Food adulteration.
The United States of America, the greatest foodproducing country in the world, is suffering from the adulteration of food products. The extent of this adulteration it is difficult to comprehend, but it grows largely—in fact, almost entirely—out of excessive competition. There is hardly an article of food that has not been, at some time, more or less adulterated— flour, butter, cheese, tea and coffee, syrups, spices of all kinds, extracts, [400] baking powders; and yet, notwithstanding this great adulteration of food, every manufacturer will testify that he is perfectly willing to stop the adulteration if his competitors will stop, so that he can honestly compete with them. This was especially true in the case of flour, and investigation in Congress showed that very dangerous and absolutely insoluble substances were being used to adulterate flour, and it became very well known that this fact impaired the credit of American flour in foreign countries. The adulteration became so extensive that the manufacturers who would not use adulteration appealed to Congress for protection, and the law as applied to oleomargarine and filled cheese was made applicable to mixed flour. At the present time it is believed that the mixing of flour has practically stopped in the United States. This not only assists the honest manufacturer of flour, but if protects the consumer, and at the same time gives us a reputation for manufacturing honest goods, and its influence has already been felt in our export trade to all the countries that buy our flour. The committee on manufactures of the United States Senate has had presented to it letters that come from at least twelve or fifteen of the large cities of the world, all of the same tenor and general effect as the following:It is a well-known fact that our meat products have had a greater demand and better sale since the government undertook their inspection, and it is safe to say that nothing will more encourage our export trade than for the government of the United States to have some standard fixed, to which the food products of the United States must rise before they can be sold to our own people or our customers abroad. It is believed by those who have given the matter careful attention that then we will encourage the honest manufacturer and protect him from dishonest competition, we shall protect the consumer, who will know in each instance what he is buying; we shall, by establishing a reputation for a high standard of food products, increase the demand for our goods all over the world, and also, what is more important to all, we shall raise the standard of the purity of goods that go into the human stomach, and, by the use of better foods, make a better citizen. “The destiny of the nations depends upon how they feed themselves.”
