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/368

 growing. It is useless to attempt to send a bruised or decaying apple on a long journey, since it will arrive in a condition unfit for consumption and, further than this, the organisms which are active in decay are conveyed to the sound fruit, and thus a whole package may be infected from a single apple in bad condition.

Storage of Apples.—The apple is a crop which is capable of being stored through many months, especially in winter time, without any material deterioration. The subject of the storage of apples has been carefully studied in the Bureau of Chemistry and the Bureau of Plant Industry, and the following are some of the conclusions which have been reached:

Tannin Principle.—Apples, as is the case with other fruits, have a notable content of tannin in some form. This constituent of apples is also active in giving flavor and palatability to the product. It is not present in quantities which render the apple unusually bitter or styptic in its character. Inasmuch as tannin is practically a universal constituent of all vegetable substances it must not be neglected as a normal constituent of fruit, while some of the fruits, especially the grape, owe some of their chief characteristics as to flavor and palatability to their tannin content.

Preparation of Apples for Drying.—The apples usually are brought to the large factories in wagons or by railway and are pared and sliced by machinery. Where proper control is exercised all the imperfect, rotten, and infected apples are rejected, and are used either for cattle feeding or sometimes, unfortunately, in cider making. The sound apples, after they are pared and sliced, are placed in trays and passed to a sulfuring apparatus where they are exposed to the fumes of burning sulfur to prevent their becoming dark upon evaporation. In other words it is essentially a bleaching process. The fumes of sulfur are also strongly antiseptic in character, and thus the finished product is less likely to decay or become infected with mould than a similar product not exposed to the fumes of sulfur. This process is extensively practiced, but its extent does not render it immune from proper criticism. Of 24 samples of evaporated fruits purchased on the open market 13 samples had been treated with sulfur fumes. This shows that over 50 percent of evaporated fruits are sulfured during the process of preparation and evaporation. The greater number of physiological and hygienic experts agree that the fumes of burning sulfur, commonly known as sulfurous acid, are injurious to health. It has been shown by researches in the Bureau of Chemistry that sulfurous acid or sulfites have a specific influence upon the red corpuscles of the blood, tending to diminish them very largely in relative numbers. This acid has also many other influences upon metabolism of an objectionable character. The question is one worthy of very careful consideration—whether for the sake of preserving a light color and securing immunity from mould or decay it is advisable to introduce into a food prod-