TOMATOES IN TIN CANS by R. S. Owen

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 21, 1900

TOMATOES IN TIN CANS.

By R. S. Owen

R. S. OWEN. (Biloxi, Miss.)

It is generally known that acid fruit should not be allowed to stand in an open tin vessel, as the acid eats, or corrodes, the tin, and thus poisons the fruit; but it is thought by many that fruit sealed in tin cans is not thus affected unless it is left in the tin after the can is opened.

I will relate an experience, which convinced me that tomatoes ought never to be put into tin cans, and this is doubtless true of all acid fruits. I had noticed the distinct change in the color of blackberry juice after standing in a tin vessel, the bright crimson being changed to a dark-purple. I noticed, too, that blackberries put up in tin cans have the same dark-purple color when the can is opened. Tomatoes, however, exhibit no change of color from the tin, and I had not thought of their being contaminated with the tin of the cans, till I noticed a changed appearance of the inside of a tomato can, as if the coating of the tin had been partly eaten off.

I then procured some fresh blackberries and a ripe tomato from a fruit stand, and a tin can of the best-brand tomato from the grocer. In the presence of a company of interested friends, I bruised some blackberries on two plates. To one plate I then added a few drops of the juice of the fresh tomato, which united with the berry juice without causing any perceptible change of color in the juice of the berries. The tomato can was then opened, and a few drops of its contents I mixed with the juice on the other plate, when, lo, it began at once to change color, and after a short time it was all changed to a dark-purple, demonstrating that the tomatoes in the can contained a strong solution of tin.

Not one of the company cared to make use of that can of tomatoes, and so it was thrown away. We have no further use for tomatoes put up in tin. I examined the United States Dispensatory at the drug store, and there learned that arsenic is used in the adulteration of tin. I asked the druggist, and a doctor who was with him, concerning the nature of tin. They both pronounced it a deadly poison, and said that it is very dangerous to eat fruit that contains tin. Put tomatoes in glass cans.