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/522

 which are used for coloring and flavoring mixed intimately with it. In large factories this is done by mechanical mixers while in a small way it may be done by hand. Instead of glucose, one sirup itself may be used as the base and mixed with another for flavor, as, for instance, in the case of mixed maple sirup. Very commonly the brown sugar is melted with water and this is used as a base for the formation of sirups. Whichever may be the case the principle of the process remains the same, namely, using as the base a cheaper and less palatable material and flavoring and coloring with the more expensive and more palatable material. From a dietetic and commercial point of view there can be no valid objection raised to this method of mixing sirups. The product is, as a rule, attractive, palatable, and wholesome.

Attention has already been called to the fact that the final molasses in the sugar refinery, after all the sugar has been extracted that can possibly be gotten out by the most approved modern process, is used very extensively for mixing purposes. This molasses has a very high content of soluble salts, reaching often 8 percent or more, which gives a distinct flavor and character. It also has acquired a certain flavor from repeated filtering over bone-black and in general has a strong and pronounced flavor which gives it a peculiar value as a flavoring agent. It is also a clear product, free from suspended matter by reason of its repeated filtration. It can thus be mixed with glucose and forms a bright mixture, devoid of suspended matter and turbidity, and is attractive to the eye. Ten percent of molasses of this kind added to a glucose will make a mixture which is attractive and salable, and, it may also be added, palatable. The other products which are used for mixing with the glucose in the manufacture of table sirup consist of the molasses obtained from cane sugar factories or the sirups made directly from the sugar cane and sorghum. All these bodies have valuable mixing properties and small quantities of them give sufficient color and flavor to the mixed product.

Adulteration of Mixed Sirups.—The adulteration of mixed sirups consists chiefly of adulterations that are in the materials from which they are made. Glucose itself often contains sulfurous acid used for bleaching in the process of manufacture. It also contains considerable quantities of sulfate or chlorid of lime incident to its manufacture and coming from the sulfuric or hydrochloric acid used in the hydrolysis of the starch from which it is made. The molasses which is used for coloring and flavoring may also contain injurious substances. For instance, sulfurous acid is very extensively used in the manufacture of cane sugar and this acid becomes concentrated in the molasses. Lime is used very extensively in the clarification of the juices and this lime is not wholly separated but some of it is concentrated in the molasses. A moderate amount of lime, however, is not objectionable. Salts of tin are frequently employed in washing the sugar in a centrifugal and these salts are found concentrated in the molasses. The excess of bluing