Page:Foods and their adulteration; origin, manufacture, and composition of food products; description of common adulterations, food standards, and national food laws and regulations (IA foodstheiradulte02wile).pdf/119

 a condition which renders it impracticable to use either solid or other liquid foods.

Beef tea is also made on a large commercial scale and with some degree of approximation to the home prepared article. For various reasons, however, which have already been advanced, a well made domestic beef tea which can be used as soon as prepared is to be preferred in all cases to the manufactured article. A beef tea properly made contains approximately the following composition:

Water,                                88.00 percent Meat bases,                            3.50    " Protein—soluble and flocculated,       8.00    " Ash and salt,                          1.50    "

Dried and Powdered Meats.—The preparation of dried meat has already been described. There has lately been placed upon the market a number of preparations dried and finely ground, under various names, fanciful and those of the manufacturer. Inasmuch as ordinary meats are largely composed of water, it is evident that if the water can be removed without impairing the quality of the meat, great expense in transportation would be saved and the use of preservatives would be unnecessary. Various attempts, therefore, have been made to place dried meats upon the market. The meat powders are not only offered in their natural state of desiccation but also are prepared with a more or less previous digestion. One of the most common of these meat powders is known as somatose, which has been made in large quantities, and sold throughout all parts of the world. It consists largely of albumoses rather than of peptones, but this is true of a great many of the so-called peptone preparations. The composition of somatose is represented in the following table (Allen's Commercial Organic Analyses, Vol. IV, page 384):

Water,                                  14.25 percent Albumin rendered soluble by alkali,     21.83    " Albumin,                                  3.40    " Albumoses,                              33.96    " Peptone,                                  3.06    " Meat bases,                              2.62    " Ash and salt,                             5.30    "

The above data show that the meat still contains nearly 15 percent of moisture and that an alkali has been used to render the protein more soluble. This alkali has increased the quantity of mineral matter over that which would naturally be present. Whatever may be the relative value of the prepared protein matter as compared with that in the original meat, it is seen that a large quantity of it, practically as much as was in the original meat, has been preserved in the finished product. Whether or not it is advisable to use a preparation of this kind is a question to be left with the physician. It may be said unhesitatingly that in all cases of health somatose could not possibly present any