Hidden Killers Of The Victorian Home Page #2

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You want white bread.

So alum is the whitener

that's put in.

Which is which, in terms of

these two? Which is the one...

What's got what?

This one is the alum-based one,

and this one is the one with

plaster of Paris and bean flour.

From a baker's point of view, this

one's brilliant because a third

of the dry solids in this

are not pure flour,

so you're making a reasonable saving

on even the sort of low grade flour

that you're using.

But this housewife's choice had

dire consequences for the consumer.

If you were a worker eating

two pounds of bread a day

and not much else, when you consider

that a third of what you're eating

just won't benefit you at all, you

can see why chronic malnutrition

is such an issue, and when

your adulterants are things like

plaster of Paris and alum, you can

also see why chronic gastritis

is a problem

in late Victorian England.

If you're in a workhouse

and you're a three-year-old,

you're going to start off

with constipation.

You're then going to have

irregular bowel movements,

and that will lead to diarrhoea.

And if you are a three-year-old

in a workhouse,

and you have got chronic diarrhoea,

then that will lead to death.

Another reason for adulteration was

a desire to make food

more attractive and appealing.

Colour was a key component.

And so there were

things like colourants.

You might have something

like lead chromate,

which is a very vivid yellow colour.

In fact, it's the yellow

that's used in the paint

of American school buses.

It's that really bright yellow.

And that was put in things like

mustard

to give it an authentic

mustard colour

without having to actually include

too much of the real ingredient,

which is expensive.

Tea is adulterated with everything

from iron filings, to dust,

to used tea leaves, then black lead

to make it look black.

Green tea has Prussian blue in it.

I mean, they're pretty lethal.

Sir Arthur Hill Hassall,

a London-based physician,

identified adulteration

in 2,500 products

and published his results

in the Lancet.

This led to the first wave

of legislation in 1868.

The food adulteration laws

were not very strong

when they were initially put in,

and they were not particularly

effective either.

People simply continued

because it was very difficult

to police,

it was very difficult to prove.

And even after it is known about,

even after Ackham and Hassall

start to publicise food adulteration,

people just simply don't know what

adulterated food looks like

versus non-adulterated food.

So you might know that your bread is

probably adulterated,

but either you don't have a choice

or you just assume blithely

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