Alum in Bread | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 21, 1879

Alum in Bread.

A FEW months ago, Dr. Mott, a well known chemist of New York in the employ of the U. S. Government, in the performance of his duties discovered that the adulteration of baking powders with alum was carried on very largely by various manufacturers, the object being to cheapen the compound. In these cases alum was used in place of cream of tartar, the saving being the difference between three cents, the cost of the alum, and thirty cents, the cost of cream of tartar, per pound. Considerable controversy having grown out of the matter, the city health boards of New York City and Brooklyn took the matter into consideration, and have given it a careful investigation. They find that Dr. Mott's assertions are to be relied upon, and unqualifiedly condemn as pernicious in the extreme, the numerous brands of baking powders which are found to contain alum.

In England and other countries alum has long been used as an adulterant of bread, it being found that its addition enabled the baker to make out of an inferior quality of flour a whiter bread than he could do without it, besides securing a very considerable gain in weight by the retention of a larger quantity of water. The pernicious effects of this adulteration have long been understood, and the most stringent laws have been enacted in England and other countries, prohibiting the use of alum in bread under a severe penalty.

Notwithstanding the attempts of the manufacturers of the cheap powders to prove the contrary, it has been shown conclusively that alum used in baking powders is much more injurious than when used in bread alone, being rendered more active by the chemical combinations with the other constituents of the powders.

We do not approve of the use of baking powders, or of any other chemical preparation for the raising of bread, since most palatable, and by all odds the most wholesome, bread can be made without any such addition; but as baking powders are so very extensively employed, and as we are well aware that thousands of people will continue to use them notwithstanding our protest, we think it our duty to call attention to the wholesale and dangerous adulteration referred to. No doubt there are many thousands of cases of dyspepsia which entail upon the victims an almost infinite amount of suffering, which might be readily traced to the use of these villainous compounds.

Dr. Mott reported that in his investigations he discovered alum in each of the following brands of powders: '' 'Dooley's,' 'Patapsco,' 'Charm,' 'Queen,' 'Vienna,' 'Orient,' 'Amazon,' 'Gillet's,' 'Twin Sisters,' 'Invincible,' 'King,' 'White Lilly,' 'Monarch,' 'One Spoon,' 'Imperial,' 'Honest(?),' 'Economical,' 'Excelsior,' Chartres,' 'Grant,' 'Giant.' ''

We are not prepared to recommend any baking powder, although it is much better to use a genuine baking powder than to employ cream of tartar and soda or salaratus, as many do; but we would heartily recommend all our readers to avoid using any one of the powders named as they value the integrity of their digestive organs. It should be mentioned, also, in this connection, that the cream of tartar sold in bulk in the stores is rarely pure, often being so basely adulterated as to contain very little of the pretended ingredient.—Good Health.