These facts, however, have never reached the masses, most of whom never heard of the Remsen board, and even if they had, a great many people would still remain prejudiced. Most packers think, therefore, that it is best to play safe and make their catsup without chemical preservative, relying solely upon sterilization to keep their product from spoiling up to the time the bottle is opened, and upon so called “natural” preservatives to keep it from fermenting after the cork is drawn. “Natural” Preservatives That these “natural” preservatives, when present in large quantity, as they sometimes are, may be more harmful to the stomach than a minute quantity of benzoate of soda, is surely a reasonable supposition. I have known of people getting sick directly after a meal by eating a good deal of catsup of high acidity on a steak and drinking milk along with it. At least the sickness was attributed to this combination, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable. A high acetic acid acidity will keep catsup as well or better than ⅒th of 1% of sodium benzoate will. There are catsups on the market made “without preservative” that would probably never ferment, even if exposed to the air for a year, because they contain so much acetic acid. The raw acetic acid is, of course, not permitted to be used, but a very strong distilled vinegar is used containing about 10% of acetic acid. The “natural” preservatives of catsup are the vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices. The vinegar probably exerts 80% of the preserving property, the sugar about 10% and the salt and spices together 10%. The sugar would have much greater preserving properties if it was present in higher concentration as in preserves or jelly. It is doubtful if the preservative properties of sugar are very great when it is only present to the extent of about 10 or 15%, and the product is of a liquid nature like catsup. Proper Acidity The proper thing for a packer of non-preservative catsup to do is to strike a happy medium on acidity; use enough vinegar to keep it under almost any conditions, but not so much as to almost entirely mask the tomato flavor and require sugar in such large quantity as to make the final product resemble tomato preserves. A good total acidity is 1.25%, figured as acetic acid. This figure includes both the acetic acidity of the vinegar and the natural acidity of the tomato. If a catsup is properly manufactured, this acidity should answer practically all purposes. The catsup packer should not be expected to make catsup which will keep in perfect condition in restaurants where absolutely no care or intelligence is used in handling it. This class of restaurant proprietor is fortunately in a decided minority, but rather than make a catsup that will be so strongly acid that it will stand up under his treatment, he should be educated to use a little care in the handling of the catsup.