Food Frauds Simple Methods of Detecting Adulterations in What we Consume

Excerpt from Food Frauds: Simple Methods of Detecting Adulterations in What We Consume
Our object in publishing this work is two-fold. First, to benefit mankind, and, second, to make money. Allowing five persons to each family, there are 10,000, 000 families in the United States, according to the last census: and if the head of each buys a copy of this work, our object will most assuredly have been fully accomplished.
It would be difficult to compute in how many of these domestic circles there are sufferings arising from the consumption of adulterated food, but if the number were known, the figures would be startling. Dyspepsia and other disorders of the stomach may be found in almost every family, and people are being gradually poisoned by adulterations of a very dangerous character. The worst feature of the case is that people have only a very slight idea of the extent to which their health is being impaired by food frauds. Bodily disorders are almost invariably attributed to other than the right causes. If the truth were known, the derangements are due and traceable to the poisonous stuffs that are mixed with the food we eat and the liquids we consume.
Pure articles are produced, but they are like two grains of wheat in a bushel of chaff - few and limited in comparison with the multitudinous trash thrown upon the market.
This work is issued with a view of calling attention to these adulterations and placing within the knowledge of everybody simple, unscientific methods of determining whether the articles used in every household are pure as represented by a seller. It is designed to arouse the attention of the public to the enormity of the practice of adulterations, and enabling the learned, as well as the unlearned, to ascertain at any time when they are not only being swindled, but swallowing articles that are subtle and sure in their poisonous character. The question is not only merely of health, but also of commercial integrity.
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