000,000 worth of spurious ma- 

 terial is sold to the people of this country 

 each year. Worse than worthless! Prof. 

 Wedderburn says at least 2 per cent of this 

 amount, or $30,000,000 worth, is deleteri- 

 ous. Coffee is adulterated with caramel, 

 cereals, chicory, coffee beans made of 

 flour paste, etc. Hake, haddock, etc., are 

 sold for the higher priced codfish; cheap 

 ginger snaps get their snap, not from 

 ginger, but from cayenne pepper; catsup 

 may be more than half pumpkin, horse 

 radish is mainly turnip, etc. 



The December number of the Jour- 

 nal of the American Medical Association 

 briefs an article by Alex. G. R. Foulerton 

 in the London Lancet on "Influence on 

 Health of Chemical Preservatives in Food" 

 as follows: "He thinks that boric acid and 

 formic aldehyde, if used in the small pro- 

 portions found, would hardly cause any 

 injurious effects to- the average adult, but 

 for invalids and children it might be in- 

 jurious. It is not likely that boric acid 

 would affect the digestive process, but it 

 might have toxic effects in a general way. 

 Formic aldehyde, on the other hand, might, 

 to some extent, impair the digestibility of 

 milk. In no other article of food is the 

 presence of these articles so important, and 

 the need of legislation is greater because 

 their presence cannot be detected without 

 analysis." 



FAVORS LESS MEAT. 

 Of course every one knows that food, 

 when digested, is changed by the succes- 

 sive action of the saliva, the teeth, the 

 stomach and its acid secretion, the bile, 

 and the secretions of the pancreas and the 

 intestines, almost into its component parts. 

 At the end of the process, which is both 

 chemical and mechanical and is most beau- 

 tifully designed, the food is immediately 



