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lapsedmodernistThis is my translation of a article by Russian doctors that circulated on the Russian internet in response to Russia basically cancelling their version of the FDA (at least for the food part--all quality control is now supposed to be managed by the manufacturers themselves):
Thinking about what awaits us after the repeal of the current quality control of consumer goods, doctors remembered what the food market sector looked like in pre-revolutionary Russia. Below is the text published by a doctor from Yalta on a medical website.
In tsarist Russia counterfeit food was present everywhere and all the time. Sheep brains were added to milk to increase the fat content; chalk was mixed into cream to make it look thicker. Flour was made from a mix of grains and seeds of poisonous weeds. Or mixed with potato starch, which was much cheaper than quality flour. Lime was added to beer gone sour in order to imitate a decent look and taste.
In the end of 19th/beginning of 20th century natural wine became a rarity. An analysis done in Crimea, Bessarabia, the Caucases and Don showed that many wines were prepared from water, sugar, and alcohol, and do not contain a single drop of grape juice. From 1887 until 1890 Moscow imported 460,000 poods of wine per year, but, at the same time, after satisfying the consumer demand of 1.5 million people, managed to also export up to 800,000 poods!
Fake candies abounded. Doctor Anna Fisher-Jelman wrote: "the coloring of these products is almost always articifial, with the colors often being poisonous. For example, green coloring made from copper patina [I can't tranlate this part about the chemistry but the point is, it contained arsenic]; the reds from cinnabar and minium (both mercury ores); the whites from mercury and zink paints; the blues from mineral and royal azure; the yellows from litharge, orpiment, gummigutta, picric acid, etcetera.
Milk was diluted with water, and then other additives were introduced to cover this up. Sometimes starch was used to thicken the milk; other times fish glue or plant oils. Some used soap. Often sellers used various ways to keep milk from going bad, like potash or lime. Chalk was used to "thicken" sour cream.
There were many problems with canned goods as well; one famous lawsuit was launched after people in different cities were poisoned by canned green peas. Experts established that in order to achieve the natural green color for the peas, they were dyed with poisonous copper sulphate. Another court case involved a vinegar salesman. In order to make the vinegar stronger, he mixed in hydrochloric or sulphuric acid. This was a common practice.
Customers liked when sugar cubes had a noble, slightly blue hue (rather than the natural white or yellow)--the sugar merchants started soaking sugar in a weak solution of aniline dye.
Coffee was especially unlucky: entire gangs of drifters, in terrible antisanitary conditions, hand-rolled "coffee beans" from wheat, barley, bean, or corn dough. In 1800s in Petersburg there were several court cases related to this. Several charlatans were sentenced to forced labor amps for manufacturing coffee beans from dyed clay, plaster, and putty. Naturally, dealers displayed real coffee to the salespeople, and then delivered the fake coffee beans instead. Coffee beans do not have a strong smell, but the charlatans also soaked bags of beans in brewed coffee.
Although the manufacturing of fake coffee beans was a technically complicated endeavor, in the beginning of the 20th century German mechanics had a solution. Their machines baked beans that on sight were virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. The really funny thing happened after a newspaper published a declamation of their practices--the author of the article received many letters from merchants, asking if he could please let them know the address of the manufactureses of these wonderful machines.
With ground coffee the technology was different. It was mixed with chicory, barley, and other cereals (this still happens today). Sometimes the charlatans went to special places they knew of, to gather roadside dust that ideally matched the coffee grounds in color and size. Carefully sieved and mixed with the real product, the dust was indistinguishable in texture. Experts showed that ground coffee contained 30 to 70% of additives.
So, we have traditions when it comes to that.
Probably in our time, with new technologies, there will be no less falsification.
What are we going to eat if no one is going to control food production?
Thinking about what awaits us after the repeal of the current quality control of consumer goods, doctors remembered what the food market sector looked like in pre-revolutionary Russia. Below is the text published by a doctor from Yalta on a medical website.
In tsarist Russia counterfeit food was present everywhere and all the time. Sheep brains were added to milk to increase the fat content; chalk was mixed into cream to make it look thicker. Flour was made from a mix of grains and seeds of poisonous weeds. Or mixed with potato starch, which was much cheaper than quality flour. Lime was added to beer gone sour in order to imitate a decent look and taste.
In the end of 19th/beginning of 20th century natural wine became a rarity. An analysis done in Crimea, Bessarabia, the Caucases and Don showed that many wines were prepared from water, sugar, and alcohol, and do not contain a single drop of grape juice. From 1887 until 1890 Moscow imported 460,000 poods of wine per year, but, at the same time, after satisfying the consumer demand of 1.5 million people, managed to also export up to 800,000 poods!
Fake candies abounded. Doctor Anna Fisher-Jelman wrote: "the coloring of these products is almost always articifial, with the colors often being poisonous. For example, green coloring made from copper patina [I can't tranlate this part about the chemistry but the point is, it contained arsenic]; the reds from cinnabar and minium (both mercury ores); the whites from mercury and zink paints; the blues from mineral and royal azure; the yellows from litharge, orpiment, gummigutta, picric acid, etcetera.
Milk was diluted with water, and then other additives were introduced to cover this up. Sometimes starch was used to thicken the milk; other times fish glue or plant oils. Some used soap. Often sellers used various ways to keep milk from going bad, like potash or lime. Chalk was used to "thicken" sour cream.
There were many problems with canned goods as well; one famous lawsuit was launched after people in different cities were poisoned by canned green peas. Experts established that in order to achieve the natural green color for the peas, they were dyed with poisonous copper sulphate. Another court case involved a vinegar salesman. In order to make the vinegar stronger, he mixed in hydrochloric or sulphuric acid. This was a common practice.
Customers liked when sugar cubes had a noble, slightly blue hue (rather than the natural white or yellow)--the sugar merchants started soaking sugar in a weak solution of aniline dye.
Coffee was especially unlucky: entire gangs of drifters, in terrible antisanitary conditions, hand-rolled "coffee beans" from wheat, barley, bean, or corn dough. In 1800s in Petersburg there were several court cases related to this. Several charlatans were sentenced to forced labor amps for manufacturing coffee beans from dyed clay, plaster, and putty. Naturally, dealers displayed real coffee to the salespeople, and then delivered the fake coffee beans instead. Coffee beans do not have a strong smell, but the charlatans also soaked bags of beans in brewed coffee.
Although the manufacturing of fake coffee beans was a technically complicated endeavor, in the beginning of the 20th century German mechanics had a solution. Their machines baked beans that on sight were virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. The really funny thing happened after a newspaper published a declamation of their practices--the author of the article received many letters from merchants, asking if he could please let them know the address of the manufactureses of these wonderful machines.
With ground coffee the technology was different. It was mixed with chicory, barley, and other cereals (this still happens today). Sometimes the charlatans went to special places they knew of, to gather roadside dust that ideally matched the coffee grounds in color and size. Carefully sieved and mixed with the real product, the dust was indistinguishable in texture. Experts showed that ground coffee contained 30 to 70% of additives.
So, we have traditions when it comes to that.
Probably in our time, with new technologies, there will be no less falsification.
What are we going to eat if no one is going to control food production?
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 10:52 pm (UTC)*erk*
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Date: 2010-05-18 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 11:51 pm (UTC)To be fair, this is precisely what food looked like in the US prior to the FDA. It's what alcohol looked like during the prohibition. And it's what street drugs look like right now.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 04:47 pm (UTC)