Startling as are the facts in the foregoing chapter, they do not
tell the whole story. We have seen that the non-condimental chemical
preservatives used by the food poisoners are highly objectionable on
two grounds: (1) because they are usually injurious and often deadly;
and (2) because they enable unscrupulous persons to use the filthiest,
rottenest material and so doctor it as to deceive the consumer into
believing it to be wholesome food, whereas it may, and often does,
result in ptomaine poisoning.
But there is a third indictment against the food sophisticators. The
chemicals they use, not only make the food they manipulate dangerous
to eat, but they also _diminish and often completely destroy its
Flavor_.
This destruction of the food Flavors may seem to those who have given
no special attention to this matter a thing to be regretted, indeed,
but not an actual crime. That it is a real crime, because it helps to
undermine the consumers' health, I shall demonstrate in this chapter.
It is necessary to know the facts now to be set forth in order to
realize the full significance of the deplorable state of affairs to
be revealed in the next chapter, entitled Our Denatured Foods. That
chapter will continue the subject of Ungastronomic America, wherefore
Chapter II may be regarded as an Intermezzo--but a most important one,
for it contains truths that are of vital importance to everybody.
Indeed, it is chiefly for the sake of impressing these truths on as
many intelligent persons as possible that I am writing this book.