Food inspection and analysis : for the use of public analysts, health officers, sanitary chemists, and food economists / by Albert E. Leach ; revised and enlarged by Andrew L. Winton.

  • Albert Ernest Leach
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Food inspection and analysis : for the use of public analysts, health officers, sanitary chemists, and food economists / by Albert E. Leach ; revised and enlarged by Andrew L. Winton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nances. The calorimeter is so constructed that an individual may be confined therein for a term of days under close observation and with carefully regulated conditions. Such an equipment involves a large expenditure and is to be found in but few laboratories. It is not the purpose of the present work to go beyond the strictly chemical or physical processes involved in making the analyses by which the proximate components of the foods are determined. For more com¬ plete information in the field of dietary studies and the metabolism of matter and energy in the body, the student is referred especially to the investigations of Atwater and his co-workers, as published in the annual reports of the Storrs Experiment Station at Middletown and in the bulle¬ tins of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations, also to studies conducted by Benedict of the Carnegie Institution. Commercial Food Analysis.—The proper preparation of food products has long ceased to be carried on by the hap-hazard rule-of-thumb methods that formerly prevailed. Now in the manufacture of many prepared foods and condiments, especially on a large scale, it has become a necessity to use scientific processes, rendered possible only by the employment of skilled chemists. In fact it is coming to be more and more common for food manufacturers to establish chemical laboratories in connection with their works, in the interests both of economy and of improved production. Frequently disputed points arise in the enforcement of the food laws that render the services of the private food analyst of great importance both to manufacturer and dealer. Thus a wide field is open to the analyst of foods outside the domain of the government or state laboratory, either in connection with the large food manufacturing plants directly, or in private laboratories for experimental research, or for analytical control work. SYSTEMATIC FOOD INSPECTION. Functions of the Official Analyst.—The public analyst is employed by city, state, or government to pass judgment on various articles of food taken from the open market by purchase or seizure, either by himself or by duly authorized collectors employed for the purpose. The sole object of his examination is to ascertain whether or not such articles of food con¬ form to certain standards of purity fixed in some cases by special law, and in others by common usage or acceptance. Such a public analyst need not concern himself with the dietetic value of the food or whether it is of high or low grade. It is for him to determine simply whether it is genuine or
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