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/350

 Saccharin is also sometimes used as an adulterant to imitate the properties of pure sugar.

It has already been intimated that green or unfit tomatoes or the residue of better grades are sometimes prepared and sold as the real article. This is a form of adulteration which is most reprehensible. Unfortunately, except in so far as the artificial color is concerned, this adulteration is not readily revealed by either chemical or microscopic examination, although the latter is exceedingly valuable in detecting certain forms of this kind of material. Only by a rigid inspection of the factories can this form of adulteration be excluded with certainty. The use of such immature fruits or scraps without notice to the consumer is, without doubt, an adulteration of an exceedingly bad type. If there be a desire to make a very cheap grade of the product out of these materials the nature of them should be plainly stated upon the label and then, perhaps, there would be a valid excuse for their appearance on the market.

Other Canned Vegetables.—There is no necessity to enter into the detail of the preparation of other canned vegetables further than to say that practically all vegetables which are offered on the market, except those which are necessarily eaten in a raw state, are preserved or can be preserved by the sterilizing process.

Tomato Ketchup.—A sauce which is used in large quantities in the United States and in other countries is known as tomato ketchup and is manufactured in many parts of the country. Tomato ketchup is the pulp of sound, ripe tomatoes mixed with various condimental substances and flavoring matters to make it palatable and desirable as a sauce. The character of flavor and condimental substances employed is left to the judgment of the manufacturer and the taste of the consumer, provided the materials are wholesome and sanitary. It has been claimed by some manufacturers that it is impracticable to place this desirable product upon the market without the use of chemical antiseptics. They admit, as in the case of the manufacture of fruit sirups, that tomato ketchup can be sterilized and kept properly until the bottle is opened for consumption; but, inasmuch as it is used in small quantities and a bottle of it lasts for many days, it cannot be kept in a proper state except by the use of such preservatives. The principal antiseptics which are used in connection with tomato ketchup are salicylic and benzoic acids.

Experience has shown that these claims are not of sufficient value to warrant the exception of tomato ketchup from the ordinary regulations respecting pure food. The habit of leaving a tomato ketchup bottle upon the table where the material adheres to the rim and becomes hardened to a gummy paste, serving as a pabulum for flies, does not appeal with any great force to the æsthetic sense relative to dining rooms. A ketchup bottle carefully