Foods and Their Adulteration: Origin, Manufacture, and Composition of Food Products; Description of Common Adulterations, Food Standards, and National Food Laws and RegulationsWiley, Harvey Washington
Science
Foods and Their Adulteration: Origin, Manufacture, and Composition of Food Products; Description of Common Adulterations, Food Standards, and National Food Laws and Regulations
Wiley, Harvey Washington
Food; Food adulteration and inspection
place which originated the name and has the sole right to use the name
Swiss cheese. It is the name of a whole country and not of a location,
and yet it is evident that Swiss cheese properly can only be made in
Switzerland and not in Germany or in the United States. Any hard, tough
cheese in which a large number of holes is found and which on cutting
makes a flexible, semi-leathery slice has to a certain extent the
appearance and perhaps the taste and flavor of genuine Swiss cheese.
It should not be difficult to find a market for all good cheese made in
this country, under appropriate American names indicating their origin.
If the term Swiss cheese is at all allowable on a package it should be
placed as a minor part of the label and with the statement that it is
of that type. Even this transgression is perhaps difficult of excuse.
=Artificial Coloring.=--Next to misbranding and misnaming of cheeses,
perhaps the most common adulteration is that of artificial coloring.
The public taste has been led in the matter of cheeses, especially
of American origin, to look for a deep yellow color. This is also
associated with the idea of the use of a large quantity of rich,
naturally yellow-colored cream. The addition of an artificial color to
a cheese never adds anything to its value, and to the really æsthetic
eye detracts much from its appearance. The presence of this rich
artificial tint is calculated in many instances to excite a suspicion
in regard to the character of the cheese and thus interferes with its
proper gustation. There is another more serious objection than the one
just mentioned, namely, that it is possible from skimmed milk to make
a highly colored cheese which would appear to the consumer to be made
of whole milk or of milk and cream, and thus a deliberate deception
is perpetrated. The consumer of cheese should demand that artificial
coloring of all kinds be omitted from cheese products.
Moreover, these colors may of themselves be deleterious in character
and there is no restriction, so far as I know, at this time in the
United States to prevent a manufacturer, if he so desires or through
his ignorance of the use of coloring materials of a poisonous
character, from using any amount.[22] The coal tar dyes are cheaper and
produce faster and more natural looking tints than the vegetable colors
such as annotto and saffron, and hence, unless they are prohibited
by law, they are almost universally employed. All of these dyes in
a concentrated form are highly poisonous and injurious and several
instances are on record of death, especially in the case of young
children, from eating concentrated colors. The fact that a poison of
this kind is diluted by the cheese is no excuse for its use. The only
protection which the consumer has, which is reliable in all cases, is
the prohibition of coloring matter in cheese.
[22] Written before the passage of the food-bill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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