| OCR Text |
Show DEADLY ' ' PRESERVATIVES' ' USED BY THE DAIRYMEN Every Housewife should have a Lactometer to Detect Adulterants in the Milk She buys Formerly the adulteration of nulk meant cither the addition of water, or the removal of a percentage of t!:c butter but-ter fat, or cream; but, lattery, ai the unholy use of auti-.eptics h.n become so common, a new form of adulteration, by the addition of chemical "prcrr aiives," so-called, is practiced, .md in sonic .-ec-tiotis to ail alarming extent. The object of adding thce chemicals is to krep the milk from .souring, but it i a dangerous danger-ous practice. ' These preservatives are "manui'ac-turcd'' "manui'ac-turcd'' by commiiigling nine or more chemical antiseptics in water to produce a two to four per cent, so'ution. The commercial chemical, purchased in fum-lity, fum-lity, is very cheap, and a dnllar-boiile of milk preservative, put up with a taking tak-ing name and a fancy label, may be actually worth four to eight cents in- cream perfectly fresh and in a natural jtate for months without the use oi ice." All of which is fraudulent, and intended to deceive. In consequence of such deliberate de-liberate falsehoods, otherwise honest handlers of milk are often induced to 6uy, especially as the use of preservative preserva-tive is guaranteed to save them from money loss by milk spoiling on their hands, and also by enabling them to dispose dis-pose of surplus milk, when it is not strictly fresh, and would not otherwise be salable. The most common form of antiseptic employed in the manufacture of milk preservative is formaldehyde one of the chemicals that is proscribed as a preservative and which should never be used in any food preparation In an illustrative il-lustrative case, where children in a locality were suddenly made ill by using us-ing sophisticated milk, it was found upon investigation that preservatives had been added to the milk four times; that is. by the farmer, by the collector, the wholesale city dealer, and the distributor dis-tributor who sold to the consumer?. , Milk that remains unchanged in warm weather too long a time is suspicious, though it should be noted that a milk that has been properly sterilized or pasteurized, pas-teurized, will keep sweet (from the time of pasteurization) about forty-eight hours. Pasteurizing is heating the milk to a temperature of 15 to 160 degrees, and cooling to Ttfi degrees before placing ! in the delivery bottles. Cream is heated i t.- 130 degrees. In a table of statistics, jut published, i representing 24,?.-i examinations of I irilk in the Stales of New Hampshire, Mas.ncIiusetU-.. Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and . Kentucky, made during the years J'JOO to 1004 by board of health and the chemists of agricultural agricul-tural experiment stations, over twenty-eight twenty-eight per cent of the examinationi showed adulteration Examinations ia Massachusetts for adulterations by the addition of water, or removal of butter fat, during a period of nine years ending 1H0O. showed a range of percentages ot adulteration from 27 per cent, to 40 3 per cent. Cream is adulterated by the use of "thickeners," which are preparations of gelatine with boracic acid. The food value of cream depends upon its butter fat. When gelatine is substituted, not only is there a fraud in the lowering of the nutritive value, but when such cream is employed in the preparation of modified milk- for infants' use, an indigestible in-digestible product results from the substitution sub-stitution of cane sugar for milk sugar, which is exceedingly dangerous to th infant healthi There arc not only good laws, but municipal regulations everywhere against tampering with the milk supply of cities, but the utmost vigilance is necen-sary necen-sary at all times to keep down the evil. No doubt the increase of responsible dairy supply companies or concerns tn cities where there is actual ownership of herds, control of the product from the cow to the consumer, and with the employment of sanitary methods of handling will do much to lessen tht evil, but we are still a long way from absolutely pure milk. By the purchase of a lactometer, which tosts but a trifle, any housewife can detect excessive water adulteration. The specific gravity of water is considered con-sidered to be 1 on the scale; of whole milk, 1.027 to 1.031 If water U adder to milk the lactometer will of course stand at a point between 1 and 1.027. It should be noted, however, that the specific gravity of very rich milk may sometimes be lower than these figures, but there is such difference in general appearance between a rich milk and a watered milk that the use of the imrru-mcnt imrru-mcnt may still be considered a reliablo test. |
