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Mr. FURBAY thinks the operation of the law has been beneficial. It has removed some of the difficulties of his business. It is the only law he knows of which seems to be at all effective in preventing the importation of adulterated food. (62.) 3. Effect upon exports.-Mr. GALLAGHER testifies that the export trade in wheat flour increased between 24 and 25 per cent during the first three months of the operation of the mixed-flour law. It was claimed by those who assumed to represent the mixers that the enactment of the law would ruin the corn-milling business of the country and injure the small dealers and the corn growers. As a matter of fact, while the wheat flour exports increased more than 24 per cent during August, September, and October, 1898, corn-mill exports increased during those months about 48 per cent as compared with the same months of 1897. (6.) Mr. Gallagher thought the exports of flour in 1899 would amount to several million barrels more than ever before. At the time of his testimony (May, 1899), the increase had been about 20 per cent. He attributed the increase very largely to the mixed-flour law. (136.)

Mr. Gallagher says that foreign importers of American flour are a unit in admiration of the promptness with which the American people came to the rescue of the flour millers and of the present system of guaranteeing the purity of their goods. He submitted a number of letters received from representative importers of American flour in Great Britain and on the Continent of Europe, testifying that the enactment of the law had improved the trade in American flour by restoring confidence in its purity. (7-11.)

Mr. ECKERT testifies that in 1896 about 10,000,000 barrels of flour were exported, and that since the mixed-flour law went into effect the exports have been very large. He estimated that in 1899 the exports of American flour would exceed 15,000,000 barrels, the increase being due in part to the feeling that under Government supervision flour purporting to be wheat flour is pure wheat flour. (27.) D. Suggested amendments to the mixed-flour law. Mr. GALLAGHER advises that the act be amended so as to prevent millers from occupying their premises with adulterants, and by excepting self-raising pancake and buckwheat flours, etc.; also by providing licenses for dealers in mixed flours, so as to compel them to keep records, and by providing a penalty for failure to report business transactions. (2,3.)

Mr. ECKERT thinks the mixed-flour law an excellent law, which ought to remain in force with a few slight amendments, perhaps excluding baking powder in small packages. He suggests that the exception of self-raising flour might lead to the abuse of the law; flour might be put up in packages and called selfraising flour to impose upon the public. (27.)

III. BAKING POWDER.

A. General statements.-Professor MALLET states that four classes of baking powder are used in the United States: First, there are the cream of tartar powders, in which nothing but cream of tarter, bicarbonate of soda, and starch is used; second, alum powders, composed of alum, bicarbonate of soda, and starch; third, the phosphate powders, composed of acid phosphate of calcium, bicarbonate of soda, and starch; fourth, alum phosphate powders, composed of alum, bicarbonate of soda, acid phosphate of calcium, and starch. Nearly all of the powders experimented with by Professor Mallet belong to the last class. (552,566.) Professor Mallet asserts that one great danger in the use of alum baking powders is the danger of imperfect manufacture. If either the alum or the soda is not weighed out in the proper proportions, and an excess of alum is used, there will not be enough soda to decompose all the alum, and some unchanged alum will be left in the bread. Probably there is not much danger that this will occur in the case of the large manufacturers; but the simplicity and cheapness of the manufacture have led a multitude of small men, practically ignorant of chemistry, to go into the business, and not much reliance can be placed upon the accuracy of their work, even in weighing.

In an actual experiment with 27 samples, representing 17 alum baking powders, Professor Mallet found an excess of soda in all cases but two. In the two powders which showed an excess of acid the acidity was in part due to acid calcium phosphate.

In addition to the dangers of the use of wrong proportions in the materials, there is the danger of imperfect mixture, which would result in an excess of alum in some portions of the powder and an excess of soda in others. (551, 552, 559.) Mr. GEORGE C. REW, a chemist and vice-president of the Calumet Baking Powder Company, testifies that all baking powders are alike in containing bicarbonate of soda, an alkaline ingredient which furnishes the leavening gas, but differ

in the acid matters used to neutralize this soda and free the gas. These acids may be cream of tartar, tartaric acid, alum, acid phosphate of calcium, or any solid acid salt, such as sulphate of sodium. Practically, there are only two classes of baking powders having any great sale-cream of tartar baking powder, now manufactured by the baking powder trust, and the alum and phosphate baking powder. The consumer eating food prepared with cream of tartar baking powder does not take into his stomach one particle of cream of tartar; he eats Rochelle salts. When bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar react upon each other in the oven, the resulting substances are carbonic-acid gas, which, in escaping, puffs up the dough, and Rochelle salts, the active ingredient of Seidlitz powders. The best cream of tartar baking powder on the market contains about 28 per cent of bicarbonate of soda. To neutralize this quantity of acid 62.6 per cent of cream of tartar is required. This quantity will leave in the food 70 per cent of anhydrous Rochelle salts. A teaspoonful of baking powder weighing about 200 grains and making 14 ounces of bread, or 12 good-sized biscuits, will leave in the food 188 grains of Rochelle salts. When alum and bicarbonate of soda are mixed in their equivalent proportions, there will not be one particle of alum left in the food prepared. All alums are double sulphates of sodium and aluminum, in which the sodium may be replaced by potassium or ammonia, and the aluminum by iron or chromium. With an alum phosphate baking powder of good quality, containing 28 per cent of bicarbonate of soda neutralized with acid phosphate of calcium and sodium alum, about 20 per cent of alum is used, the rest of the alkali being neutralized with acid phosphate. The residue left in the food will be hydrate of aluminum and sulphate of soda resulting from the decomposition of the alum, and phosphate of calcium and phosphate of sodium from the acid phosphate. An alum phosphate baking powder containing 20 per cent of alum will leave in the food about 6 per cent of its weight of hydrate of aluminum, and about 20 per cent of its weight of sulphate of soda. Mr. Rew says there is a violent prejudice in the public mind against alum phosphate baking powder, kept alive by advertising and resulting in benefit to some baking powder manufacturers. All baking powder manufacturers use starch to dilute their mixtures and get the gas percentage they wish. If they used more alum than the soda would neutralize, they would be adulterating or filling their baking powder with alum, and as starch is a very much cheaper substance, no manufacturer would use more than his soda required. It is possible to have powder manufactured which would leave some alum, but Mr. Rew has never found such baking powder. (87-89.)

Professor AUSTEN says that the gist of many of the articles on the baking powder question is that alum baking powders are injurious because the material in them is alum, the inference being that the alum would have the same effect on the human system whether it was taken as alum or taken in the form of food prepared with alum baking powder. In like manner it is often assumed that cream of tartar baking powders are wholesome because cream of tartar is a product of the grape. The question is not whether alum taken in sufficient quantities is poisonous. Cream of tartar produces physiological effects if it is taken in sufficient quantities. But neither cream of tartar nor hydrate of alumina is poisonous in the amounts ordinarily received in food, and neither of them, so far as Professor Austen can discover, produce cumulative effects.

Furthermore, the question is not as to the effects of alum in the case of one baking powder, or of cream of tartar in another, because neither alum nor cream of tartar exists in food leavened with baking powder. The essential constituents of the cream of tartar baking powder are cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda. Under the influence of moisture and heat a chemical reaction takes place, with production of carbonic acid gas, which, in escaping, produces the leavening effect, and Rochelle salts, which remains as a residuum in the food. If an alum baking powder is used, carbonic acid gas is evolved and escapes in the same way, and the residuum consists of sulphate of soda and hydrate of alumina. The same leavening effect may be produced with bicarbonate of soda and a carefully measured quantity of hydrochloric acid. In that case the residuum is common salt. The question of the harmfulness of alum baking powders is not at all the question of the harmfulness of alum. It is the question of the harmfulness of the residuum of sulphate of soda and hydrate of alumina. (532, 533.)

Dr. Austen, who has been employed by several manufacturers of alum baking powders to conduct special experiments as to the effects of food prepared with such baking powders and to examine the literature of the subject, asserts that the public mind has been prejudiced by the publication of a great many articles in newspapers and journals which were not properly reading matter but paid advertisements. Many of the publications which have printed this matter have made contracts which did not allow them to publish any of opposite tenor. (531, 532.)

Professor MITCHELL says the starch used in mixing baking powders is usually cornstarch.

(118.)

Professor MALLET states that no baking powder manufacturers, so far as he knows, make the materials of the powder. They only buy the cream of tartar or alum, as the case may be, the bicarbonate of soda, and the starch, and mix them. (554.)

B. Leavening power.-Professor EATON says that other things being equal the value of a baking powder is dependent upon the amount of gas evolved, some evolving only 5 or 6 per cent and others as high as 14 or 15 per cent. (236.)

Professor WEBER, of the Ohio State University, says that on examination of 36 brands of baking powders during the summer of 1887, of which 8 were cream of tartar powders, 2 phosphate powders, and 20 alum powders, the amount of carbonic-acid gas evolved by the alum powders was found to be one-half as great as that evolved by the other kinds. About twice as much alum powder was required to give the same results. (605.)

In experimenting upon 17 brands of alum baking powders, Professor MALLET found the amount of gas liberated on treatment with water to vary from 37 cubic inches to 100 cubic inches per avoirdupois ounce of baking powder.

"The variability observed appears to be partly due to variation in the proportion of starch or other indifferent matter used, partly to the variable character of the commercial bicarbonate of soda employed (containing a larger or smaller proportion of true bicarbonate), partly to greater or less purity of the other active ingredients, partly to greater or less care in the adjustment to each other in proper proportions of the acid ingredients and the soda, partly to want of due care to insure uniform mixture of the ingredients, but mainly to greater or less absorption of moisture from the air in keeping, different degrees of care in drying the materials, and in putting up the powder in packages for sale, and no doubt difference in age of some of the samples." (558,559.)

Professor WITHERS, of the North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, says that of 24 samples of baking powder bought in the open market in that State, without any attempt to secure any particular brand or class of powders, 2 were tartrate powders prepared in New York, 2 were phosphate powders prepared in Rhode Island, and the remaining 20 contained alum. One of these was an alum and tartrate powder, and contained practically no available carbonic acid. Six were alum and phosphate powders; one of these contained practically no carbonic acid, another less than 3 per cent, and another less than 4 per cent. Thirteen were straight alum powders. (617.)

C. Economic considerations.-1. Differences in price.-Professor MALLET says that the average price of alum baking powder is from 10 to 15 cents a pound, and the price of cream of tartar powders is from 40 to 50 cents. The fact that cream of tartar powders are largely sold in spite of this great difference of cost proves that the use of alum is popularly believed to be injurious. (555, 556.)

Professor MITCHELL says there is a sale for alum baking powders, especially in supplying boats, hotels, boarding houses, trains, etc., where the steward must make a showing of economy. (108, 109.)

Professor AUSTEN declares that the economic advantage of the use of alum baking powder is exceedingly great. In Georgia a baking powder is sold for 10 cents, of which 1 teaspoonful raises a quart of flour. An amount of high-grade cream of tartar to give the same degree of gas efficiency would cost nearly $2. To forbid the use of alum baking powder would increase the cost of living by many millions of dollars. Professor Austen has figured the difference in Georgia alone at over $3,000,000 a year. (542, 543.)

Dr. MCMURTRIE, consulting chemist of the Royal Baking Powder Company, says that 1 pound of tartrate baking powder is equivalent in leavening power to 14 pounds of ordinary alum powder. The relative cost would therefore be 45 cents and 15 cents for the same leavening power, on a basis of a price of 10 cents a pound for alum powder. The contrast between $2 and 10 cents suggested by Dr. Austen is misleading. The saving of $3,000,000 to the inhabitants of Georgia alone, which Dr. Austen estimates to be effected by the use of alum rather than tartrate powders, "would be equal to one-third of the amount paid by consumers for all the alum baking powder made and sold annually in the whole country," even taking the exaggerated figures put forth in the claims of the alum baking-powder manufacture." (600.)

2. Cost of alum.-Dr. MCMURTRIE asserts that the alum used in making baking powder costs no more than 34 cents a pound, and that the materials of the alum baking powder as a whole do not cost 2 cents a pound. (600.)

Mr. ALLEN MURRAY, a drug and spice miller, says that at one time he furnished burnt alum to be used in the manufacture of baking powder. The price was about 24 cents, but finally got down to 3 cents. At first there was a patent on

burnt alum, but he fought it for three years and beat the patentee. The manufacturers themselves wanted to burn it, and reduced the price to 3 cents; then witness went out of the business. It is manufactured in Buffalo and in New York City; the Pennsylvania Salt Company, the largest manufacturers, manufacture it in Chicago. The Grant Baking Powder Company manufactures its own, or used to. (70.)

3. Deceptive labels.-Professor MITCHELL says that alum baking powders are sold either under deceptive labels or not labeled at all as to their composition, and that while they are sold at wholesale at very low prices, they frequently reach the consumer at prices as high as that of cream of tartar baking powder, very frequently prizes being given with them which are supposed to be given for nothing. The dairy and food commission of Wisconsin ordered the arrest of a Milwaukee merchant who sold the inspectors 2 samples of baking powder, one for 20 cents a pound and the other, labeled best" baking powder, but identically the same powder, for 50 cents, a china dish being given with it. The witness read the label used, which contained the words, "Warranted Cream of Tartar Baking Powder Company, New York, U. S. A.," in such a way that the careless reader would read, "warranted cream of tartar baking powder," the word "company" being on the lower line. The formula which would make cream of tartar baking powder is given, but there is no cream of tartar in the baking powder, nor is it made in New York. To comply with the Wisconsin law requiring such powder to be branded as containing alum, the manufacturers have left their deceptive label on the side and top, and stamped on the side in black letters, "This baking powder contains alum. Professor Mitchell considers this one of the most flagrant cases of deceptive labeling. (107, 108.)

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D. Cream of tartar.-1. Source and action.-Professor VAUGHAN, dean of the medical faculty of the University of Michigan, says the baking powders most commonly sold in this country are the tartrate and the alum baking powders, and that the ideal baking powder is the tartrate, consisting of the acid tartrate of potash, obtained from the grape. When the wine ferments, the tartrate, being less soluble than the alcohol, is precipitated, and is then taken and purified and mixed with bicarbonate of soda, and a little starch to keep it dry and to act as a filler. In making bread the acid tartrate decomposes and sets free carbonic acid, which leavens the bread and improves its digestibility, because the gastric and other juices get into the pores better. He thinks there can be no objection to the use of tartrate baking powder; the Rochelle salts formed by the action of the tartrate of potash on the bicarbonate of soda are not injurious, but are beneficial. (205, 206.)

Dr. WILEY says cream of tartar is made from grapes. It is the acid principle of the grape, made from the argols which settle in casks and bottles of wine. He would not say that it would be wholesome in excess, nor would he call it injurious.

(47.)

Professor MALLET states that cream of tartar is the bitartrate or acid tartrate

of potassium obtained from grapes. As the fermentation of wine progresses, the wine becomes less and less capable of holding the tartar in solution, and crusts of argol or crude tartar are formed in the casks. Cream of tartar is obtained by dissolving and crystallizing this argol. Some cream of tartar is also obtained from the spent yeast or lees or dregs of the wine vats. The whole supply comes from the wine-producing countries. Some, but not much, is obtained from the wine industry in the United States. (553,554.)

Professor PRESCOTT says cream of tartar is a constituent of fruits, especially the grape. The acid salts of fruits are among the most wholesome and important constituents of human food, and when entirely lacking leave sailors and soldiers victims of scurvy. Cream of tartar has a high rank as a wholesome article of food, both in itself and in what it leaves behind after the process of baking. This residue is Rochelle salts, which in the doses in which it occurs in food has only that favorable effect which fruits have. (200.)

Mr. PETRAEUS, a chemist, says that cream of tartar baking powder produces 70 per cent of sodium potassium tartrate, which is the basis of Rochelle salts. (292.) Dr. MCMURTRIE states that the residue left in bread by the use of cream of tartar baking powder is sodium potassium tartrate. This is disposed of in the process of digestion "in exactly the same way as other vegetable substances of like character, and is digested in exactly the same way as sugar." The tartaric acid radical is broken up into carbonic acid and water, and the alkaline radical passes into the blood, supplying the necessary alkaline constituents of it, and is eliminated by the kidneys, tending to correct any unfavorable acidity of the fluids of the body. The amount of tartrates in an ordinary loaf of bread made with cream of tartar baking powder may be equivalent to that contained in a pound and a half of ripe grapes. (594, 595.)

Professor MALLET says that he has never directly investigated the wholesomeness of cream of tartar baking powder, but he has no reason to believe that it is unwholesome. He can imagine a case in which a large amount of cream of tartar might be injurious, by rendering the urine alkaline and causing precipitation of the earthy phosphates. On the other hand, many people with a tendency to uric acid deposition from the urine are benefited by the production of such an alkaline character. (554.)

2. Adulteration and substitution.-Dr. MCMURTRIE, consulting chemist for the Royal Baking Powder Company, the Cleveland Baking Powder Company, and the Price Baking Powder Company, states that the cream of tartar which is used by these companies in the manufacture of their powders does not vary appreciably from a purity of 100 per cent, and that the other ingredients used in their products are of a similar high degree of purity. (594.)

Dr. WILEY bought 7 samples of cream of tartar in New York City, 2 or 3 in drug stores, and the rest in groceries. Three of the samples were cream of tartar, one contained 93 per cent of cream of tartar, and one 24 per cent. The other two were phosphate of calcium and calcium sulphate combined, without a trace of cream of tartar. This combination is the substance which is known in the trade as c. t. s., or cream of tartar substitute, but they were not labeled as substitutes. They were sold by the retailer as cream of tartar, and at the price of cream of tartar, 50 cents a pound. (584.)

Professor MITCHELL, chemist to the Wisconsin dairy and food commission, says that as a rule the cream of tartar purchased by the Wisconsin inspectors in drug stores was of high grade, generally having a large amount of actual cream of tartar in it, and was much more nearly worth the price paid than the samples purchased of grocers, which as a rule were not cream of tartar to any great extent, 80 per cent being substitutes generally composed of acid phosphates of lime and alum mixed with starch, and sometimes small amounts of cream of tartar. In a few samples there were possibly natural impurities in large amounts-tartrate of lime and sulphate of lime-small amounts of which were also present in some of the drug-store samples. The substitutes for cream of tartar are generally sold as phosphatic cream of tartars. The jobber buys them of the manufacturer as phosphatic tartrates, but sells them to the grocer as cream of tartar, or did so in Wisconsin until investigated. Professor Mitchell much prefers cream of tartar to an alum substitute, and does not think alum suitable for food. (117.)

Professor Mitchell says acid phosphate of lime is made either from bone phosphate or from natural rock phosphate by treatment with sulphuric acid, and is generally mixed with flour or starch to prevent caking. (117, 118.)

Mr. MURRAY says a certain line of goods are considered commercial goods, such as commercial cream of tartar, some of which has not very much cream of tartar in it. This costs about 5 cents a pound, while the pure is worth about 214 cents a pound. (67.)

Professor FREAR says that a very large proportion of the samples of cream of tartar examined by him consisted either of terra alba, or terra alba with a little free tartaric acid, or cream of tartar diluted with terra alba or with acid calcium phosphate. (529.)

E. Composition of alum baking powder.-Professor MALLET, professor of chemistry in the University of Virginia, says that alum began to be used in baking powders in this country about 20 or 25 years ago. Alum is a very cheap material and it produces a good-looking bread. The alum baking-powder industry has consequently become very large. Some 5 or 6 per cent or more of phosphate of calcium is very commonly added to the alum baking powders. (551.)

Dr. WILEY says there are various forms of alum, which is a double salt of which alumina is one base and ammonia, potash, or some other metallic oxide the other. (46.)

Professor AUSTEN says that the material which is now commonly used in baking powders is not what is popularly known as alum. If a drug store orders alum, a potash alum is understood; and this was formerly used in baking powder. In making an alum baking powder, however, the evolution of gas must be so regulated that it will be given off slowly and in accordance with the temperature. If it goes off too quickly the bread swells up in a big bubble; if too slowly, it will not rise. It has taken a great deal of experimenting to produce a so-called alum preparation which will give exactly the same results in the evolution of gas as a cream of tartar or a phosphate powder. The alum which is now used in baking powders is c. t. s., or cream of tartar substitute, a calcined mixture of sulphate of alumina and sulphate of soda. C. t. s. is made, Dr. Austen believes, only by 3 very large chemical manufacturers. The baking-powder makers do nothing but put the materials, c. t. s., bicarbonate of soda, and starch or flour, into the

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