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/249

 larger quantities than are necessary also tends to derange the digestive organs. A well ripened cheese, therefore, should be eaten rather as a condimental substance than as an actual food product, though its value as a food is fully attested. ("Farmers' Bulletin," No. 162.)

Effect of Cold Storage on the Curing of Cheese.—Attention has been called, in the description of different methods of making varieties of cheeses, to the ordinary temperature at which cheeses are cured. In European countries these temperatures are maintained without the use of artificial means. In the United States it is difficult to maintain a very low temperature in summer time without the use of artificial refrigerators. Experimental studies have determined that when the temperature of ripening or storage is reduced to a considerable extent below that usually specified for the standard varieties of cheese the quality of the cheese is superior although the time for storage or ripening is very much prolonged. The artificial curing of cheese has been secured at as low a temperature as 40 degrees. There is also a less loss of weight in cheese cured at this low temperature. A cheese which was cured at 40 degrees when examined by experts scored a mark of 92.4 while the same cheese ripened at 60 degrees scored 95. Another test of a cheese cured at 40 degrees scored 95.7 while the same cheese cured at 50 degrees was marked 94.2 and the cheese cured at 60 degrees 91.7.

Preparations of Casein.—Properly in connection with cheese preparations may be mentioned those products which are of a food value, procured from casein itself. The precipitated casein is prepared for the market by washing, drying, and grinding to a fine powder, and is then sometimes called protein flour. Sanose is a mixture consisting of about 80 percent of casein and 20 percent of the protein derived from the white of egg. The addition of the white of egg enables the casein to remain in suspension when mixed with water and thus causes the preparation to resemble milk. Casein preparations of this form are practically insoluble in water and, therefore, are not perhaps of the best forms of nitrogenous food for invalids. To avoid this insolubility the casein has been combined with alkalies and the preparations are known as nutrose and eucasein. Plasma is also a preparation of casein with alkalies which are added in sufficient quantities to give 7 percent of ash. These caseinates, as they are sometimes called, that is, combinations of casein with alkalies, are soluble in water and are found to be to a certain extent digestible and nutritive preparations. Casumen and sanatogen are other preparations of casein with alkalies or glycero-phosphate. Wonderful claims are made by manufacturers concerning the digestibility and nutritive properties of these preparations. It is doubtful, however, if they have much greater value, if any, than natural casein in the form of milk or as ripened in cheese. Preparations of this kind usually appeal strongly to those who suffer from digestive disorders and therefore high-sounding names, which are given to practically the same preparations, lead the