FOOD, PURE (see ADULTERATION) . It is only within recent years that the transfer of the manufacture of food from the home to the factory, and the transportation of food for greater and greater distances, have made it necessary for governments to promote systematically and scientifically the purity and truthful labelling of food products. The purity of foods, drugs and other commodities was everywhere adversely affected by the conditions prevailing during the World War. There was a great increase in the practice of adulteration, and a marked falling off in the quality of manufactured foods. The use of substitutes and inferior pro ducts in times of shortage is a necessity; the subsequent restora tion of higher standards is slow. Borax, formaldehyde and other food preservatives were tolerated to an almost unlimited extent in some European countries during the troubled period attending the War, and the users of these substances, after a few years of unmolested privilege, have been unwilling to give way.
One phase of the movement for pure food was a proposal by the newly organized International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to study the practice of conserving foods by chemical means—a subject extensively in vestigated in the United States between 1904 and 1912. A report upon the laws governing the use of chemical preservatives in foods was presented at the fourth meeting of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry at Cambridge, England, in June 1923 (Comptes-rendus de la quatrieme Conference Inter nationale de la Chimie, p. 133-136). The trend of public and scientific opinion at the present time is toward the complete elimi nation of chemical preservatives from foods. In addition to their own injurious action, food preservatives disguise the effects of putrefaction, and their use in many cases has put a premium upon the unsanitary handling of foods. Certain advocates, notably Prof. E. Paterno of the University of Rome, have defended the use of preservatives. It has been asserted that the extensive consumption of meats, preserved by boric acid or formaldehyde, as an exigency of war, produced no injurious effects. The lack of cold-storage facilities, such as are everywhere provided in the United States, has been advanced in many countries as an argu ment for the use of chemicals in preserving perishable foods. Legislation to exclude completely all foreign chemicals from foods has been held to be inconsistent so long as copper compounds, arsenates and other substances are permitted in agriculture as insecticides, fungicides and disinfectants, since traces of these nearly always occur in the fruits and vegetables so treated. Nevertheless opinion among hygienists, manufacturers and the general public is decidedly adverse to the use of chemical pre servatives. It has been suggested that an important factor in the increase of certain diseases is the presence of chemical preserva tives and metallic poisons in foods.
In England the Minister of Health appointed on July 7, 1923, a Committee on the Use of Preservatives and Colouring Matters in Food. In accordance with their recommendations the Minister of Health announced on Feb. 17, 5925, a Draft of Rules and Orders that completely excludes from foods boric acid, salicylic acid, for maldehyde, fluorides and all other chemical preservatives except benzoic acid and sulphur dioxide, which are permitted in minimum amounts for preserving a limited number of foods and beverages. According to these regulations a food preservative is defined as:— . . . any substance which is capable of inhibiting, retarding or arresting the process of fermentation, acidification, or other de composition of food or of masking any of the evidences of any such process or of neutralising the acid generated by any such process; but does not include common salt (sodium chloride), saltpetre (sodium or potassium nitrate), sugars, acetic acid or vinegar, alcohol or potable spirits, spices, essential oils or any substance added to food by the process of curing known as smoking.
It was objected that the new rules would operate to the detri ment of both the trade and the general public on account of storage difficulties and of the increased price at which it would be necessary to sell food under the changed conditions. The new British Public Health (Preservatives, etc., in Food) Regulations of 5925 came into operation on Jan. 1, 1927, with slight extensions of this date in the case of butter, cream and a few other products.
A basic requirement in pure food control is the establishment of official standards of purity. The differ ences of opinion which prevail with regard to what constitutes pure sausage, marmalade, chocolate, catsup, ice-cream and numer ous other foods would make the task of the analyst an impossible one unless he had available certain recognized standards which are accepted as just by the trade and by regulatory officials. In Germany, Great Britain and the British dominions much valuable pioneer work has been done by the public analysts toward establishing standards of composition for many articles of food. In the United States a joint committee of nine experts selected equally from the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry, the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists and the Association of Dairy, Food and Drug Officials, by joint conferences with the trade, has established definitions and standards for a large variety of foods.
