By ALFRED W. MCCANN. F. M. Barton. 270 pp. Price $1.50; by mail of
THE SURVEY $1.61.
This is an adulterating age. The organized exploitation of the primary
wants of civilized mankind, the demand for products prepared for
immediate consumption, the stimulation of new desires by unprecedented
advertising campaigns, the conspicuous consumption of the rich and the
unreasoning imitation of the richer by the poorer, the ever lengthening
cycle of production from raw material to finished product, the fierce
competition among manufacturers and dispensers of goods, the rising cost
of living, and more than all, the amazing carelessness of the purchasing
public, especially with regard to articles of food and clothing, have
caused the adulterators to multiply and flourish and have developed
adulteration to a fine art.
The exposure of various forms of food impurities and adulterants,
harmless or criminal, is neither new nor unpublished. Few men in our
country are better known than Harvey Wiley, and Wiley in the popular
mind stands as the champion of pure food and the implacable foe of
fraudulent food distributors. No person who reads or listens but knows
something of Wiley and something of impure food supplies.
Mr. McCann, whose book under the sensational title of Starving America
has recently appeared, is no less valiant than Wiley in his promulgation
of pure-food propaganda. Almost unknown, unsupported by the scientific
training and the official standing which Wiley possesses, this dark
champion girds on his armor and heroically enters the lists, shouting,
“I’ll tell the truth if I die for it.” Of course there’s no danger of
his dying for it. Speaking logically, the conclusion seems to be that
the rest of us will die of starvation if we refuse to heed his speaking.
In general the book supports two theses:
First, that the mineral constituents of foods are much more important in
body building than food chemists and dietitians are aware; in fact, that
we are either literally starving ourselves and our children by
eliminating the ash from our bread, meat, potatoes, rice and other
foods, or we are rendering our bodies susceptible to disease—such as
tuberculosis—through failure to supply certain mineral defenses to the
tissues. The essential ashes, always present in food stuffs—vegetable or
animal—in their original raw state, are removed in the manufacture or in
the cooking. Wholesome nutritious whole wheat bread and unpolished rice
are set over against the insidious, emasculated, mineral-denuded white
bread and polished rice—real whited sepulchers, beautiful but deadly.
In the development of this thesis Mr. McCann presents some facts already
published and fully accepted, and an array of startling statements. Most
of his reasoning is, of course, deductive, because scientists have
little authentic data to offer on the effect of the various mineral
elements or the lack of them, much less on the most desirable methods of
introducing them into the human system. Though neither a university man,
nor a graduate chemist, it appears that the author has had exceptional
opportunities to study biochemistry as an amateur; and formerly, as
advertising agent of a large food industry he spent much time in the
food laboratory of the concern. Notwithstanding these qualifications,
which he fully sets forth in his preface, some of his conclusions, for
example the vital importance of ash in the system and the dire results
of our ordinary dietary, though analogically sound, fail to convince the
student and perhaps the layman.
On his second proposition, that an astonishing variety and an appalling
quantity of our foods are poisonously adulterated both legally and
criminally, the author stands on sure ground. Candies, ice-cream,
extracts, patent medicines, preservatives, coloring materials are
handled without reserve. The argument is supported almost wholly by old
material, rather familiar to the magazine reading public; but the
cumulative evidence, followed by a dissertation on the appalling and
preventable infant death rate gives strength and conviction to the
presentation.
The author is not merely destructive. He urges a campaign of education
through the public press and pleads for courses and demonstrations of
pure food stuffs and their effects in our schools and colleges. He has
formulated a practical dietary, a daily menu for a week, of simple,
wholesome food, based on the principles he has worked out, for children
three years of age and over. His own children have thrived wonderfully
on it. He describes in one of the most satisfactory chapters in the book
an ideal restaurant that appeals both to one’s common sense and to his
appetite.
On the whole the book is timely and deserves a wide reading. In the
endeavor to catch the public ear by the presentation of a lurid array of
facts under a sensational title I fear the author has overshot the mark.
Thoughtful readers are likely to discount much that apparently has a
reasonable basis of scientific study merely because of the overstraining
after startling statement. The author’s style is not altogether
pleasing, nor does it always carry conviction nor inspire confidence in
the author. It is not a great book nor an epoch-making one, but it bears
the stamp of sincerity, provided one reads to the end, and calls
attention to a number of awful truths that should give us pause. The
keynote of progress is “light and enlightenment,” rather than
repression.