Gail Jarrow - The Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in our Food and Drugs

There is Death in the pot.

Chemist Fredrick Accum, quoting 2 Kings 4:40

Youre so hungry you dont have to be called twice for dinner.

Its 1890, and you live in a large town or city, just like a third of Americans. Your grandparents had a farm and grew their own food. Now, your mother and all her friends buy food at a grocery store.

You pick up your fork and dig in. The meat on your plate was supposed to be chicken, but it sure doesnt look or smell like that. Actually, its cheap, fatty pork someone a thousand miles away stuffed in a can and shipped to your neighborhood store.

The sausage sizzling in the pan also came from a filthy factory a thousand miles away. It was made from a pulverized mass of meat scraps swept off the flooralong with the rat fecesand mixed with borax to keep it from rotting.

[Borax is the same stuff in scouring powder and laundry detergent.]

The peas are bright green and look delicious. The company that canned them added copper sulfate to enhance the color.

[Today this chemical is used to prevent wood rot and pond scum.]

The milk in the bottle was watered down. Then a dash of formaldehyde was stirred in to keep it fresh longer.

[Formaldehyde is used to embalm dead bodiesand not recommended for drinking.]

Your father opens the jar of honey. You notice a dead bee inside. The company placed it there as proof that the pure honey was collected from a honeycomb. In fact, the contents are neither pure nor honey. Dad is spreading his bread with glucose, a thick syrupy substance chemically produced from cornstarch. The bee is real.

The jam is tasty enough, although your mother assumed she was paying for something made from strawberries and sugar. Instead the jar is full of glucose, leftover apple pieces, a dangerous red dye, and salicylic acid to keep it from spoiling.

[Today, salicylic acid is an ingredient in wart remover, acne cleanser, and dandruff shampoo.]

Your little brother starts crying. Hes cutting a new tooth. Mom gives him a spoonful of Mrs. Winslows Soothing Syrup, guaranteed to calm a fussy baby. She has used it before, and it works. Thats because the medicine contains morphine, a strong narcotic, which knocks out your brother for several hours.

Mrs. Winslows Soothing Syrup was advertised as the best cure for diarrhea, colic, and all pain. This 1885 advertisement gave no hint that it contained the narcotic morphine.

For dessert, your mother places a yummy-looking cake on the table. To prepare it, she added baking eggs. Not only were they cheaper than the eggs she fries up for breakfast, but they were also older. Much older. She would have noticed the telltale odor of rotting eggs except that theyd been deodorized with formaldehyde.

Winking, Dad slips you a piece of candy under the table. Unknown to him, the candy company tinted it with arsenic- and lead-based colors.

[Arsenic and lead are not ideal treats for growing children. Arsenic causes digestive ailments. Lead affects the brain and nervous system.]

The tea steeping in your mothers cup isnt the expensive imported kind she expected. Leaves from various common trees and shrubs are mixed in. So are bits of wood, brick, and lead to increase the weight, costing her more for her fake tea.

A popular toothache product for children was made with an addictive drug. The back of the 1885 advertising card pronounced: this preparation of Toothache Drops contains cocaine, and its wonderful properties are fully demonstrated by the many recommendations it is daily receiving.

Your father thinks hes sipping coffee made from a special blend of coffee beans. The blend is really a combination of roasted and ground-up peas and acorns, with a pinch of charcoal.

Mom has no idea that shes serving the family these cheap substitutions and hazardous chemicals. The packages and bottles dont list the ingredients. She can only trust her nose and eyes to tell if the milk is sour, the eggs decayed, or the meat rotten. Food manufacturers have found ways to fool her.