PURE AND IMPURE FOODS. 



" What a Man Eats He Is. 

 Edited by C. F. Lang worthy, Ph.D. 



Author of " On Citraconic, Itaconic and Mesaconic Acids," " Fish as Food," etc. 



BOTTLED WATER. 



The sale of simple, potable waters for 

 table use has greatly increased during the 

 past few years, and is now a considerable 

 industry. This increasing use of special 

 drinking waters is doubtless due to greater 

 diffusion of knowledge of the danger of 

 drinking sewage-contaminated water, but 

 is also to be attributed to a growing de- 

 mand for water with better physical char- 

 acteristics than are found in the public 

 supplies of many of our cities and vil- 

 lages. 



According to H. E. Smith, of the Con- 

 necticut Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 "the extensive use of special table waters 

 in a community having a public water 

 supply is, therefore, to be regarded as an 

 expression of distrust in the public supply 

 or, at least, dissatisfaction with it. The 

 distrust may be well founded in a sus- 

 picion or belief that the water is sewage- 

 contaminated, and, therefore, liable to pro- 

 duce serious diseases ; or there may be 

 dissatisfaction with the water because of 

 its physical character, as its turbidity, high 

 color, and objectionable taste or odor. 

 Much more attention is paid to the char- 

 acter of our reservoirs and to the protec- 

 tion of the watersheds • supplying them 

 than formerly, especially in some of the 

 larger cities ; but there are still some sup- 

 plies which are subject to dangerous con- 

 tamination and there are inherent difficul- 

 ties in protecting surface water supplies, 

 especially in the case of small reservoirs, 

 which are sure to result in at least occas- 

 ional bad tastes and odors. Until public 

 water supplies are practically safe and free 

 from objectionable physical properties by 

 some process of purification, as by filtration, 

 it is reasonable to expect that there will be 

 a demand for special table waters. These 

 will be bought because they have desirable 

 physical character. What waters are clear, 

 odorless and of agreeable taste, it is easy 

 for the buyer to ascertain, but he has in 

 general no means of judging for himself 

 whether a water either is or has been con- 

 taminated by sewage. 



"Some waters found in the market are 

 put out in a large way over considerable 

 territory and after suitable precautions to 

 ascertain the quality of the water and to 

 maintain its purity during the process of 

 preparation for market. Other waters are 

 handled only in a small 'way by dealers who 

 present no evidence that they have used 

 suitable precautions to ascertain the pur- 



ity of the water or that they possess the 

 means of properly sterilizing the bottles or 

 jugs in which the water is sold." 



With the object of ascertaining the qual- 

 ity of the waters sold in Connecticut, a 

 series of analyses of bottled waters was 

 made by Professor Smith. Of the 25 sam- 

 ples examined, 11 were normal, and 14 

 showed signs of past contamination, al- 

 though the majority had purified them- 

 selves until they were not at the time of 

 examination regarded as harmful. Not- 

 withstanding, there is no certainty that 

 waters which had been contaminated might 

 not become harmful under changing me- 

 teoric conditions, as for instance, more 

 abundant rainfall, or a drought. 



"No claim is made, " he states, "that the 

 spring waters examined and shown to be 

 more or less contaminated are subject to 

 specific infection, and are liable to cause 

 typhoid fever, dysentery, or other specific 

 disease ; for the examinations which are 

 made do not furnish sufficient data to justi- 

 fy an opinion as to the sources of the con- 

 tamination. It is quite likely that many 

 of the waters have been affected by drain- 

 age from distant houses, barnyards, or 

 cultivated fields, where manure or some 

 other form of fertilizer had been used." 



In the opinion of Professor Smith, the 

 exact nature of the contamination which 

 is shown to exist in a spring water offered 

 for sale is immaterial, for no water should 

 be bought for table use if there is any sus- 

 picion of its impurity. 



GRAVIES AND SAUCES. 



Well made gravies and sauces are an 

 agreeable addition to the diet and are eco- 

 nomical since, usually, when they are free- 

 ly used less butter is eaten. When, in 

 making gravies or sauces, the flour is 

 cooked in hot fat, the gravy is brought to 

 a finish in less time than is possible if the 

 flour is blended with cold water or stock 

 and added to the bulk of the gravy, as then 

 at least half an hour is required to cook 

 the latter mixture so it will not taste raw 

 and pasty. This is important for other 

 reasons than flavor. In the raw state, the 

 starch in the flour is not so easily digested 

 as when it is cooked. 



When the flour is cooked in hot watei 

 the temperature does not rise above the 

 boiling point of water, 212 degrees, whik 

 when cooked in hot fat the temperatun 

 is much greater, reaching 400 degrees. Ir 

 this hot fat, the starch is quickly cooked 



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